The Guardian's Blog, page 118
July 14, 2014
How to get ahead or at least stay afloat in the rare book trade
I've been a dealer for over 30 years, and I still don't understand, quite, how the rare book trade works, or how so many of us make a living from it. A customer of mine, a super-accountant of apparently unlimited means, once observed to me that "whatever book dealing is, it isn't a business."
"What is it then?" I asked.
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Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?
Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them
Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.
R042 read Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry and was suffering an emotional book hangover afterwards:
This weekend I made the most of the good weather to finish reading Under the Volcano, and it left me emotionally exhausted which is a sign that I think it achieved its aims. The way it described the thought-processes of alcoholism were frustrating and agonising the way redemption for Firmin was constantly hung before him and yet he continually missed the opportunity and in the process made you wonder if there ever was the chance in the first place was a very good tragedy.
I planned to start reading another book as soon as I'd finished it, but decided on reflection to sleep on that ending instead.
I am 20% into D.F. Wallace's Infinite Jest. There's a good chance I'll die before I finish this book. Already booked myself a tennis lesson, because I felt obliged to do so.
Also it's Alice Munro every day one story is enough for exactly one lunch break.
I am in the process of moving house so all of my physical books are packed away which meant I have had to pick up my Kindle. I have thousands of books on there given to me digitally by a friend so I thought I would read one at random. I got something by James Patterson in the Women's Murder Club series but the title escapes me. I did manage to get 2% of the way through the book before searching for and deleting everything by the author that was on my device.
It started off with a woman cop with her service pistol pressed to the side of her head contemplating suicide, all the while explaining how good she was at her job and how she was getting ahead as a female in a male work environment etc etc, then went on to describe an insufferably boring couple who had just been married being killed in their hotel room by someone with a knife. It was all just dreadful and couldn't see myself siding with anyone but the killer.
In these days of austerity, what better consolation than to have a selection of books by Paul Auster to hand.
Sent via GuardianWitness
By Dylanwolf
9 July 2014, 10:36
The description of this much discussed and loved book as a novel of academic life put me off for a while much as Williams reportedly feared that label would dissuade readers. Anyway, after reading his Butcher's Crossing twice, I tackled Stoner and it is the book that has moved me most in the last several years. It is as much a novel of academic life as Moby Dick is a sea story. The way Stoner deals with loss in life of deep love, expectations, energy and all and the moments of fulfilment that may not last, because of age or enemies or a lack of the will to fight, should speak to everyone who is not thick skinned or supremely lucky. (...) It is a book that echoes and echoes. I will never forget it.
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The Not the Booker prize is back: make your nominations now!
The Not The Booker prize is back. This is, in fact, its sixth year. It's been going almost as long as the second world war. I'm sure you can think of your own joke about that. But please keep it tasteful.
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Poem of the week: Dreamhorse by Jon Stallworthy
This week's poem by Jon Stallworthy comes from his 2004 collection, Body Language, in which it's placed in the section called Language rather than the one called Body. Perhaps this is purposely to remind us that storytelling is what drive bodies through time, even the wooden bodies of rocking-horses. Dreamhorse follows a sequence, Skyhorse, about legendary horses, but is not part of it, although casting an oblique glance back. Here is history not as declared on the battlefield and over millennia, but history as it might be murmured by the old clock in the family kitchen.
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July 11, 2014
The literary World Cup: readers' best all-time teams
Could goalie Camus cope with an attack formed by Burroughs, Ballard and Bolaño? Guardian readers imagined football squads made from their favourite writers. As the World Cup comes to an end, we take a look at our best fictional elevens. But what team would you put your money on?
Back when the World Cup was in those exciting and unpredictable first rounds, we were playing away at Penguin's imaginary books World Cup, where an England with JK Rowling, George Orwell and Agatha Christie in attack and the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens in the midfield could possibly possibly have had a chance to win something.
The UK imprint imagined matches and footballing incidents on Twitter, and we joined in the fun, asking for your all-time favourite literary teams. Now that the actual competition is coming to an end, here are our top five writers' XIs.
James Joyce (centre-back): "The ultimate cultured centre-back famously left his native Ireland to learn his trade on the continent. It is a rare forward who can find a way past his impenetrable prose."
Cormac McCarthy (central midfield): "This tough tackling, no nonsense player patrols the border country between midfield and defence. If you thought the Comanche attack in Blood Meridian was brutal you should see what he does to a midfield runner who has the temerity to approach his territory."
F Scott Fitzgerald (central midfield): "Seen by some as a luxury player too keen to sit back and admire his own beautiful passes. Sometimes seems more concerned with his celebrity lifestyle with his glamorous wife than his career. But when he puts his mind to it, boy can he play. With the steely McCarthy beside him they form a formidable midfield."
William Burroughs (right midfield): "Old snake hips is one of the most feared wingers in the game. Has suffered with 'refuelling' issues in the past, but as long as he receives his 'vitamin supplement' before the game is a reliable asset. Famous for terrorising full-backs with his notorious cut-up technique that leaves them gasping for comprehension. Should score more goals, but suffers from a wayward shot."
Cicero (goalkeeper): "Reliable, can do everything, great reflexes, huge belief in his own abilities, can be a show-off, never to blame in his own mind."
Caesar (left-back): "Lean, efficient, fast, unfussy, able to influence referees with his propagandistic style."
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Harry Potter joins Wendy in adultland
What happened when your favourite children's books character grew up
Dorothy, Tintin, the Swallows and Amazons, the Famous Five, Bart and Lisa Simpson all are frozen in childhood, however many years the series featuring them cover (21, in the case of Enid Blyton's eternal tweenagers). But other children's authors anticipated JK Rowling who this week offered a glimpse of a 33-year-old Harry Potter at the Quidditch world cup by revisiting their characters after a break, usually as grownups.
Tom Brown at Oxford (1861)
Although Thomas Hughes had less success with this follow-up to Tom Brown's Schooldays, his hero also had an afterlife in George MacDonald Fraser's 70s historical romp Flashman's Lady, in which Tom is cricket-mad and the titular protagonist is his former rival at Rugby.
July 10, 2014
In bad taste: Awful dinner parties in fiction
In the new JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith mystery story, The Silkworm, the hero, private investigator Cormoran Strike, attends a toxic dinner party. It's his own fault: he brings a date without warning his hostess, who has invited another single woman. He decides he dislikes the children who keep interrupting. He talks too much about his current case (no client confidentiality?). Galbraith/Rowling seems to want us to sympathize with Strike, but it is obviously a bad night for everyone.
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July 9, 2014
Poll: Choose the literary character to feature on the 51st London book bench
Find London's literary benches and share your photos
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July 8, 2014
Cider With Rosie is a heady blend of joy and horror | Reading group
Memory, as the gloriously unreliable narrator of Cider With Rosie probably wouldn't admit, is a strange, distorting thing. If you'd asked me two weeks ago what this book was about, I'd have confidently told you that it's a happy, nostaligic, idealistic evocation of a lost time and place. That it is full of joy and humour. I'd have spoken about fun trips on charabancs, youthful energy, fecund nature and sexual awakening. I'd have laughed about funny local characters like Gran Trill and her lifelong, long-life rivalry with Granny Wallon. I'd perhaps have had an uncomfortable recollection of a midnight murder by a crossroads, and another of a suicide in a millpond. But beyond that, I'd have been sure that this was a book of spring ripening into summer, of blooming life and golden light.
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Let's mash up some SF classics with children's books!
There are small people in my family; I read Margaret Wise Brown's classic children's picture book Goodnight Moon a lot at the moment. I am a science fiction fan, and regardless of the increasingly bad sequels, Frank Herbert's Dune occupies a position near the top of my favourite SF reads, the image of that sand-covered planet and its giant worms never failing to transport me. My heartfelt thanks, then, to the Quill & Quire blog in Canada for alerting me this morning to a children's book mash-up which I can't believe I haven't seen before, it feels so made for me: Goodnight Dune.
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