I hath returned! You can all throw off your mourning clothes and dance once again. I have tales to tell of foreign climes, of desert skies and city nights and trying to take a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in fog. And of Green Apples Bookshop, on Clement and 6th Street in the Richmond neighbourhood of San Francisco, where I thought I was going to have to buy another suitcase to accommodate my purchases. Going to bookshops when on holiday is often disappointing. Go one way and they’re all in foreign languages; go the other and the self-help section is the whole shop. My guidebook told me that Green Apples was going to be different though, and a brief web search confirmed that it had not been closed down my bibliophobe zealots in the years since my guide’s publication. I got the number 2 bus from Downtown over to Richmond on one my my last days in the States (thus protecting myself from book-assisted starvation) and it was super-easy to find on the intersection, what with bright green canopies and outdoor shelving. The fiction and music departments are even separated into an entirely different building, three doors away, so that us story-fans are spared the self-help basketcases. Since most of my favourite writers are Americans working in the 20th century, I spent about two hours there in total, browsing every shelf in the place and bringing a continuous stream of novels back to the counter. My budget restrictions meant that my choices were whittled down again before paying (So long Pulp by Bukowski! Farewell Kafka’s Amerika! Adios Life After God by Douglas Coupland!) but it was still worth bringing that extra canvas bag… John Updike - Bech Is Back (1982)John Updike - Bech At Bay (1999) I suspect it’s going to be some time before I come across any literature as well written as Updike’s Rabbit books, but until I do, I’ll stick with him. Truman Capote - Music For Cameleons (1980)Truman Capote - Other Voices, Other Rooms (original publication date was 1948 but no date on this edition) This is where I get a bit shallow, because although I adored In Cold Blood and read the whole thing in one day, I thought Breakfast At Tiffany’s wasn’t so hot, and I’ve honestly chosen these books simply because the edges of their pages are dyed yellow and orange. I do kinda want to come to some kind of firm opinion about Capote too of course. Hopefully these will be more like In Cold Blood than Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog (1982) This book has one of the most amazing synopses I’ve ever read. A stray dog has his testicles replaced with those of a petty criminal who died in a bar fight, and then he gets a job in a city department, employed to rid the place of cats. This is what reading is all about. Richard Farina - Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (1969) It looks like someone’s tried to set fire to this book, and the final pages have only just escaped unscathed. It’s about “an amoral collegiate hipster” so I felt a connection between us instantly. James Dickey - Deliverance (1971) This has got a gorgeous cover with a big blue eye staring out from the undergrowth. I’ve never seen the film, but I do quite like banjo so I’m sure it’ll be a serene little exploration of the South… Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper (1993) McCarthy is fast becoming my favourite ever writer, so I couldn’t leave this on the shelf. Vladimir Nabokov - Invitation To A Beheading (1989) I’ve often thought this guy sounded pretty cool, and my ears prick up at anything likened to Kafka. This appears to be a absurdist in much the same way that The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien was, if a little darker. But maybe I’m just thinking that because the cover isn’t bright pink like The Third Policeman. Douglas Coupland - Miss Wyoming (2001) I think I might be approaching Coupland Saturation Point, whereby one more book about cynical and disaffected young ‘slackers’ would just tip me over the edge, but then every time I read his stuff it flows so easily and I can appreciate it on several levels. This is most likely due to the fact that I’m a cynical and disaffected young slacker. William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch (1992) I’m dubious about this to be honest, because I don’t generally enjoy books that are just the publication of drug experiences, but this has been recommended too many times to ignore. Charles Bukowski - Hollywood (1993) I’m excited about this one because whenever I open a random page I find myself sucked in to men shouting “HUNGER STRIKE!” or “I AM COMING TO KILL YOU TONIGHT!” or “I had to piss, asked directions to the crapper”, more of which I would like to see in literature, if any novelists are listening.
I hath returned! You can all throw off your mourning clothes and dance once again.

I have tales to tell of foreign climes, of desert skies and city nights and trying to take a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in fog. And of Green Apples Bookshop, on Clement and 6th Street in the Richmond neighbourhood of San Francisco, where I thought I was going to have to buy another suitcase to accommodate my purchases.

Going to bookshops when on holiday is often disappointing. Go one way and they’re all in foreign languages; go the other and the self-help section is the whole shop. My guidebook told me that Green Apples was going to be different though, and a brief web search confirmed that it had not been closed down my bibliophobe zealots in the years since my guide’s publication. I got the number 2 bus from Downtown over to Richmond on one my my last days in the States (thus protecting myself from book-assisted starvation) and it was super-easy to find on the intersection, what with bright green canopies and outdoor shelving. The fiction and music departments are even separated into an entirely different building, three doors away, so that us story-fans are spared the self-help basketcases.

Since most of my favourite writers are Americans working in the 20th century, I spent about two hours there in total, browsing every shelf in the place and bringing a continuous stream of novels back to the counter. My budget restrictions meant that my choices were whittled down again before paying (So long Pulp by Bukowski! Farewell Kafka’s Amerika! Adios Life After God by Douglas Coupland!) but it was still worth bringing that extra canvas bag…



John Updike - Bech Is Back (1982)
John Updike - Bech At Bay (1999)

I suspect it’s going to be some time before I come across any literature as well written as Updike’s Rabbit books, but until I do, I’ll stick with him.

Truman Capote - Music For Cameleons (1980)
Truman Capote - Other Voices, Other Rooms (original publication date was 1948 but no date on this edition)

This is where I get a bit shallow, because although I adored In Cold Blood and read the whole thing in one day, I thought Breakfast At Tiffany’s wasn’t so hot, and I’ve honestly chosen these books simply because the edges of their pages are dyed yellow and orange. I do kinda want to come to some kind of firm opinion about Capote too of course. Hopefully these will be more like In Cold Blood than Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog (1982)

This book has one of the most amazing synopses I’ve ever read. A stray dog has his testicles replaced with those of a petty criminal who died in a bar fight, and then he gets a job in a city department, employed to rid the place of cats. This is what reading is all about.

Richard Farina - Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (1969)

It looks like someone’s tried to set fire to this book, and the final pages have only just escaped unscathed. It’s about “an amoral collegiate hipster” so I felt a connection between us instantly.

James Dickey - Deliverance (1971)

This has got a gorgeous cover with a big blue eye staring out from the undergrowth. I’ve never seen the film, but I do quite like banjo so I’m sure it’ll be a serene little exploration of the South…

Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper (1993)

McCarthy is fast becoming my favourite ever writer, so I couldn’t leave this on the shelf.

Vladimir Nabokov - Invitation To A Beheading (1989)

I’ve often thought this guy sounded pretty cool, and my ears prick up at anything likened to Kafka. This appears to be a absurdist in much the same way that The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien was, if a little darker. But maybe I’m just thinking that because the cover isn’t bright pink like The Third Policeman.

Douglas Coupland - Miss Wyoming (2001)

I think I might be approaching Coupland Saturation Point, whereby one more book about cynical and disaffected young ‘slackers’ would just tip me over the edge, but then every time I read his stuff it flows so easily and I can appreciate it on several levels. This is most likely due to the fact that I’m a cynical and disaffected young slacker.

William S Burroughs - Naked Lunch (1992)

I’m dubious about this to be honest, because I don’t generally enjoy books that are just the publication of drug experiences, but this has been recommended too many times to ignore.

Charles Bukowski - Hollywood (1993)
I’m excited about this one because whenever I open a random page I find myself sucked in to men shouting “HUNGER STRIKE!” or “I AM COMING TO KILL YOU TONIGHT!” or “I had to piss, asked directions to the crapper”, more of which I would like to see in literature, if any novelists are listening.

--Tagged under: green apples bookshop--

--Tagged under: john updike--

--Tagged under: truman capote--

--Tagged under: mikhail bulgakov--

--Tagged under: richard farina--

--Tagged under: james dickey--

--Tagged under: cormac mccarthy--

--Tagged under: vladimir nabokov--

--Tagged under: douglas coupland--

--Tagged under: william s burroughs--

--Tagged under: charles bukowski--

Exploding Helicopters #3 Douglas Coupland - MicroserfsPublication date: 1996Publisher: FlamingoPrice then: £6.99Price now: a copy of The Cider House Rules by John IrvingPurchased from: swapped via Read It Swap It From the synopsis: “The job may be super cool, the pay may be astronomical, but they’re going nowhere, and however hard they work, however many shares they earn, they’re never going to be as rich as Bill.” Amazing true fact: I have never come across anyone who doesn’t like Douglas Coupland. I’m about half a generation too young to fit into the ‘demographic’ that he apparently became a ‘spokesman’ for when he bottled their ‘slacker zeitgeist’ with Generation X, but I completely related to it for many reasons, not least the fact that I hate the word ‘zeitgeist’ and reject the idea of people as ‘demographics’. It’s a book I read and loved, but then I sat in my bedroom for a week worrying about whether or not my job could be classed as a McJob and whether or not I should ignore my family and move to a squat in Palm Springs. Coupland gets you like that. With Microserfs, a book essentially about some misfit nerds who are working on a web start-up in the early 90s, I read it as an amusing little set of anecdotes which kept me smiling for 300+ pages, but then an hour after I’d finished it I was still thinking about how the geeks will inherit the earth, and about how friendships will surpass all obstacles, and about the basic human instinct to form familial groups and how that changes as we get older. He’s like that, is Douglas Coupland. “Susan said that the BIG issue nowadays is that on TV and in magazines, the images we see, while they appear surreal, ‘really aren’t surrealistic, because they’re just random, and there’s no subconsciousness underneath to generate the images’…To this end, I’m creating a file of random words that pop into my head, and am feeding these words into a desktop file labelled SUBCONSCIOUS.” “She said, ‘I don’t believe human beings store memory in our brains exclusively - there simply aren’t enough storage slots or interconnective possibilities. And so if not in the brain, then where? I concluded that another viewpoint on memory was to see our bodies as ‘peripheral memory storage devices’.” “Todd called me a cryptofascist today.In honor of this,I’m formatting this particular paragraphflush right.” “He had another Wallbanger - ‘You know, pal - maybe I should de-wire myself. De-wiring would reconnect me to the world of natural time - sunsets and rainbows and crashing waves and Smurfs.’”
Exploding Helicopters #3


Douglas Coupland - Microserfs
Publication date: 1996
Publisher: Flamingo
Price then: £6.99
Price now: a copy of The Cider House Rules by John Irving
Purchased from: swapped via Read It Swap It

From the synopsis: “The job may be super cool, the pay may be astronomical, but they’re going nowhere, and however hard they work, however many shares they earn, they’re never going to be as rich as Bill.”

Amazing true fact: I have never come across anyone who doesn’t like Douglas Coupland. I’m about half a generation too young to fit into the ‘demographic’ that he apparently became a ‘spokesman’ for when he bottled their ‘slacker zeitgeist’ with Generation X, but I completely related to it for many reasons, not least the fact that I hate the word ‘zeitgeist’ and reject the idea of people as ‘demographics’. It’s a book I read and loved, but then I sat in my bedroom for a week worrying about whether or not my job could be classed as a McJob and whether or not I should ignore my family and move to a squat in Palm Springs. Coupland gets you like that.

With Microserfs, a book essentially about some misfit nerds who are working on a web start-up in the early 90s, I read it as an amusing little set of anecdotes which kept me smiling for 300+ pages, but then an hour after I’d finished it I was still thinking about how the geeks will inherit the earth, and about how friendships will surpass all obstacles, and about the basic human instinct to form familial groups and how that changes as we get older. He’s like that, is Douglas Coupland.

“Susan said that the BIG issue nowadays is that on TV and in magazines, the images we see, while they appear surreal, ‘really aren’t surrealistic, because they’re just random, and there’s no subconsciousness underneath to generate the images’…
To this end, I’m creating a file of random words that pop into my head, and am feeding these words into a desktop file labelled SUBCONSCIOUS.”

“She said, ‘I don’t believe human beings store memory in our brains exclusively - there simply aren’t enough storage slots or interconnective possibilities. And so if not in the brain, then where? I concluded that another viewpoint on memory was to see our bodies as ‘peripheral memory storage devices’.”

“Todd called me a cryptofascist today.
In honor of this,
I’m formatting this particular paragraph
flush right.”


“He had another Wallbanger - ‘You know, pal - maybe I should de-wire myself. De-wiring would reconnect me to the world of natural time - sunsets and rainbows and crashing waves and Smurfs.’”

--Tagged under: exploding helicopters--

--Tagged under: douglas coupland--

Today’s life lesson: there is always somebody wanting to read about Britpop

It’s inevitable that we occasionally make bad choices in life. Sometimes these involve calorie intake, sometimes they are to do with credit cards, or tattoos; other times you wish you hadn’t decided to have sex on a futon without adequate cushioning for the lower vertebrae. Every so often, you might make a bad choice when browsing in a bookshop and buy something featuring dragons purely because it was included in the 3 for 2 offer.

Do not panic!

You can totally offload all your shit at Read It Swap It, a site which allows you to exchange second-hand books with readers across the UK. (BookMooch is a similar service.)

I joined up a few weeks ago, and promptly listed a few of my more unloved books, including a collection of Seamus Heaney poems that was the catalyst to my dropping out of my English degree in 2004, and a quasi-political look at the 1990’s Britpop phenomenon. As I was listing them (you do it by ISBN, so it’s super-quick), I was like ‘who the fuck is still interested in this crap?’ but lo, within twenty-four hours I’d had a handful of requests. There are some crazy people out there.

When one of your books is requested by a user, you log in to browse through their list of available titles, and once you confirm a choice you both trot happily off the the Post Office and send your books using second-class post. Obviously, if everything they’ve got on offer is a bunch of crap, there is a handy ‘bunch of crap’ button that you are free to click. As a new user, you are limited to the number of requests you can make, but then, it’s taken me about a week to finish the first chapter of Money by Martin Amis, so it’s not like there are enough hours in the day anyway.

So, since joining up in mid-June, I’ve received these little beauties:



Douglas Coupland - Microserfs (1996)

This is about staff at Microsoft, and the back cover has the synopsis and blurb in little gray windows. It’s like when you watch Hackers and all their graphics are from like, the beginning of time. Before computer dudes learned how to put rounded corners on shit anyways.

Herman Hesse - Gertrude (1973)

I’ve never read any Hesse before, and I thought this would be as good a place as any to start, especially since the name Gertrude always makes me think of gooseberries, and I really like gooseberries.

Nick Hornby - How To Be Good (2001)

There is a copy of this book in every second-hand bookshop in every town in the world. I hope this is not a bad sign, but I could only resist it for so long.

Laurie Lee - Cider With Rosie (1964)

Can it possibly be as good as Cider With Roadies by Stuart Maconie?

Somerset Maugham - The Moon and Sixpence (1961)

This baby’s got a really pungent booksmell. Also, Somerset is a really cool name.

Iris Murdoch - The Unicorn (1970)

I read The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch and really enjoyed it, so I reckon this is a pretty safe bet. There Bond-girl-with-binoculars cover image may yet be a candidate for The Thumb Galleries.

Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler’s Wife (2005)

I’ve lost count of the number of times this book has been recommended to me.

Ali Smith - Girl Meets Boy (2007)

This is a reworking of some story about a dude called Ovid, but it’s by Ali Smith so it could feasibly be a reworking of a crate of steaming dog shit and it would still be amazing.

--Tagged under: read it swap it--

--Tagged under: ali smith--

--Tagged under: iris murdoch--

--Tagged under: somerset maugham--

--Tagged under: laurie lee--

--Tagged under: nick hornby--

--Tagged under: herman hesse--

--Tagged under: douglas coupland--

--Tagged under: audrey niffenegger--

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