Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale I have officially learnt my lesson. There will be no more attempts at reading massive bestsellers from days gone by simply because I feel like I should. I have read A Handmaid’s Tale at a rate of about five words per week. 90% of it is just “oh dear I’m so oppressed oh no do you remember the olden days oh dear sex is so very horrible”. Yawn. I’m all for mainstream sci-fi. And I’m all for dystopias. And I’m all for feminism. But I would quite like fewer words about, well, nothing, and more about actual stuff. But when I say that the best thing about this book was the ending, I don’t mean it quite as harshly as it sounds. The final few pages crammed in more happenings than the preceding 250+, and it ended with an ambiguity which I really liked. Was she killed for talking out of turn to the new grocery shopping partner, for sneaking off to fornicate with the old dude, or for sneaking off to fornicate with the young dude? (That’s basically all she did for months and months and months so it couldn’t be anything else…) Or was she actually saved by an underground resistance movement? The ‘historical notes’ that work as a kind of epilogue indicate it might’ve been the latter, because how would her account even exist if she hadn’t had a chance to record it in relative safety? But, whatever happened, what is certain is that it happened at the end of a really fucking boring book. I’m going back to Nicola Barker and Douglas Coupland. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s TalePublication date: 1990Published by: ViragoPrice then: Can’t tell because the cover’s been scratched out - was probably bought as a gift originallyPrice now: £2.50From the synopsis: “The Republic of Gilead allows Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness.”

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale

I have officially learnt my lesson. There will be no more attempts at reading massive bestsellers from days gone by simply because I feel like I should. I have read A Handmaid’s Tale at a rate of about five words per week. 90% of it is just “oh dear I’m so oppressed oh no do you remember the olden days oh dear sex is so very horrible”.

Yawn.

I’m all for mainstream sci-fi. And I’m all for dystopias. And I’m all for feminism. But I would quite like fewer words about, well, nothing, and more about actual stuff. But when I say that the best thing about this book was the ending, I don’t mean it quite as harshly as it sounds. The final few pages crammed in more happenings than the preceding 250+, and it ended with an ambiguity which I really liked. Was she killed for talking out of turn to the new grocery shopping partner, for sneaking off to fornicate with the old dude, or for sneaking off to fornicate with the young dude? (That’s basically all she did for months and months and months so it couldn’t be anything else…) Or was she actually saved by an underground resistance movement? The ‘historical notes’ that work as a kind of epilogue indicate it might’ve been the latter, because how would her account even exist if she hadn’t had a chance to record it in relative safety? But, whatever happened, what is certain is that it happened at the end of a really fucking boring book.

I’m going back to Nicola Barker and Douglas Coupland.

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
Publication date: 1990
Published by: Virago
Price then: Can’t tell because the cover’s been scratched out - was probably bought as a gift originally
Price now: £2.50
From the synopsis: “The Republic of Gilead allows Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness.”

--Tagged under: margaret atwood--

My Dad has sent me a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the post, bought from a book fair in Cheshire over the weekend. I am a very lucky daughter indeed.

My Dad has sent me a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in the post, bought from a book fair in Cheshire over the weekend. I am a very lucky daughter indeed.

--Tagged under: eric carle--

Exploding helicopters #12 Joe Boyd - White Bicycles This book had been on my radar for years, since I’m a devotee of Nick Drake and, even more so, John Martyn, who Joe Boyd produced in the early 70s. I can be a bit snobbish about autobiographies though. Much as I enjoy reading about interesting lives, I can’t help but think that writing fiction is more impressive than writing about some stuff that you did once. I also get irritated when it’s quite obvious that entire careers have been built on being in the right place at the right time. There’s a fair bit of silver spoon about Joe Boyd’s life. He went to Harvard and had enough money to fly across the world several times while still a student. But he’s more than just some rich hippy, because there’s definitely an entrepeneurial spirit there. He dug up a load of old blues dudes and took them out on tour, and opened the UFO club in London when there was nowhere else for the freaks to trip on a Saturday night. It’s the bits about Nick Drake that were really moving though. I prefer things a little louder now, but I listened to barely anything else when I was 16 and 17, so it’s so tragic to read about him slipping off everyone’s radar before his overdose. The drug laws of Britain and America are enforced almost exclusively against the underclasses. In the sixties, the authorities were genuinely rattled by ‘respectable’ kids using drugs: it seemed to represent the end of civilsation as they knew it. Now that stockbroker snort coke, millions of kids take ecstasy every weekend and society continues to function ‘normally’, they can concentrate on the ever dangerous poor, using drug laws as another form of intiimidation and retribution. History today seems more like a postmodern collage; we are surrounded by two-dimensional representations of our heritage. Access via amazon.com or iPod to all those boxed sets of old blues singers - or Nick Drake, for that matter - doesn’t equate with the sense of discovery and connection we experienced. The very existence of such a wealth of information creates an overload that can drown out vivid moments of revelation. Publication date: 2006Publisher: Serpent’s TailPrice then: £11.99Price now: £2.80Bought from: EbayFrom the synopsis: “Joe Boyd’s first proper job at 21 was bringing Muddy Waters to Britain in 1964. When Dylan went electric at Newport the following year, Boyd was stage manager. His first session as a record producer was Eric Clapton’s original ‘Crossroads’. A year later, he produced Pink Floyd’s first single and installed them in his UFO club, the heart of psychedelic London.”

Exploding helicopters #12

Joe Boyd - White Bicycles

This book had been on my radar for years, since I’m a devotee of Nick Drake and, even more so, John Martyn, who Joe Boyd produced in the early 70s. I can be a bit snobbish about autobiographies though. Much as I enjoy reading about interesting lives, I can’t help but think that writing fiction is more impressive than writing about some stuff that you did once. I also get irritated when it’s quite obvious that entire careers have been built on being in the right place at the right time.

There’s a fair bit of silver spoon about Joe Boyd’s life. He went to Harvard and had enough money to fly across the world several times while still a student. But he’s more than just some rich hippy, because there’s definitely an entrepeneurial spirit there. He dug up a load of old blues dudes and took them out on tour, and opened the UFO club in London when there was nowhere else for the freaks to trip on a Saturday night. It’s the bits about Nick Drake that were really moving though. I prefer things a little louder now, but I listened to barely anything else when I was 16 and 17, so it’s so tragic to read about him slipping off everyone’s radar before his overdose.

The drug laws of Britain and America are enforced almost exclusively against the underclasses. In the sixties, the authorities were genuinely rattled by ‘respectable’ kids using drugs: it seemed to represent the end of civilsation as they knew it. Now that stockbroker snort coke, millions of kids take ecstasy every weekend and society continues to function ‘normally’, they can concentrate on the ever dangerous poor, using drug laws as another form of intiimidation and retribution.

History today seems more like a postmodern collage; we are surrounded by two-dimensional representations of our heritage. Access via amazon.com or iPod to all those boxed sets of old blues singers - or Nick Drake, for that matter - doesn’t equate with the sense of discovery and connection we experienced. The very existence of such a wealth of information creates an overload that can drown out vivid moments of revelation.

Publication date: 2006
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Price then: £11.99
Price now: £2.80
Bought from: Ebay
From the synopsis: “Joe Boyd’s first proper job at 21 was bringing Muddy Waters to Britain in 1964. When Dylan went electric at Newport the following year, Boyd was stage manager. His first session as a record producer was Eric Clapton’s original ‘Crossroads’. A year later, he produced Pink Floyd’s first single and installed them in his UFO club, the heart of psychedelic London.”

--Tagged under: joe boyd--

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

Leicester’s Oxfam was on form this morning. It’s generally a cut above the normal Mills & Boon and Richard Hammond fest that appears in most other high street charity shops, and the website’s awesome too, but today it was like the Mr Benn shop, hurling visitors out into untold worlds of vintage porn and drum’n’bass. Thomas Pyles - Words & Ways Of American English (1952) I did a language change module in my English Language A-level and was appalled to discover that the American use of z in words like ‘realise’ and ‘criticise’ was actually the original way of spelling those words here in the UK. We’re always so self-righteous about how we coined the English language and therefore we are pure and pious or something. Helpfully, this book’s previous owner has pretty much highlighted every single word. Catherine Liu - The Abject, America (1993) This book is apparently published by a company that operates ocean liners, and features articles on everything from, well, pornography and bondage to Madonna and Donald Duck. So far, my favourite article is either ‘The Pandemoniac Junk Shop Of Solitude: Kitsch and Death’ by Celeste Olalquiaga or ‘Theses On The Metalmorph’ by Albert Lin. There is advice on how to please a woman sexually in the section marked Recipes. I’m confused, but in a good way… Just looked it up on Amazon because I couldn’t help myself; I need answers goddammit. It’s categorised as Art Theory. *lays book gently to one side and vows to uncover its secrets even if it takes a whole lifetime* John Robb - The Nineties: What the Fuck Was That All About? (1999) When I lived in Manchester I would often see John Robb cycling around town in his little bubble of punk. They wheeled him out for an In The City panel every year then plugged him back into his Crass albums. I tweeted about buying this book earlier today and my friend James instantly told me I shouldn’t read it because it will “make you stupid and you brains will slither out of your ear”. Sounds like fun to me.

Leicester’s Oxfam was on form this morning. It’s generally a cut above the normal Mills & Boon and Richard Hammond fest that appears in most other high street charity shops, and the website’s awesome too, but today it was like the Mr Benn shop, hurling visitors out into untold worlds of vintage porn and drum’n’bass.

Thomas Pyles - Words & Ways Of American English (1952)
I did a language change module in my English Language A-level and was appalled to discover that the American use of z in words like ‘realise’ and ‘criticise’ was actually the original way of spelling those words here in the UK. We’re always so self-righteous about how we coined the English language and therefore we are pure and pious or something. Helpfully, this book’s previous owner has pretty much highlighted every single word.

Catherine Liu - The Abject, America (1993)
This book is apparently published by a company that operates ocean liners, and features articles on everything from, well, pornography and bondage to Madonna and Donald Duck. So far, my favourite article is either ‘The Pandemoniac Junk Shop Of Solitude: Kitsch and Death’ by Celeste Olalquiaga or ‘Theses On The Metalmorph’ by Albert Lin. There is advice on how to please a woman sexually in the section marked Recipes. I’m confused, but in a good way…

Just looked it up on Amazon because I couldn’t help myself; I need answers goddammit. It’s categorised as Art Theory. *lays book gently to one side and vows to uncover its secrets even if it takes a whole lifetime*

John Robb - The Nineties: What the Fuck Was That All About? (1999)
When I lived in Manchester I would often see John Robb cycling around town in his little bubble of punk. They wheeled him out for an In The City panel every year then plugged him back into his Crass albums. I tweeted about buying this book earlier today and my friend James instantly told me I shouldn’t read it because it will “make you stupid and you brains will slither out of your ear”. Sounds like fun to me.

--Tagged under: john robb--

--Tagged under: catherine liu--

--Tagged under: thomas pyles--

Exploding helicopters #11 Norman Mailer - An American Dream I kinda imagined this book as an X-rated Hitchcock movie, with the kind of voiceover that used to be on old public information films. It’s a bit… noir I guess, all police interrogation cells, seedy boarding houses and Mob connections. It was glamorous but massively violent too; definitely felt like I was reading a film. Whether I liked it or not, I still haven’t decided. I like Mailer’s characters, but found my mind wandering every so often, and then then ending was just plain nonsense. An old gangster reveals that he was sexually attracted to his late daughter and then makes her husband walk around on the edge of a tall building? I’m sorry, what? Something in the deep of that full moon, some tender and not so innocent radiance traveled fast as the thought of lightning across our night sky, out of the depths of the dead in those caverns of the moon, out and a leap through space and into me. And suddenly I understood the moon. “French mental hospitals are unspeakable. I almost didn’t get out. I had to threaten my family that I would marry the resident there, a funny little old dark French Jewish doctor who smelled like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I swear he did, and my family sprung me. They weren’t going to have some ratty little French Jew slurping up there soup and telling them how to go on a wild boar hunt, you know the French, they tell you everything whether you know it or not. God, I hate the French.” It had always been the same, love was love, one could find it with anyone, one could find it anywhere. It was just that you could never keep it. Not unless you were ready to die for it, dear friend. “Why, hello, hon, I thought you’d never call. It’s kind of cool right now, and the girls are swell. Marilyn says to say hello. We get along, which is odd, you know, because girls don’t swing. But toodle-oo, old baby-boy, and keep the dice for free, the moon is out and she’s a mother to me.” Publication date: 1994.Publisher: Flamingo.Price then: £8.99.Price now £4.Bought from: Quinto on Charing Cross Road.From the synopsis: “Stephen Rojack lived the American Dream, but his enviable life concealed a strange tension, the constant ‘itch to jump’, and when one day he finally cracks and strangles his luscious wife, he unleashes a personality of undreamt-of ferocity.”

Exploding helicopters #11

Norman Mailer - An American Dream

I kinda imagined this book as an X-rated Hitchcock movie, with the kind of voiceover that used to be on old public information films. It’s a bit… noir I guess, all police interrogation cells, seedy boarding houses and Mob connections. It was glamorous but massively violent too; definitely felt like I was reading a film. Whether I liked it or not, I still haven’t decided. I like Mailer’s characters, but found my mind wandering every so often, and then then ending was just plain nonsense. An old gangster reveals that he was sexually attracted to his late daughter and then makes her husband walk around on the edge of a tall building? I’m sorry, what?

Something in the deep of that full moon, some tender and not so innocent radiance traveled fast as the thought of lightning across our night sky, out of the depths of the dead in those caverns of the moon, out and a leap through space and into me. And suddenly I understood the moon.

“French mental hospitals are unspeakable. I almost didn’t get out. I had to threaten my family that I would marry the resident there, a funny little old dark French Jewish doctor who smelled like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I swear he did, and my family sprung me. They weren’t going to have some ratty little French Jew slurping up there soup and telling them how to go on a wild boar hunt, you know the French, they tell you everything whether you know it or not. God, I hate the French.”

It had always been the same, love was love, one could find it with anyone, one could find it anywhere. It was just that you could never keep it. Not unless you were ready to die for it, dear friend.

“Why, hello, hon, I thought you’d never call. It’s kind of cool right now, and the girls are swell. Marilyn says to say hello. We get along, which is odd, you know, because girls don’t swing. But toodle-oo, old baby-boy, and keep the dice for free, the moon is out and she’s a mother to me.”

Publication date: 1994.
Publisher: Flamingo.
Price then: £8.99.
Price now £4.
Bought from: Quinto on Charing Cross Road.
From the synopsis: “Stephen Rojack lived the American Dream, but his enviable life concealed a strange tension, the constant ‘itch to jump’, and when one day he finally cracks and strangles his luscious wife, he unleashes a personality of undreamt-of ferocity.”

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

--Tagged under: norman mailer--

I’m sure it comes as no surprise, but I have no idea where I bought this book. Actually, I don’t recall ever seeing it before, but in my annual rearrangement of the piles of books I have on my bedroom floor, it’s turned up between Edith Wharton and Andrea Levy. The pages are gloriously orange and smell a bit damp. It is my new favourite.

I’m sure it comes as no surprise, but I have no idea where I bought this book. Actually, I don’t recall ever seeing it before, but in my annual rearrangement of the piles of books I have on my bedroom floor, it’s turned up between Edith Wharton and Andrea Levy. The pages are gloriously orange and smell a bit damp. It is my new favourite.

--Tagged under: hg wells--

The Thumb Galleries #4 Kurt Vonnegut - Cat’s Cradle I’ve been a complete tool this week, and bought a copy of Cat’s Cradle despite having not only already read it, but also owning a copy which was but a few feet away when I placed my Ebay bid for copy number 2. Still, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. Is this or is this not the brilliantest most fantastic cover you have ever seen for anything ever in the history of Vonnegut? His face is solemly looking out as us from a fiery cloud of smoke. If I ever get a book published I am going to demand that my face be on the cover, PhotoShopped into a towering inferno, hopefully with flames coming out of my nostrils. You can almost hear the babies screaming. Publication date: 1983Published by: PenguinPrice then: £1.95Price now: £1.85Bought from: EbayFrom the synopsis: With chill, deadpan humour the author splatters the targets of religion and science as the hunt for the three children of Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, draws towards the end that, for all of us, is nigh.”

The Thumb Galleries #4

Kurt Vonnegut - Cat’s Cradle

I’ve been a complete tool this week, and bought a copy of Cat’s Cradle despite having not only already read it, but also owning a copy which was but a few feet away when I placed my Ebay bid for copy number 2. Still, let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. Is this or is this not the brilliantest most fantastic cover you have ever seen for anything ever in the history of Vonnegut?

His face is solemly looking out as us from a fiery cloud of smoke. If I ever get a book published I am going to demand that my face be on the cover, PhotoShopped into a towering inferno, hopefully with flames coming out of my nostrils. You can almost hear the babies screaming.

Publication date: 1983
Published by: Penguin
Price then: £1.95
Price now: £1.85
Bought from: Ebay
From the synopsis: With chill, deadpan humour the author splatters the targets of religion and science as the hunt for the three children of Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, draws towards the end that, for all of us, is nigh.”

--Tagged under: the thumb galleries--

--Tagged under: kurt vonnegut--

John Updike - Couples For the fist half of this book I couldn’t work out who was married to whom, and the love trysts were confusing the hell out of me. Then halfway through all the peripheral characters just kinda drift off and it’s all about Piet and Foxy. It felt a bit like Updike just started writing one day and decided to let his pen decide who the main characters were going to be. Reading it, I felt a bit like I’d taken on too many extra-marital affairs myself, and was panicking about letting things slip by arranging to play tennis with the wrong woman. The couples in, erm, Couples have the kind of lifestyle that I imagine my grandparents had in the 60s; lots of gin and tonic at the golf club, tennis and wife swapping at the weekends. For that reason it fascinates me even more so than normal, but it also menas that every character gets super-imposed with the face of either my Grandpa or my Gran. Considering how Updike likes to write about sex, that’s just plain weird. Last chapter was just lovely though. Things didn’t really work out the way I would’ve wanted them to, but Updike writes sexual resignation better than anyone else in the world. Publication date: doesn’t actually say - I’m guessing the 90s sometime from the biog…Publisher: PenguinPrice then: £7.99Price now: FREEBought from: Swapped on Read It Swap ItFrom the synopsis: “They are sociable, articulate and unhappy; they enjoy sailing, basketball and skiing; they play word games in the evenings… and adultery all the year round.”

John Updike - Couples

For the fist half of this book I couldn’t work out who was married to whom, and the love trysts were confusing the hell out of me. Then halfway through all the peripheral characters just kinda drift off and it’s all about Piet and Foxy. It felt a bit like Updike just started writing one day and decided to let his pen decide who the main characters were going to be. Reading it, I felt a bit like I’d taken on too many extra-marital affairs myself, and was panicking about letting things slip by arranging to play tennis with the wrong woman.

The couples in, erm, Couples have the kind of lifestyle that I imagine my grandparents had in the 60s; lots of gin and tonic at the golf club, tennis and wife swapping at the weekends. For that reason it fascinates me even more so than normal, but it also menas that every character gets super-imposed with the face of either my Grandpa or my Gran. Considering how Updike likes to write about sex, that’s just plain weird. Last chapter was just lovely though. Things didn’t really work out the way I would’ve wanted them to, but Updike writes sexual resignation better than anyone else in the world.

Publication date: doesn’t actually say - I’m guessing the 90s sometime from the biog…
Publisher: Penguin
Price then: £7.99
Price now: FREE
Bought from: Swapped on Read It Swap It
From the synopsis: “They are sociable, articulate and unhappy; they enjoy sailing, basketball and skiing; they play word games in the evenings… and adultery all the year round.”

--Tagged under: john updike--

David Kyle - A Pictorial History Of Science FictionPublication date: 1986Publisher: TigerPrice then: no ideaPrice now: £3.99Bought from: Oxfam, Market Street, Leicester I just had to give this book a post of its own. I bought it today and have so far only looked at a handful of the pictures, but it is brilliant. There are flying saucers and giant insects and super-heroes and robots and aliens and monsters and some of the most ridiculous inventions I’ve ever seen. Apparently humans are going to evolve to have larger chests because the air won’t be so dense in the floating city pods we’ll all live in once the planet has been nuked to death. This book pushes so many of my nerdy buttons in glorious unison.

David Kyle - A Pictorial History Of Science Fiction
Publication date: 1986
Publisher: Tiger
Price then: no idea
Price now: £3.99
Bought from: Oxfam, Market Street, Leicester

I just had to give this book a post of its own. I bought it today and have so far only looked at a handful of the pictures, but it is brilliant. There are flying saucers and giant insects and super-heroes and robots and aliens and monsters and some of the most ridiculous inventions I’ve ever seen. Apparently humans are going to evolve to have larger chests because the air won’t be so dense in the floating city pods we’ll all live in once the planet has been nuked to death.

This book pushes so many of my nerdy buttons in glorious unison.

--Tagged under: science fiction--

Alfresco booksellers #4 South Bank Book Market, London I turned up on the South Bank just as everything was being packed away last night, but that proved to be financially prudent. Second hand books in the capital have an obvious London tax added to their price; more so in such a touristy area, and along with the mandatory copies of The Beach and at least one of everything by Nick Hornby, there were a good few political history bits and pieces that I could have bought. Despite the price hike, you generally find less Catherine Cookson or Mills and Boon shite in London. The Portable Nietzsche edited by Walter Kaufman (1966) I’ve been getting more and more interested in philosophers like Nietzsche, Kant and Sartre since I started reading them for uni. This book has the added quality of being perfect for posing with by the banks of the Thames on a spring evening. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale (1987) I’ve always found the title of this book to be really irritating. Doesn’t it seem like it should be The Handmaiden’s Tale? Still, this is another example of a novel so ubiquitous that you just have to pull your finger out and get it read. Here’s hoping it doesn’t turn out to be another Lovely Bones…

Alfresco booksellers #4

South Bank Book Market, London

I turned up on the South Bank just as everything was being packed away last night, but that proved to be financially prudent. Second hand books in the capital have an obvious London tax added to their price; more so in such a touristy area, and along with the mandatory copies of The Beach and at least one of everything by Nick Hornby, there were a good few political history bits and pieces that I could have bought. Despite the price hike, you generally find less Catherine Cookson or Mills and Boon shite in London.

The Portable Nietzsche edited by Walter Kaufman (1966)
I’ve been getting more and more interested in philosophers like Nietzsche, Kant and Sartre since I started reading them for uni. This book has the added quality of being perfect for posing with by the banks of the Thames on a spring evening.

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale (1987)
I’ve always found the title of this book to be really irritating. Doesn’t it seem like it should be The Handmaiden’s Tale? Still, this is another example of a novel so ubiquitous that you just have to pull your finger out and get it read. Here’s hoping it doesn’t turn out to be another Lovely Bones…

--Tagged under: alfresco booksellers--

--Tagged under: nietzsche--

--Tagged under: margaret atwood--

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