I really should have learnt from my Time Traveler’s Wife experience

The only books that are being turned into films at the moment are either Harry Potter, or schmaltzy shite.

Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones

I’ve had my copy of The Lovely Bones for over a year, but had been motivated to read it by the film release. I’m always convinced that I’ll somehow absorb the ending by cultural osmosis and have the whole book ruined by listening to some teenager talking about Peter Jackson’s film on the bus one day. I don’t even use buses anymore.

So, I sat down last week and started to read The Lovely Bones, and I was genuinely enjoying it. There was nothing challenging there, and it certainly wasn’t very funny, but I like the idea that the audience knew whodunnit and it’s just a matter of how they are discovered. I always used to wish that Agatha Christie took this tactic when I was going through my early teenage Poirot phase. (He shits all over Miss Marple.) So yeah, The Lovely Bones was lovely enough until about two thirds of the way through, when Ruth The Token Alternative Lesbian started having visions of dead people, then vacating her body so that poor little murdered Susie could have sex with her schooldays boyfriend. Ridiculous. And I normally quite like ridiculous. But this was romantic ridiculous, which I have zero fucking time for. And then, just as it was improving again and the rapist dude was being pushed into a ditch by a flying icicle, Susie’s parents got back together and she made her brother’s garden bloom with dead girl vibes from beyond the grave. What a load of shite. I was waiting for Ruth and Susie’s Dad and sister to track down Mr Harvey The Rapist and bludgeon him to death while the police dude who shagged Susie’s Mum turned a blind eye and was slowly consumed by horrible guilt. Things never turn out the way you want them too.

Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones
Publication date: 2002
Publisher: Picador
Price then: £7.99
Price now: £2.50
Bought from: Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye
From the synopsis: Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet…

--Tagged under: alice sebold--

"Secondhand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack."
— Virginia Woolf (via awritersruminations) (via unwrittenwords) (via booklover) (via reading-is-fun)
Exploding helicopters #10 Mark Hodkinson - The Last Mad Surge Of Youth This was the damaged copy that I mentioned in my last post about Amazon Marketplace. The little rip is just under my thumb. I know what you’re thinking: THAT little bit of nothing is enough to warrant chucking this book onto the internet scrapheap? Apparently so. There was, however, something more disappointing to follow. The Last Mad Surge Of Youth is interesting because each teeny tiny chapter (sometimes two or three on each page - do they even count as chapters?) jumped backwards and forwards in time, from 1980s working class England, where a group of schoolmates were forming their first bands and making their first fanzines, to retrospective wanderings from a couple of those band members later in life. One was famous, had a drink problem, and was still desperately trying to bring down the establishment from within, and the other had left the band at an early age, got married and divorced, and worked at a local paper. The pair of them were bitter and twisted old has-beens, they were just bitter and twisted about different stuff. Which is why this book was so disappointing. Not only were the passages written about the young, anti-Thatcher Killing Stars so much funnier and more insightful, but the vitality of the characters at the beginning made the sections with Barrett getting wankered while he plays his own records all night long, or the bit where Carey has this empty, soulless shag in the back of a car after his wife’s left him, so very very pathetic. It annoys me that the pair of them are such fools, when just 500 words beforehand you’ve been reading about them standing up for their rights as a support band or slagging off employment statistics. Most of the bits I’m about to copy for you are from those early years. It’s a shame it couldn’t all be about then, but I guess the whole point is to communicate the fleeting nature of fame or the natural human need for recognition in life. It really is quite depressing stuff in the end. “When you get good on an instrument you become a slave to the conventional.”“Definitely,” agreed Carey. “Proficiency is a disease.” Ian announced, his voice solemn, that he and Carl had ‘history’. They had met a week earlier at a nightclub where he had subjected Carl to a eulogy on cybernetics, the profundity of Dr Who and a painstaking, paints-peeling-off-a-my-wall dissection of Gary Numan’s lyrics. Ian’s leg had begun to feel warm and, reaching down, he discovered that Carl had pissed on him under the table. “Let’s have it right, how can a few honkies from Slough or wherever play the blues? What do they know about rattlesnakes and sloshing about in a Mississippi swamp looking for rats to eat? Another thing: mouth organs. I fucking hate them. If you ever hear a mouth organ on one of my tracks you have my full permission to stick it up my arse, sideways.” “Wasn’t it John Updike who said celebrity is a mask that eventually eats into your face?”“I didn’t know you read Updike.”I don’t. I just remember good lines and pretend to have read all these cool authors.” Mark Hodkinson - The Last Mad Surge Of YouthPublication date: 2009Publisher: PomonaPrice then: £7.99Price now: £5.54Bought from: Amazon Marketplace

Exploding helicopters #10

Mark Hodkinson - The Last Mad Surge Of Youth

This was the damaged copy that I mentioned in my last post about Amazon Marketplace. The little rip is just under my thumb. I know what you’re thinking: THAT little bit of nothing is enough to warrant chucking this book onto the internet scrapheap? Apparently so.

There was, however, something more disappointing to follow. The Last Mad Surge Of Youth is interesting because each teeny tiny chapter (sometimes two or three on each page - do they even count as chapters?) jumped backwards and forwards in time, from 1980s working class England, where a group of schoolmates were forming their first bands and making their first fanzines, to retrospective wanderings from a couple of those band members later in life. One was famous, had a drink problem, and was still desperately trying to bring down the establishment from within, and the other had left the band at an early age, got married and divorced, and worked at a local paper. The pair of them were bitter and twisted old has-beens, they were just bitter and twisted about different stuff. Which is why this book was so disappointing.

Not only were the passages written about the young, anti-Thatcher Killing Stars so much funnier and more insightful, but the vitality of the characters at the beginning made the sections with Barrett getting wankered while he plays his own records all night long, or the bit where Carey has this empty, soulless shag in the back of a car after his wife’s left him, so very very pathetic. It annoys me that the pair of them are such fools, when just 500 words beforehand you’ve been reading about them standing up for their rights as a support band or slagging off employment statistics. Most of the bits I’m about to copy for you are from those early years. It’s a shame it couldn’t all be about then, but I guess the whole point is to communicate the fleeting nature of fame or the natural human need for recognition in life. It really is quite depressing stuff in the end.

“When you get good on an instrument you become a slave to the conventional.”
“Definitely,” agreed Carey. “Proficiency is a disease.”

Ian announced, his voice solemn, that he and Carl had ‘history’. They had met a week earlier at a nightclub where he had subjected Carl to a eulogy on cybernetics, the profundity of Dr Who and a painstaking, paints-peeling-off-a-my-wall dissection of Gary Numan’s lyrics. Ian’s leg had begun to feel warm and, reaching down, he discovered that Carl had pissed on him under the table.

“Let’s have it right, how can a few honkies from Slough or wherever play the blues? What do they know about rattlesnakes and sloshing about in a Mississippi swamp looking for rats to eat? Another thing: mouth organs. I fucking hate them. If you ever hear a mouth organ on one of my tracks you have my full permission to stick it up my arse, sideways.”

“Wasn’t it John Updike who said celebrity is a mask that eventually eats into your face?”
“I didn’t know you read Updike.”
I don’t. I just remember good lines and pretend to have read all these cool authors.”

Mark Hodkinson - The Last Mad Surge Of Youth
Publication date: 2009
Publisher: Pomona
Price then: £7.99
Price now: £5.54
Bought from: Amazon Marketplace

--Tagged under: mark hodkinson--

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

When ‘Amazon’ isn’t a dirty word.

I have spent recent days reflecting upon the myriad of ethical standpoints that one can take when faced with Amazon Marketplace. You can buy second-hand books through them, and it works a bit like an agency for all the book dealers around. You browse on Amazon, you pay Amazon, and then Amazon tell the little old guys in Hay-on-Wye and on Charing Cross Road and, increasingly, in warehouses outside Milton Keynes where to send your paperbacks. Some of these warehouse-type places are actually operated by Amazon themselves, and generally sell old editions or damaged copies. Technically, not second-hand. For these sellers, you are able to use the Amazon order tracking system to see where your books are lingering the UK postal system.

Obviously, it’s a difficult call to make. Even the independent sellers who are selling genuine second-hand will be giving Amazon a commission for listing on Marketplace. And is it going against one’s ethics to buy a ‘new’ copy, albeit not on general sale due to cover damage or watermarks or something? By buying these copies, are we saying to publishers “it’s okay if you don’t treat these FRESHLY MURDERED TREES with respect, since there will always be a few misguided souls ready to purchase them”, or is it a case of giving the runt of the litter a good home, when it would otherwise sit, unloved, in its cold and lonely Milton Keynes warehouse forever more? What if the only place we can find a copy of S by John Updike at a reasonable price is through these dubious channels?

I’ve been testing the system, and in doing so, testing myself. In one transaction I bought a second-hand copies of S by Updike and a Simon Schama American history book, damaged copy of The Last Mad Surge Of Youth by Mark Hodkinson (all through sellers operated by Amazon), and then two collections of second-hand Ali Smith short stories, The Whole Story and other stories and Free Love and other stories, through independent sellers. The Schama and the Hodkinson still haven’t arrived though. Hmmm.

I think I’ll continue using Amazon Marketplace, simply because the range of titles available is unmatched, even by Ebay, but I’m going to try to stick with those independent sellers using it simple as another sales point. They might be little rural bookshops with limited winter trade, and would not be using Amazon were it not financially worthwhile. Perhaps when I phone Amazon to find out where the hell my Schama and Hodkinson books have got to, I’ll find their order tracking system useful, but I get the impression the Amazon-operated sellers are simply clearing their unwanted stock. The whole point in buying second-hand only it to try to prevent excess stock being printed in the first place.

--Tagged under: amazon marketplace--

--Tagged under: john updike--

--Tagged under: ali smith--

--Tagged under: simon schama--

--Tagged under: mark hodkinson--

Exploding Helicopters #9 John Updike - In The Beauty Of The Lilies Just to be perfectly clear, I would never ordinarily read a book with such a shit title if it wasn’t by John Updike. John Updike is awesome. He writes books that are unlike most of the other writers I’m into. They’re normally about shit marriages, and In The Beauty Of The Lilies is different only in that it’s about several generations of the same family having shit marriages, and actually one of the marriages works rather well in an endearing aaaw, aren’t they such wonderfully simple folk? kind of a way. It all kicks off with a pastor losing his faith wholly and suddenly in the opening chapter (brilliant brilliant brilliant). Then you meet the docile son Teddy, his daughter Essie, who becomes a movie star, and then her unloved son Clark, who is involved in possibly the most dramatic storyline in any of the Updike books I have read or even been aware of. It’s structured in four main parts, each for that generation’s protagonist, and when each story comes to an end it’s genuinely sad to say goodbye to that character, even if they do reoccur later. None of Updike’s characters are ever 100% likeable, and I find myself wanting to give some people a bloody good talking too, but that’s because he writes real people that you instantly believe in. This isn’s a normal Exploding Helicopters post because there aren’t millions of take-your-breath-away sentences in the book. But there are take-your-breath-away moments, where you’re genuinely frightened or moved or over the moon. They won’t have the same impact here, without the individual backstories, but these are some of the moments that had me emoting like a bastard. “My poor Dad wanted to believe and needed to believe and God stayed silent.”“He’s not silent with me.”“What does He tell you?”Her hand had gone to the sensitive bump behind his fly. “To love you with all my heart,” she said. “To serve you, in the faith that you’ll serve me.” “The M-16’s what they issued us in Vietnam. She’s a sweetie, when she don’t jam. There were a lot of complaints from deceased users about it jamming, so they renamed it from the M-16A1 to the M-16A2 and it worked much better. Here son. You hold her.” “Clark? G-g-g-” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t get past the ‘g’. This simple word. He hung up while she was still trying. His own mother, and all those FBI eavesdroppers listening to her humiliation. “Goodbye,” she said in her bedroom to herself, looking into one of her mirrors, tilting her head this way and that. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, you idiot,” furious with herself. How fucking sad is that? It kills me. John Updike - In The Beauty Of The LiliesPublication date: 1996Publisher: PenguinPrice then: £6.99Price now: £2Bought from: Some place on Charing Cross Road, London. I didn’t write the name down because I am a bad blogger. From the synopsis: “transcendence, higher reality, immortality, resurrections… a novel of accumulated wisdoms.”

Exploding Helicopters #9

John Updike - In The Beauty Of The Lilies

Just to be perfectly clear, I would never ordinarily read a book with such a shit title if it wasn’t by John Updike. John Updike is awesome. He writes books that are unlike most of the other writers I’m into. They’re normally about shit marriages, and In The Beauty Of The Lilies is different only in that it’s about several generations of the same family having shit marriages, and actually one of the marriages works rather well in an endearing aaaw, aren’t they such wonderfully simple folk? kind of a way.

It all kicks off with a pastor losing his faith wholly and suddenly in the opening chapter (brilliant brilliant brilliant). Then you meet the docile son Teddy, his daughter Essie, who becomes a movie star, and then her unloved son Clark, who is involved in possibly the most dramatic storyline in any of the Updike books I have read or even been aware of. It’s structured in four main parts, each for that generation’s protagonist, and when each story comes to an end it’s genuinely sad to say goodbye to that character, even if they do reoccur later. None of Updike’s characters are ever 100% likeable, and I find myself wanting to give some people a bloody good talking too, but that’s because he writes real people that you instantly believe in.

This isn’s a normal Exploding Helicopters post because there aren’t millions of take-your-breath-away sentences in the book. But there are take-your-breath-away moments, where you’re genuinely frightened or moved or over the moon. They won’t have the same impact here, without the individual backstories, but these are some of the moments that had me emoting like a bastard.

“My poor Dad wanted to believe and needed to believe and God stayed silent.”
“He’s not silent with me.”
“What does He tell you?”
Her hand had gone to the sensitive bump behind his fly. “To love you with all my heart,” she said. “To serve you, in the faith that you’ll serve me.”

“The M-16’s what they issued us in Vietnam. She’s a sweetie, when she don’t jam. There were a lot of complaints from deceased users about it jamming, so they renamed it from the M-16A1 to the M-16A2 and it worked much better. Here son. You hold her.”

“Clark? G-g-g-” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t get past the ‘g’. This simple word. He hung up while she was still trying. His own mother, and all those FBI eavesdroppers listening to her humiliation. “Goodbye,” she said in her bedroom to herself, looking into one of her mirrors, tilting her head this way and that. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, you idiot,” furious with herself.

How fucking sad is that? It kills me.

John Updike - In The Beauty Of The Lilies
Publication date: 1996
Publisher: Penguin
Price then: £6.99
Price now: £2
Bought from: Some place on Charing Cross Road, London. I didn’t write the name down because I am a bad blogger.

From the synopsis: “transcendence, higher reality, immortality, resurrections… a novel of accumulated wisdoms.”

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

--Tagged under: john updike--

Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In The Yemen I didn’t think much to this book. The plot’s a bit shit and the characters are all two-dimensional ‘types’ and it’s written as a series of correspondence (i.e. a cop-out for a writer who doesn’t know how to string a proper chapter together), but it’s about salmon and I used to live on a salmon farm. I’m going to lend it to my Dad (he totally used to work for the company that Torday based McSalmon Aqua Farms on) so he can get all indignant about how this isn’t right and that’s not how salmon behave and doesn’t this Torday guy know anything? Should be fun. Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In The YemenPublication date: 2007Publisher: PhoenixPrice then: £7.99Price now: £1.99Bought from: Oxfam, Macclesfield From the synopsis:“As he embarks on an extraordinary journey of faith the diffident Dr Jones will discover a sense of belief and a capacity for love that surprise himself and all who know him.”

Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

I didn’t think much to this book. The plot’s a bit shit and the characters are all two-dimensional ‘types’ and it’s written as a series of correspondence (i.e. a cop-out for a writer who doesn’t know how to string a proper chapter together), but it’s about salmon and I used to live on a salmon farm. I’m going to lend it to my Dad (he totally used to work for the company that Torday based McSalmon Aqua Farms on) so he can get all indignant about how this isn’t right and that’s not how salmon behave and doesn’t this Torday guy know anything? Should be fun.

Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In The Yemen
Publication date: 2007
Publisher: Phoenix
Price then: £7.99
Price now: £1.99
Bought from: Oxfam, Macclesfield

From the synopsis:“As he embarks on an extraordinary journey of faith the diffident Dr Jones will discover a sense of belief and a capacity for love that surprise himself and all who know him.”

--Tagged under: paul torday--

I haven’t bought any new books in a while, primarily because when I moved house in the autumn my parents were like “Holy shit, have you actually read any of these?” so I’ve been doing a bit of catching up. Well, actually, I haven’t been doing that much catching up really because I’ve mostly been reading about how cultural policy and marketing the arts via social networking (yawn) but it’s Christmas break now so I’m hooking myself up to some Updike for a few weeks. And buying more books… Things I have learnt about Leicester’s charity shops in the last week: Oxfam is stupidly expensive. Someone donating to The YMCA Shop either really loves of fucking hates Joanna Trollope. British Heart Foundation need more shelving units. Unlike Manchester, not every charity shop contains more than five copies of How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. Maybe it’s not that bad after all. So, despite all my sociological research, I only actually bought a couple of things in the end. I got the Tennessee Williams collection because I quite enjoyed The Glass Menagerie at the Royal Exchange a while ago, I read Streetcar back in March when I was hiding from my auntie’s overwhelming wedding, and I’m one of those annoying over-enthusiastic types who wants a career in the theatre so I should really start reading some fucking plays once in a while, right? The Augusten Burroughs book, I bought because it’s a “hilarious” tale about recovering from severe alcoholism, and I met someone recently who’s doing just that. Also, because what sort of a fucking name is Augusten Burroughs anyway? I just looked him up on Wikipedia and it’s not even his real name. He fucking chose the name Augusten. The world has gone mad etc etc. To be fair, Tennessee is a pretty strange first name, but we kinda come to terms with strange names when they’re super-famous strange names. Cormac is weird too, in a frontiersman kinda way. Tennessee Williams - Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, The Night Of The Iguana (1982) Augusten Burroughs - Dry (2005)

I haven’t bought any new books in a while, primarily because when I moved house in the autumn my parents were like “Holy shit, have you actually read any of these?” so I’ve been doing a bit of catching up. Well, actually, I haven’t been doing that much catching up really because I’ve mostly been reading about how cultural policy and marketing the arts via social networking (yawn) but it’s Christmas break now so I’m hooking myself up to some Updike for a few weeks. And buying more books…

Things I have learnt about Leicester’s charity shops in the last week:

Oxfam is stupidly expensive.

Someone donating to The YMCA Shop either really loves of fucking hates Joanna Trollope.

British Heart Foundation need more shelving units.

Unlike Manchester, not every charity shop contains more than five copies of How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. Maybe it’s not that bad after all.

So, despite all my sociological research, I only actually bought a couple of things in the end. I got the Tennessee Williams collection because I quite enjoyed The Glass Menagerie at the Royal Exchange a while ago, I read Streetcar back in March when I was hiding from my auntie’s overwhelming wedding, and I’m one of those annoying over-enthusiastic types who wants a career in the theatre so I should really start reading some fucking plays once in a while, right?

The Augusten Burroughs book, I bought because it’s a “hilarious” tale about recovering from severe alcoholism, and I met someone recently who’s doing just that. Also, because what sort of a fucking name is Augusten Burroughs anyway? I just looked him up on Wikipedia and it’s not even his real name. He fucking chose the name Augusten. The world has gone mad etc etc.

To be fair, Tennessee is a pretty strange first name, but we kinda come to terms with strange names when they’re super-famous strange names. Cormac is weird too, in a frontiersman kinda way.

Tennessee Williams - Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, The Night Of The Iguana (1982)

Augusten Burroughs - Dry (2005)

--Tagged under: augusten burroughs--

--Tagged under: tennessee williams--

On being rich enough to have problems.
There’s no picture today I’m afraid, partly because my computer’s blown up and I’m in the uni library, and partly because I’ve left my mobile at home so can’t even do some kind of last minute attempt. To be fair though, my copy of This Book Will Save Your Life has the Richard and Judy’s Book Club logo in the corner and it’s not even a peel off sticker, it’s right fucking there so I don’t really want to preserve it’s image.


I’m also not going to do my regular Exploding Helicopters feature, because This Book Will Save Your Life doesn’t really lend itself to that. It’s no a “wow, what a fucking amamzing sentence” kind of book. In many ways, it reminded me a lot of Attention. Deficit. Disorder. by Brad Listi. Listi’s book is about a guy who is in search of himself following university, and after some bad news. The character or Richard, in A.M. Homes’s book, is about a guy who’s in search of himself after experiencing crippling pain. The pain is never really explained; you come to assume it was psychological, because Richard is lonely and bored, out of touch with his son and rarely leaving the house.

Now, I really enjoyed this book. It runs like a series of episodes which all feed into Richard’s new life as an emotionally stable and supported good guy. You never know exactly what’s going to happene next and all the characters are likeable, even his career-minded ex-wife. Homes’s writing is easy to read and engaging.

But, the thing is, and this may be heartless and naive and stupid and not without a little jealousy, but Richard is rich. He’s rich enough to not have to work and to buy cars for people and go on retreats and not panic when his house falls into a hole and his insurance doesn’t cover it. YOU CAN AFFORD TO FIX YOUR PROBLEMS WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK. Hmmph. It was the same in Brad Listi’s book. His protagonist (Wayne, I think), makes money on the stock market before he has his little adventures, and that’s where Richard’s cash comes from too. Of course, it’s never simple, and I was gunning for Richard’s happiness throughout the book. I just have this barrier that prevents me from completely empathising with a man who has a nutritionist.

A.M. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life
Publication date: 2007
Publisher: Granta
Price then: £7.99
Price now: £1.50
Bought from: Dude under the flyover on Oxford Road, Manchester

--Tagged under: a m homes--

--Tagged under: brad listi--

Exploding Helicopters #8Ali Smith - Hotel World Dear Ali Smith, I love you long time. Seriously, any time you want. I’ve never really had any homosexual tendencies before but your words totally do it for me. Trains go direct to Cambridge (where you live) from Leicester (where I live) so just say the word and I’ll buy a ticket. If you don’t want me for my body, I’ll even come over to clean your bathroom. I guess it’s the least I can do since this little second-hand books project means that you don’t get a penny from me. I can even put a few quid in an envelope if that’s easier. Do you have PayPal? Yours always (but don’t tell Cormac McCarthy - wouldn’t want him getting jealous) Meg. (and this time I’d throw myself willingly down it wooo- hooooo and this time I’d count as I went, one elephant two eleph-ahh) if I could feel it again, how I hit it, the basement, from four floors up, from toe to head, dead. Dead leg. Dead arm. Dead hand. Dead eye. Dead I, four floors between me and the world, that’s all it took to take me, that’s the measure of it, the length and death of it, the short goodb—. Bring me apples, Bring me (something), Bring me hazlenuts, Bring me wheat, Bring me good things, To eat, Kellogg’s Country Store. The voice still sounded (inside her head all these years later) as if its owner had been brought up on healthy, very good things; it seemed to suggest that eating them every day had made her the successful and socially-upwardly-mobile singer of light classical repertoire that she was, and had got her the morally blameless job of singing on television about these good things precisely for the benefit of others. a terrible way to lose someone close like we lost her in a department store in the sportswear dept & if we went to the customer service desk we could put a call out fro her over the intercom speakers this is a message for Sara Wilby your family is waiting at customer services could Sara Wilby please come back from the dead ah shit ah The people who bought prescriptions in Boots the Chemist yesterday are feeling better, worse or the same. Some have colds. Some have infections. Some have nothing wrong with them. Some feel drowsy and ought not to operate machinery today. See? Isn’t she just amazing? As you can probably tell, Hotel World is about death; one death in particular but really about all deaths. How it is just normal and life goes on, and that sometimes ‘normal’ really means ‘rubbish’, but that’s how life is. Totally fucking love you, Ali Smith. Ali Smith - Hotel WorldPublication date 2002Publisher: PenguinPrice then: £6.99Price now: £1.50Purchased from: The dude under the flyover on Oxford Road, Manchester. From the synopsis: “Brought together - and forced apart - by a bizarre incident involving a dumb waiter, we share their very different experiences of life in the aftermath of death, of pain and sorrow, of hope and love - everything, in fact, that the world dares to throw at us.” You know what, you should totally read this book if you’ve lost someone recently. It’s one of those books that might help, like Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
Exploding Helicopters #8


Ali Smith - Hotel World

Dear Ali Smith,

I love you long time.

Seriously, any time you want. I’ve never really had any homosexual tendencies before but your words totally do it for me. Trains go direct to Cambridge (where you live) from Leicester (where I live) so just say the word and I’ll buy a ticket. If you don’t want me for my body, I’ll even come over to clean your bathroom. I guess it’s the least I can do since this little second-hand books project means that you don’t get a penny from me. I can even put a few quid in an envelope if that’s easier. Do you have PayPal?

Yours always (but don’t tell Cormac McCarthy - wouldn’t want him getting jealous)

Meg.

(and this time I’d throw myself willingly down it wooo-

hooooo and this time I’d count as I went, one elephant two eleph-ahh) if I could feel it again, how I hit it, the basement, from four floors up, from toe to head, dead. Dead leg. Dead arm. Dead hand. Dead eye. Dead I, four floors between me and the world, that’s all it took to take me, that’s the measure of it, the length and death of it, the short goodb—.

Bring me apples, Bring me (something), Bring me hazlenuts, Bring me wheat, Bring me good things, To eat, Kellogg’s Country Store.

The voice still sounded (inside her head all these years later) as if its owner had been brought up on healthy, very good things; it seemed to suggest that eating them every day had made her the successful and socially-upwardly-mobile singer of light classical repertoire that she was, and had got her the morally blameless job of singing on television about these good things precisely for the benefit of others.

a terrible way to lose someone close like we lost her in a department store in the sportswear dept & if we went to the customer service desk we could put a call out fro her over the intercom speakers this is a message for Sara Wilby your family is waiting at customer services could Sara Wilby please come back from the dead ah shit ah

The people who bought prescriptions in Boots the Chemist yesterday are feeling better, worse or the same. Some have colds. Some have infections. Some have nothing wrong with them. Some feel drowsy and ought not to operate machinery today.

See? Isn’t she just amazing?

As you can probably tell, Hotel World is about death; one death in particular but really about all deaths. How it is just normal and life goes on, and that sometimes ‘normal’ really means ‘rubbish’, but that’s how life is.

Totally fucking love you, Ali Smith.

Ali Smith - Hotel World
Publication date 2002
Publisher: Penguin
Price then: £6.99
Price now: £1.50
Purchased from: The dude under the flyover on Oxford Road, Manchester.

From the synopsis: “Brought together - and forced apart - by a bizarre incident involving a dumb waiter, we share their very different experiences of life in the aftermath of death, of pain and sorrow, of hope and love - everything, in fact, that the world dares to throw at us.”

You know what, you should totally read this book if you’ve lost someone recently. It’s one of those books that might help, like Jonathon Livingston Seagull.

--Tagged under: ali smith--

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

Exploding Helicopters #7 Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog This story is pretty inspired stuff really. Dude finds a stray dog and transplants a penis and pituitary gland from some murdered lowlife onto him. Then the dog turns into this semi-feral human who likes a drink and works in a government department to purge the city of cats. Amazing, right? Except it just didn’t seem to flow especially well. I know better than to criticise the writing style of one of the most respected Russian writers of all time, so I’m guessing it’s either down to the translation or the fact that it was written in 1925 and just feels a bit dated. Either way, the book didn’t live up to its synopsis. Out of the forty thousand or so Moscow dogs, only an idiot won’t know how to read the word ‘sausage’. “Eat in the bedroom,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “read in the examination room, dress in the waiting room, operate in the maid’s room, and examine patients in the dining room. It is very possible that Isadora Duncan does just this. Perhaps she dines in her office and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan!” “Doctor, would you please take him to the circus? But, for God’s sake, take a look at the program first - make sure they have no cats.” Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A DogPublication date: 1982Publisher: Grove PressPrice then: $5.95Price now: $8Purchased from: Green Apple Books, San Francisco From the synopsis: “His many misadventures, lecherous behaviour, and final denunciation of the doctor himself, drive the exasperated scientist to take most extraordinary measures.”
Exploding Helicopters #7


Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog

This story is pretty inspired stuff really. Dude finds a stray dog and transplants a penis and pituitary gland from some murdered lowlife onto him. Then the dog turns into this semi-feral human who likes a drink and works in a government department to purge the city of cats. Amazing, right?

Except it just didn’t seem to flow especially well. I know better than to criticise the writing style of one of the most respected Russian writers of all time, so I’m guessing it’s either down to the translation or the fact that it was written in 1925 and just feels a bit dated. Either way, the book didn’t live up to its synopsis.

Out of the forty thousand or so Moscow dogs, only an idiot won’t know how to read the word ‘sausage’.

“Eat in the bedroom,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “read in the examination room, dress in the waiting room, operate in the maid’s room, and examine patients in the dining room. It is very possible that Isadora Duncan does just this. Perhaps she dines in her office and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan!”

“Doctor, would you please take him to the circus? But, for God’s sake, take a look at the program first - make sure they have no cats.”

Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog
Publication date: 1982
Publisher: Grove Press
Price then: $5.95
Price now: $8
Purchased from: Green Apple Books, San Francisco

From the synopsis: “His many misadventures, lecherous behaviour, and final denunciation of the doctor himself, drive the exasperated scientist to take most extraordinary measures.”

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