Find out what's new on our websites, where we've been, what's on our minds and the things we're doing.
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Stand-up (for) comics
Posted Friday May 29th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaLast weekend, I walked out of the cinema after forcing myself through X Men Origins: Wolverine, or X-Men: Origins- Wolverine or X-Men (Origins): Wolverine or whatever punctuation they were using, and felt a little numb about the portrayal of the character I’ve followed since I was 13 years old on the screen. I didn’t feel that ire, that fire in the belly, that nerdish fastidious dissection of every continuity error or tick that contravened years and years of issues of 32-page garishly painted yellow costumed superheroism. Because, sadly, the future for characters like Wolverine is on the screen and as a ghost in the shell (this is an obscure Manga reference, I mean as a computer game).
Every Thursday, I make that same excited journey to the comic shop to pick up the week's new comics. I’ve been making this journey for longer than I haven’t now. I’ve seen the glory days of many tie-ins and one-shots and cheap cover prices and collectables and stories that darkened with our ages and tastes. I’ve watched the prices inflate, the stories reflect whichever film was about to come out, the number of titles thin (in addition to numbers of pages) and the…
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(Not-so) Young Americans
Posted Wednesday May 27th 2009
by James SmithThere’s no getting away from it: writing about the life crises of late-middle-aged men is the stock-in-trade of the contemporary American late-middle-aged male author.
But – boy oh boy – do they do it well. I’ve realised that I have become addicted to the way in which their characters gamely try their best to hold fast in a world that – to them at least – is going awry through no discernible fault of their own. Anyone familiar with Frank Bascombe, Richard Ford’s Pulitzer Prize-winning creation, will know what I mean, but I’m here to tell you that Frank’s in good (or similarly battered) company across the States …
I’ve read some of Donald Barthelme’s strange and experimental short stories, but I’d never come across his brother Frederick until I picked up a copy of Waveland in my extraordinarily good local independent bookshop in SE London. Set on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it’s about little more than a divorce and the realigning of one’s life priorities as one gets older, but the dialogue is so crackingly good that this most common of modern scenarios (with a few less than common twists, it has to…
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Interview with Jeffrey Lewis
Posted Wednesday May 27th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaMusician and comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis has always had a literary side to his work, singing songs with a strong narrative structure, creating his own comic book Fuff packed to the gills with smart references to literature and authors and also to the grand tradition of drawing stories in graphic novels. His latest album, Em Are I (Rough Trade) showcases science fiction tales about pigs bound for Avalon, about Minnie the Moocher, an alien and heart-wrenching yet wry (yes, really) narratives about heartbreak and love. His reading tastes are varied and he has been a fan of books and comics since he learned to read as a child. In the first of a series of interviews with artists, authors and such about their reading journeys, we talked to Jeff about Stephen King, Narnia and the Amazing Spider-Man.
>What books do you remember reading as a child and what excited you about them?
I read a lot as a child, all of the Narnia books and all of the John Bellairs books and lots of stuff like that. Do you know John Bellairs? Those were my favourites when I was about 9 or 10 or 11, sort of creepy horror…
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The perfect reading
Posted Tuesday May 19th 2009
by NikeshRecently I've been on the hunt for the perfect reading for during my wedding ceremony. It needs to be romantic, quirky, funny and hopefully not too earnest. It needs to celebrate an ideal of love I recognise and can relate and not something too intangible or personal to the writer. It needs to say something about us as a couple, and it needs to be easily readable. What else? It needs to be easy enough for my relatives from India to understand.
The contenders have been certainly diverse. There were calls for good ol' Sonnet 18 by Bill Shakespeare ('Shall I compare thee to a summer's day/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate...') as well as more leftfield choices like new Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy's dark Valentine, which calls love 'Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers/ Cling to your knife.' Maybe comparing your love to an onion isn't the best declaration of your feelings on the most special day of your life. Another friend put forward Edward Lear's surreal and funny The Owl and the Pussycat, saying that at his wedding, 'it was a big hit with adults and children a-like, and ultimately was incredibly cute…
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More book inscriptions/customisations from our Twitter feed
Posted Friday May 15th 2009
by NikeshAfter yesterday's blog on book inscriptions and customisations, I posted the link on our Twitter page and asked our followers to add their own. We got some really amusing ones in so I've collated them for you here:
@emma_caywood: In A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius 'New Trier New Schmeer, Lake Forrest Rules!' (Dave Eggers and I went to rival high schools)
@timnunn: I bought a copy of Stud Terkel's Talking to Myself in Oxfam. Later found he'd signed it 'Oh memory!' Brilliant.
@blazingmodesty: 'this is partly to make up for all the mistakes i've made so far and all the mistakes I will make in the future...'
@TBD_Jason: I have Murray Walker: Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken signed by Jamie Oliver. A work signing but there were no Jamie books left.
@KieraG23: every bday growing up my grandad bought me a dictionary & wrote 'Now that you have reached the age of reason' inside.
@OMaraBooks: Roger Moore to our PR Ana 'If I sell 3 copies, your fault; If I sell 30,000 all my wit and charm!' True that.
@OMaraBooks: James Elroy, The Cold 6000 'FEAR THIS BOOK'
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Found book customisations in charity shops
Posted Thursday May 14th 2009
by NikeshBeing a serial charity shop book-buyer, I come across customised books, usually a dedication or a doodle, and very occasionally a one-word unrepeatable review of the book. It's often from a lover or dear one, something that says something about the gifter and the giftee. One such dedication I've come across was in a secondhand copy of American Psycho that I bought from Barnados in Brixton.
Sean,
I hear this book is the exact mix of anti-capitalism and excessive violence that you love so much.
Enjoy.
Happy 16th birthday!
Love, grandma
Everytime American Pyscho catches my eye on my shelf, I wonder how Sean turned out after his 16th birthday. We are linked together through the thinnest of strands but I feel like that private glimpse into his life has bonded us forever. So I've compiled my five favourite repeatable charity shop book customisations for you, that either I've stumbled across or have been told about:
> War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy- Happy birthday! Thought you could do something constructive with all that time you spend on the loo. Love, mum> Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien (after Frodo…
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It's only words
Posted Wednesday May 13th 2009
by NikeshIt's only words, And words are all I have, To take your heart away...
As a mediation on the relationship between music and literature, it appears the Bee Gees were truly on to something. Already, this year has seen a healthy amount of books written by musicians, adding to the slew of crossover tomes we've already had from Henry Rollins, Louise Wener (Sleeper) and John Lennon.
In March, Anova books released a collection of short stories called Punk Fiction. Featuring writers like Salena Godden, Nicholas Hogg and Joolz Denby and musicians from different generations inspired by punk like Billy Bragg, Billy Childish, Kele Okereke (Bloc Party), Kate Jackson (The Long Blondes), Alison Mosshart (The Kills), it boasts an impressively broad roster of talents and voices that all share their experiences of falling in love with punk, or the effect individual punk songs had on their lives. Pick a song, write a story- simple. It's a worthy charity project with £1 of each sale going to Teenage Cancer Trust, showing that some musicians can really write, and others... hmm, well... others should stick to pithy couplets over arpeggio guitar chords. The book does manage to meet halfway between…
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A new phase for poetry
Posted Thursday May 7th 2009
by Anna McKerrowAlthough it’s been getting lots of press and I may not be saying anything original by mentioning it, I’m really excited and pleased that Carol Ann Duffy is the new Poet Laureate. You can honestly say that she deserves it. As a female poet myself, it is of course also most gladdening to know that Duffy has bucked the white male trend of the last 350-plus years. Laureate history might not be packed with the kind of exploitation that merits a Michael Moore-expose kind of rant – a power elite constructing a culture of fear around the creative output of female poets (maybe…); female poets losing hope and rebelling against The Man in a gun-toting killing spree (less likely – although there may have been some hairy moments with a fountain pen) – poetry is a gentler art than politics; however, it is sadly significant that it has taken us into the new century for a woman to get the top job.
I can also well understand that Duffy prevaricated over taking the role: as someone whose job features manipulating language in new and rebellious ways, the expectations of the Laureate are somewhat conservative – she will…
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Blaft Radius
Posted Tuesday May 5th 2009
by NikeshOf all the Indian publishing houses exhibiting in the hallowed halls of this year’s London Book Fair, one of the most interesting discoveries I made was new Chennai-based publishing house, Blaft. Their versatile list includes translations of old Indian language pulp fiction and folktales, and new experimental literature. With a future-plan to branch out into graphic novels, children’s books and, bizarrely, kitchen appliances, they are set to be one of India’s more dynamic publishers.
The hilariously over-the-top pulp noir of The 65 Lakh Heist (‘lakh’ meaning ‘a hundred thousand,’ so in this case ‘65 hundred thousand’ rupees) follows the adventures of Vimal, as he battles his way through the Punjab underworld in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. Mayaram Bawa, an accomplished safe-cracker and chronic jailbird, wants to pull off one last heist before he calls it a day. Wanting to enlist the best talent in the business to make sure the operation goes smoothly, he hires the wanted criminal Surender Singh Sohal, better known as Vimal, hoping that now that luck is on his side. Vimal is on the run from the police and unless he helps Mayaram, his secret will be out. First published in 1977 and…
