BOOKS AND BOOKSELLING THOUGHTS AS ONE YEAR ENDS AND ANOTHER BEGINS.
Books and reading.
For this first book blog of 2024 I’ll mainly be rambling on about some of my literary highlights from 2023 and I’ll also have a look at what I read in December.
It’s been an immense year book wise both personally and professionally. I managed to read 180 + books and comics cover to cover, almost 40 more than 2022. Given how stressful a lot of 2023 was for us I’m pretty amazed that I had that much sustained concentration. Having said that I don’t watch television or movies; books and music are my primary go-to’s as far as relaxation/mental stimulation go.
As a bookseller last year saw one of the most intense 12 months of my career. Books are firmly back in this country’s mainstream culture prompting record sales figures in the industry, culminating in an immense summer reading period and of course a bonanza Christmas. On top of that 2023 saw much change in our shop. Not only in with the way we work on a daily basis, but we also committed to, and delivered, one of the biggest re organisation projects we have instigated in almost 20 years.
On a personal level as far as my job goes last year was one of the most challenging, both positively and negatively. My role has definitely changed from what it was and I love helping my shop, colleagues and customers, but being closer to a larger responsibility base has at times been very hard for me.
Fortunately the management team I work with have kept me real, even when I felt like I was either losing my mind or just plain failing, and for that I’m very grateful.
One of the things I’ve always loved about bookselling is the huge variety of people the trade attracts, and to say that where I work is a hive of big, vibrant, intense personalities would be an understatement. Bookselling at this level isn’t for everyone. Both physically and mentally it’s a tough job that mixes together many disparate people and tasks, in in reflection of the world around us the relentless intensity levels have been huge during 2023.
Change is I think in the air universally.
Things being “unprecedented” is the new normal in this post Covid emotional and political mosh pit, but weirdly instead of feeling like I’m “living through history” it has often been mixed with a quite overwhelming ennui, exhaustion and helplessness, as well as that breathless excitement of constant unpredictablity.
Why this is seems pretty obvious to me every time I watch the news but it doesn’t stop it from being a daily whirlwind.
Fortunately books are always there to help. Being able to read so many incredible stories not only about the wild world of today but also the wild worlds of the past and possible future have offered to me a huge emotional comfort, release and untangling.
As ever translated fiction was by far the biggest growth area in my reading, particularly writers from the Spanish speaking world. Books by Yuri Herrerra’s novellas, as always Javier Maraïs, Guadelupe Nettel, Fernanda Melchor, Aurora Venturini and many others brought me incalculable pleasure and will no doubt continue to. Natalia Ginzburg, Haruki Murakami, Maj Sjöwall and Per Walhöö also featured heavily for me.
American literature made for me a big comeback here too. The return of Brett Eason Ellis, my discoveries of Harry Crews, Johanna Hedva, Jamie Stewart, Katheryn Scanlan and Donna Tartt brought me much joy too. Many British, Canadian and Irish writers were also a source of inspiration. Benjamin Myers, Deborah Levy, Claire Keegan, Saba Sams, Eliza Clark, Rupert Thomson and DH Thomas all handed in some incredible work, making me feel very confident in the state of the art in this county.
Non fiction came on through for me more than ever, an area that I really wanted to expand on. Essays, art biographies, film studies and even the odd history book passed through my imagination. Joan Didion, Annie Erneaux, Maggie Nelson and Leïla Slimani were all firm favourites. I’ve talked about all of these books, writers and more in greater depth in earlier newsletters so by all means cruise through the archive of reviews.
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December was a funny month for reading around here. I spent the first 10 days reading and enjoying “Blonde” by Joyce Carroll Oates but due to overwhelming anxiety and mental exhaustion connected to the final two weeks of our kitchen renovation, impending Yuletide and my busiest time of year at work I found it unsurprisingly almost impossible to concentrate on prose.
As ever in this situation I reverted to re reading old comics and art books which was tremendous fun. Since the kitchen was completed on the Thursday before Christmas I’ve read 2 and a half novels and a book of essays. This just goes to show that listening to your own mental health red flags can genuinely help.
Here’s the list of what I eventually ingested in December, to round off a HUGE year of glorious reading :
Jar of Fools - Jason Lutes. (Drawn & Quarterly. 2001)
Weathercraft / Fran / And Now, Sir is This Your Missing Gonad? / Congress of Animals / Poochytown - Jim Woodring. (Fantagraphics. 2018/2011/2013/2010/2020)
Wilson - Daniel Clowes. (Drawn & Quarterly. 2010)
Berlin : City of Stones / City of Smoke - Jason Lutes. (Drawn & Quarterly. 2001/2008)
Ice Cold : A Hip-Hop Jewelry History - Vikki Tobak. (Tashen. 2023)
Grandville : A Fantasy / Mon Amour / Bête Noire / Nöel - Bryan Talbot. (Jonathan Cape. 2009/2010/2012/2014)
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“A few days later, in Kings Cross tube station, his nausea returned
It happened while he was on the escalator, going up
Something about the people standing on the right, two steps apart, the way they always did
Something about the aluminium treads, and how they flattened as they reached the top
How endlessly, unthinkingly, they fed into the floor
The Kings Cross escalators had been made of wood until the fire of 1987, when someone dropped a match and more than thirty people lost their lives
As he approached the ticket barrier, he retched, though he managed to disguise it as a coughing fit
He was sickened by the living, not the dead” - from “Dartmouth Park” by Rupert Thomson. (The Other Press. 2023)
Thomson yet again proves why he’s one of the finest writers currently at work in this country with this mind boggling, freewheeling, characteristically uncommon examination of a disintegrating personality adrift in an overwhelming world. So full of surprising turns, his mastery of liminal plotting remains undimmed as does his uncanny ability to tell stories nobody else can.
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“‘Peel me, Lena!' Isabella would cry, pulling down her bathing suit straps. And Lena would oblige and pretend to enjoy it, even though she was secretly reluctant. It was always difficult touching someone like that - such disgustingly soft skin! - after so many months at the house with no one else around other than Mother and the staff. Even when she became older and more mature, it never failed to feel challenging.” - from “Jungle House” - Julianne Pachico. (Serpents Tail. 2023)
As anxiety and ennui converge about the repercussions about how AI technologies grow it makes sense that writers will start to explore the finer points of how things could conceivably go once we get further along that particular road.
The slap back from so called humanity towards encroaching advancements juxtaposed against our need for convenience and dominance over “all things”, synthetic or otherwise, is explored here by Pachico very effectively, disturbingly, convincingly.
Baring some emotional comparison to Ishiguro’s “Klara & The Sun” this excellent book is a very close study of how we need to blur certain lines between ourselves and the irresistible tide of progress, but here the concerns are more political, ecological and ultimately sinister
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“To have seen one bike movie is to have seen them all, so meticulously observed are the rituals of getting the bikers out of town and onto the highway, of "making a run," of terrorizing the innocent "citizens" and fencing with the Highway Patrol and, finally, meeting death in a blaze, usually quite a literal blaze, of romantic. fatalism. There is always that instant in which the outlaw leader stands revealed as existential hero. There is always that “perverse" sequence in which the bikers batter at some psychic sound barrier, degrade the widow, violate the virgin, defile the rose and the cross alike, break on through to the other side and find, once there, "nothing to say." - from “The White Album” by Joan Didion.
I have a strange relationship with this book. In my mid teens I bought a copy thinking that I would “get it” due to its seemingly overt rock ‘n’ roll connotations. Unsurprisingly it beat me; too dense, too liminal, too intelligent, to female and then some for my 16 year old sensibility.
Fast forward some 40 years and I’ve finally re read it and still this extraordinary collection of articles and essays confounds my expectations and my view of what I think I know.
The famous rock ‘n’ roll, movie industry insider and uncommon celebrity pieces are obviously great, but for me it’s her toothsome, razor sharp studies of the vocation of others and herself are what really satisfied and surprised me, as well as her now iconic examinations of place, space and time during that very specific period of Californian history.
Magnificent. Dumbfounding. Completely essential
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Thanks for reading, have a great new year.