It’ll come as no surprise to anyone who’s met me that I like
talking about books. I like talking about books a lot. When it comes to novels, I can – and often do – talk the
hind leg off a donkey (then sell it to Findus for a reasonable fee).
Horses for main courses. I'll get my coat.
My job does little to curb this habit, and as a result it’s
no surprise that the same phrases pop up over and over again. Case in point #1:
‘Unputdownable’. I hate this one. That is NOT a word.
Case in point #2: ‘I never wanted it to end’. This one I
understand. It is a fascinating feature of the human brain that, when faced with
a narrative construct; be it a book, film or play, it voluntarily overrides its
capacity for disbelief and encourages you to react emotionally to the story.
With a well written book, this naturally means that you form
quasi-emotional attachments to the characters. 300-odd pages later, you are
wrenched from their lives, never to meet them again. Life is cruel, and Hollywood
adaptations are often crueller, distorting characters, plot points and
story-arcs beyond all recognition. Of
course you don’t want the book to end.
Ugh. Ricky Gervais.
But end they must. If not, you end up with one of those
bloated series of books that even the fans are dying for closure from.
Thank... GOD.
A book’s ending can mark it for life. I’m going to make a
confession here. I HATE Jane Eyre. Loathe
it. And to prove this to you I’m not even going to touch the central
relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester. The VILE relationship between Jane
and Mr. Rochester.
Jane Eyre’s ending
is one of the most dissatisfying conclusions of any novel I have ever read. Let’s
take a look at the final chapter. It begins with the line ‘Reader, I married him’. Cue swooning, fireworks and uncomfortable
questions as to how healthy a decision this actually is.
We are then subjected
to that trope of narrative fiction – the ten-years-on retrospective epilogue.
Flying in the face of the golden rule ‘show, don’t tell’, every bit part player
gets a paragraph or two summarising their own happy ending (or lack of). It’s a
tedious, unimaginative and frankly ridiculous way to end a novel. I’ve just
picked up my old GCSE copy of the text, and scrawled under each paragraph is
scribbled and angry face and ‘WHO CARES?!’
Safe to say, ten years distance has not changed my opinion.
Why am I picking on Jane
Eyre, though? The retrospective epilogue is a widely used format, and there
are infinitely more sprawling versions widely (and sadly) available. Here’s
why. This whole, horrible, sickly ending was made possible by…
------------------------------ MASSIVE 19th
CENTURY PLOT SPOILER-------------------
Mr. Rochester’s mad wife burning to death in attic in which he has her locked.
Charming.
Let’s recap: One of English Literature’s greatest romantic
heroes is a man who locks women up at the
slightest sign of mental illness.
What else was he to do? Oh, well, you know… Divorce?
Seriously. Henry VIII made humping and dumping legal in the
16th Century. It was never revoked. Yet In lots of the great love
stories written between that time and the Twentieth Century, a wife or husband
is presented as an unmovable obstacle to Twu Wuv. What did authors in the
mean-time think divorce was? A stupid horse?
Divorce, geddit? Div Horse? ... I'll get me coat.
Now it’s obvious that having Rochester serving legal papers
to his wife would have made for a slightly less dramatic story, but there’s a
whole sea of possible solutions between that and enforced captivity.
Sign these. Or it's the attic for you.
In conclusion, the only positive that I can take from Jane Eyre is that it serves as very useful
context for Jean Rhys’ excellent novel Wide
Sargasso Sea.
--------- END OF MASSIVE 19TH
CENTURY PLOT SPOILER ----
Moving on, I hope that by ripping shreds into one of our
best-loved classics, I have started to make my extremely ranty point. No matter
how engaging the characters, how thrilling the plot, end with a fizzle and
everything goes out of the window. Long boring epilogues are by no means the
only way to achieve this. I have just finished reading Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff.
And I really really enjoyed it. It’s a fun,
high-octane romp through a world where good and evil have organised, mad old
bag ladies have made beneficial deals with God when it comes to scratch cards,
and bubble guns shoot out death by natural causes. In the middle of this is a
pervading theme of pedophilia which could have easily come across as exploitative,
but somehow holds the plot together perfectly.
I was racing through this story at high speed, desperate for
closure for what becomes a very tense narrative when I hit the brakes hard.
Twice. There they were…
Not one, but two perfectly unnecessary and woefully
underdeveloped plot twists that hit hard, one after the other, in an M Night
Shyamalan-esque display of ‘twist for twist’s sake’. They threw the story
horribly off-kilter and brought all of the intrigue to a screeching halt. Puzzled,
I put the book down. Why does this happen? I’ve worked in publishing for long
enough to know that novels are not like coursework essays. They aren’t written
chronologically, leaving the author on deadline-eve high on caffeine and
Ben&Jerry’s desperately trying to bring the plot to any conclusion
possible. Not in any publishing company I’ve come across, anyway. Somewhere
there might be an editor waiting with a stop-watch and red pen at the ready,
waiting to scrawl a big F in the margins, and possibly even the terrifying ‘See Me’ at the bottom – but I doubt it.
Sorry, Mr. Dickens, but we have some concerns about the ending...
If this blog post serves any purpose, I hope it will be to
encourage its very limited readership to demand MORE from their fiction, and to
put it out there that ‘Classic’ does not necessarily equal ‘Flawless’. Like all
consumer products, fiction is constantly shifting and evolving to meet the
demands of the consumer (hence our shop’s bewildering array of 50 Shades-alikes mouldering on a shelf).
Endings should not be consigned to a few throw-away lines.
They serve as the final impression a reader will have of the book. Make them
count.
The End
Epilogue:
The author went on to have a very satisfying dinner of
salmon and rice and is now eyeing the chocolate biscuits with interest.
Jane Eyre remained
unaffected by the author’s criticism and still resides in the classic
literature section with Mr. Rochester.
Henry VIII is still dead.
M Night Shyamalan is probably working on a twist within a
twist within a twist.
To be frank, I have no excuse but for
a spectacular case of writer’s block. To put this into perspective, please note
that before my previous hard drive fritzed itself into oblivion, (taking with
it 10 years of photos and music), there was a word doc permanently open,
waiting for my thoughts and feelings regarding a book. One specific book: The Rules According to JWOWW!
I wonder what she's measuring?
I never thought that there would be a barrel I wouldn’t
scrape in order to secure an easy laugh. But this book, by Jersey Shore
‘Guidette’ Jeni Farley, proved to be my
Waterloo. I read the book from cover to cover, I really did. And honestly, it
was exactly what you’d expect. There’s very little fun to be had (as I
discovered) in attempting to mock something you knew would be completely
mockable. And so, for two months the
document sat accusingly in my task bar as I gradually deleted its contents.
When my hard drive gave up the ghost, only one part of my review remained. A quote
taken from the book, along with the only picture that could possibly do it any justice. Before
moving on, therefore, I present you with my review of The Rules According to JWOWW! – A.K.A: The Unsnarkable rules of Jeni Farley .
‘Hanging with the hottest gorilla in the club’.
There. With that out of the way, let’s move on to something ENTIRELY unexpected.
Sylvia Plath’s The
Bell Jar is celebrating (is that the right word?) its fiftieth year of
publication. It’s a sad truth that despite its brilliance, it never received
the attention or praise of her poetic works. Nevertheless, if the words ‘Sylvia
Plath’ are in any way familiar to you, you won’t need to have read the novel to
know it’s not a feel-good romp. Frolics, hi-jinks and humorous lessons on life,
love and shopping are notably absent. Throw in the biographical detail that her
suicide followed publication by a few short months and the clouds darken ever
further over the novel. In an extract from a letter written to her mother Plath
writes: “…I think it will show how isolated a person feels
when he is suffering a breakdown... I've tried to picture my world and the
people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar.”
So imagine my surprise when the new, 50th
anniversary edition of the book plopped merrily onto my trolley.
Look back at the quote, now back at the cover. Quote… cover…
quote… cover…
… I know, right?
Many column inches have been filled over the weekend on this
topic. The the cover has been ridiculed almost unanimously
for missing the point by a very wide
margin indeed.
I have to admit that the vitriol expressed has been slightly
unwarranted. Yes, it bears no relevance to the book’s contents in the
slightest, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth is, let’s face it, ever so
slightly Over The Top.
Just tell me WHY?!?
It has been accused of being anti-feminist.
It’s a woman wearing make-up.
A woman wearing make-up is not by definition anti-feminist
.
I would cheerfully kick anyone who questioned my feminist
credentials in the groin. But I would also do so to anyone attempting to rob me
of my blusher and eyeliner.
Preciousss....
Crotch kicking all round. That’s feminism.
(nb: please note that that is not the definition
of feminism. Quote me on that and I’ll kick you i….. etc. etc.)
Insensitive? Yes. Bizarre? Yes. Demeaning? No.
I would argue that we have been heading in this direction
for a very long time. Having worked with books all of my adult life, I have
seen book covers of all types cross my desk and counter, and have hated a good
60% of them. Anodyne, boring and frankly bizarre, they often do the book’s
contents a huge disservice. I am not alone. My colleague who runs the SciFi
section of our shop emits audible groans when yet another book lands on her trolley with a mysterious cloaked
figure in profile or middle distance, often accompanied by the outline of a
weapon. In silhouette.
The adventures of one man and his dressing gown.
Her point is a good one. For a bookseller passionate
about extolling the virtues of science fiction to readers wary of the clichés
and tropes of the genre, these covers do her no favours whatsoever. It is painfully obvious that in many cases,
no one beyond a couple of editors have bothered reading the contents before
deciding on the cover. Now that’s marketing for you.
I could go on...
In my opinion, the ridiculous cover gracing The Bell Jar is the logical conclusion to
years and years of awful artwork decisions. It is only because the subject is
so well known for being the polar opposite to the spirit of the cover that it
has attracted this level of press attention.
There are, I think, two directions in which the publishing
industry can now head. Either a sea change occurs; with an increase of money,
resources and (frankly) imagination
going into cover art… OR we take it to the other extreme: contrapuntal jacket design.
I would genuinely love to see publishers attempt to smooth
over their mistakes of the past by producing series of book jackets which
deliberately and heroically miss the point. With The Bell Jar as an iconic trailblazer, the books would each be
decorated with a photograph or piece of artwork which either bares absolutely
no resemblance to the book’s contents, or instead focuses on entirely the
wrong aspect of the story.
So taken was I by this idea that I have taken the liberty of
using my prodigious Microsoft Paint skills to get the ball rolling on this one.
Enjoy.
Admit it, you're all jealous of my mad Paint skillz
Sorry, I couldn't resist...
Having got the ball rolling, I'll quit whilst I'm ahead.
The article below was written over the past few days, over which I have been ingesting large amounts of pain medication for a frozen back. This may have added or detracted from the quality. Feel free to let me know which...
When I think back on my childhood, it often strikes me that
I was potentially a little bit… strange. Quite delusional, in fact. I was once so jealous of a neighbour’s holiday
to Italy (I had spent three weeks eating midge sandwiches and falling off
roadside cliffs near a rainy loch in Scotland), that, in order to ‘glam up’ the
situation somewhat, I convinced his entire family that the trip had been as a
result of a rare genetic disease which could only be treated in a remote area
of the Highlands. My rave reviews of the Scottish NHS proved so credible that
his poor mother came over bearing gifts and sympathy, to the total bemusement
of my own family.
Scottish summer: you can see why I lied...
I am sure, however, that the lies I told were never malicious.
I lived half in / half out of an extraordinary world of children’s literature –
and it seemed to me that my suburban English life just didn’t match up. It was
all very unfair.
My parents steadfastly refused to become anything other than
what they were. Although they displayed a level of eccentricity, this was
somewhat limited to my dad playing the recorder and developing an unfortunate
taste for socks with sandals. My mother seemed more promising. She had a Gallic temper prone to wild tantrums, a
belief that all products with the word ‘conditioner’ were interchangeable and laboured
under the misapprehension that sending me to school with a bowl haircut somehow
didn’t constitute child cruelty. In the end, though, they remained quintessentially
embarrassing rather than mysterious.
Ever walked in to find your mum happily pouring shampoo into the washing machine? I have!
When a nanny arrived at my house, I had just finished
reading the Mary Poppins series. I
eyed the new arrival with hopefulness and suspicion. Sadly, she spent less time
taking me on fantastical adventures through a London I never knew existed and
rather more time running up exorbitant phone bills and patiently ignoring my
attempts to produce lampshades from her knock-off Louis Vuitton handbag.
Perhaps my metropolitan upbringing was the problem, then?
According to Enid Blyton, the countryside was dotted with ne’er-do-wells, just
waiting for a small pudgy child like me to foil their plans. Conveniently, one
of my grandmothers lived in an inhospitable part of the North Yorkshire Moors.
After several summers spent fruitlessly searching for adventure, however, I
sadly concluded that the countryside, in Yorkshire at least, was as full with
sheep and their droppings, craft fairs and old people who mysteriously knew my
name as it was devoid of menacing pirate-type figures.
I don't know, maybe they're just very well disguised smugglers?
It is because of this, I think, that I started to lie to
myself and to those around me regarding the finer details of my life. I once
gave a school presentation about my side-line job as a lion-tamer. I may have
fooled precisely no one, but my classmates and teachers were nice enough to
play along, at least to my face.
It may only have lasted a couple of years, but thinking of
my career as an extraordinarily inept fibber makes me squirm with embarrassment.
It is with some degree of relief, therefore, that I have just discovered that
one of the major sources of my self-delusion was, in fact, somewhat inaccurate.
My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald
Durrell, was, is and will remain one of my favourite books of all. An autobiographical
account of the great zoologist’s childhood spent roaming in a semi-feral state
around Corfu, it cheerfully makes no distinction between its human and animal
cast of characters. All are treated with a sort of wry amusement, deep
affection and a meticulous dissemination of their strengths and foibles.
One
character with more foibles to exploit than any other is his eldest brother,
Larry. A character of enormous self-importance, he stalks in a grandiose manner
through the pages, doling out unwanted advice, taking almost hysterical exception
to any perceived offence or challenge and displaying an attitude more commonly
associated with maiden aunts in Richmal Crompton books when confronted with any of Gerry’s vast array of
pets.
Having principally read this book as a child, Larry took a
back seat in my affections. He was too adult a character, patronising and
aloof. I preferred reading about the bird and mammal life which Gerry scooped
up on his travels and inflicted upon his long-suffering family. Amongst these were
Quasimodo the Pigeon, Alecko the gull, Widdle, Puke and Roger the dogs, and the
magenpies. All of these served to infuriate Larry, and I sided with them
wholeheartedly. I was a little sceptical when reading about Gerry’s attempts to
smuggle in a family of scorpions, but when they turned on the older brother in
question, I cheered them on quite happily.
In short, Larry was, if not an antagonist (he was presented
with far too much humour and affection to assume that role), then certainly a
model of an older brother I was so glad not to have. I couldn’t fathom how
difficult it must have been to live with him. Until a few days ago.
I recently picked up The
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. A few pages in, I realised that instead of taking
in the details of the story, I was instead being nagged by a feeling that I had
missed a connection. Finally, it hit me.
The author, Lawrence Durrell, was Larry.
Tada!
At first, this delighted me. How much better would the world
be if all giants of the literary scene were presented to us as flawed
personalities, bathed in the harsh-spotlight of a child’s -eye-view? Instead of the awed tones of literary
biographies, how much more fun would it be to discover that Hilary Mantel once threw
a tantrum whilst riding a donkey on Blackpool beach? Or that Will Self collected Beanie Babies until an embarrassingly advanced age? If I owned a
publishing company, those would be the authors I’d seek to recruit.
That's pretty impressive, Will. But you know they're not worth anything if you cut the tags off, right?
But perhaps it’s best that I don’t. On doing a little
research, I discovered that it wasn’t quite that simple. Like me, (and this is
a bit of a stretch, comparison-wise), Gerald Durrell was a bit of a fibber. The
Durrells did live in Corfu, and Larry did live with them. For a while. But
firstly, he was married. Secondly, he only lived with the rest of his family
immediately after their arrival. Shortly afterwards, he and his wife (who is
never mentioned in MFaOA) moved out –
and who can blame them, in an environment where a little boy was not unknown to
hoard vicious and/or venomous creatures inside the house?
Should we be disappointed by this? I don’t think so. Authors
(and small children) often exaggerate scenarios for comic effect, and the
reading experience is all the more pleasurable for it. It may be more
fashionable these days to advertise embellishments ‘on the tin’ so to speak;
Jenny Lawson calls her autobiographical collection of blog posts a ‘mostly true
memoir’ and Miles Kington hinted at it in the title of his book ‘Someone Like Me: Stories From a Borrowed Childhood’,
but the tactic is exactly the same: enhancing comic scenarios for the benefit
of the reader. Furthermore, the only potential loser from the situation would
have been Lawrence himself, but he was clear-eyed enough about it all to see
that, at its heart, his brother’s book captured family life with the Durrells
pretty well, saying:
"This is a very wicked, very funny, and I'm afraid
rather truthful book — the best argument I know for keeping thirteen-year-olds
at boarding-schools and not letting them hang about the house listening in to
conversations of their elders and betters."
In other news: vampires don’t sparkle, Hogwarts doesn't exist,
owls aren't scared of the dark, inviting tigers round to tea leads to rather
more than being eaten out of house and home - and I never required specialist Scottish surgery...
I would love to say that the bottom-clenching dedication I
have been known to display towards correct running-order in my section at work
extends to my own personal collection. Really, I would.
Unfortunately, that would be a white lie. Or an untruth.
Ok, a complete whopper.
The maths is simple:
(26 years of almost continuous reading + shelf-space
equivalent of about 3 Billy Bookcases) x 1 off-duty bookseller = a total mess
As a result, when the tectonic shifts in the array of books
directly above my bed lead – as they often do – to an avalanche (bookslide?),
it is just as likely that I will be woken up by a John Klassen picture book
(light, but sharp) to the neck as it is that I will instead be roused by a
Graham Greene hardback (blunt, but extremely forceful) to the face. I call it
my bibliogralarm and it never fails to surprise.
(On a not-unrelated note, I have had to remove this book of
postcards featuring hirsute gentlemen of the 1970s from the shelf in question.
It’s just too terrifying a wake-up call.)
A slightly less painful side effect to my blatant disregard
of the laws of both alphabetisation and the Dewey Decimal System is that books that I associate with
each-other tend to stick together, regardless how tenuous the thread.
Such a thread links The
First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith, The Queen and I by Sue Townsend, The Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovitch and, incongruously, Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence.
These books can be found huddling together on one shelf because, when reading
them in my pre- teen years, I discovered that they all shared one common
feature: S.E.X.
Let's play odd one out...
Though varying wildly
in style, tone and explicitness, they taught me what my science teacher
had yet to work up to courage to tell us. Most children learn about the birds and the bees through a confusing amalgamation of medical diagrams, gabbled parental speeches and what is often ominously referred to as The Street.
Although it took me another term or so to be able to confidently label an anatomic chart (the names I had learnt were somewhat more libidinous and to be used within the school confines at my peril), the frank descriptions afforded in my reading material assured me a working knowledge of the ins and outs of the process, so to speak.
Pre-teen inquisitiveness appeased,
the books in question came to rest beside each other on my bookcase. As the book-tide ebbs and
flows around my room, they remain together, reminding me of how I worked out
the mechanics of sex whilst drawing unwise and frankly bizarre associations between
the reproductive act and guns, gardeners, big hair and communist revolutions.
The ingredients to sexual chemistry, by Siouxsie Pimm, aged 12 3/4
In the weeks and months ahead, it is likely that I will
return to the bizarre juxtapositions of my books as fodder for the ever hungry ‘subject’
field of this blog. However, for the time being I leave you with the pleasing
thought that should a Marxist revolution championed by armed gardeners with
1980s hair occur, my agenda may differ somewhat from that of the rest of the
population.
It feels a bit early to be posting about Christmas, but since festive stock started arriving at the shop in early August, and the DFS Christmas advert - that hallowed benchmark of the holiday season - has taken over our televisions and 4OD screens, I don’t feel like I’m jumping the gun.
It’s a common misapprehension that the process of gift-giving during the festive season is an intuitive thing. Perusing last year’s crop of irritating brain worms (sorry, adverts), one would be forgiven for thinking that one trip to a larger branch of Curry’s would get the job done. But for those of us who feel unable to stretch our meagre budgets to cover the entirety of the white-goods aisle of a large electricals store, it can be, and often is, a very trying experience.
Yeah, Santa's low on ideas, too
Gifts for well-loved friends, lovers and family members pose their own set of problems. However, buying for the newest member of a social group, an odd uncle or terrifying colleague can reduce even the savviest shopper to a gibbering wreck, grabbing wildly at the humorous cravats in Tie-rack, then wondering in baffled self-loathing what possessed you as the recipient opens your carefully packaged otter-themed tie with polite disinterest.
Thanks, that'll go great with my otter slippers you got me last year...
Here’s what I suggest. In times of doubt, go with a book. Books are never offensive (unless you really lose it and plump for Mein Kampf). Here is my guide to book-buying for awkward people.
1: THE MISANTHROPE
"I hate everything. Apart from this hat. This hat is inheriting everything"
Actual quote: ‘Could you help me find a present for my mother, please? She hates everything and everyone. No, seriously, she’s a horrible person’
Suggested gift: We Need to Talk About Kevin
The blurb: Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband, Franklyn.
Why it’s perfect: Nothing good happens in this book. Seriously. Nothing. It’s an unrelentingly bleak description of motherhood, childhood, the works. It’s everything a romcom isn’t. Reading it is like wading through a treacle of unending depression. Its glory lies in the fact that in spite of everything, you continue to pick up the book, night after night, long after lesser written works would have been discarded to moulder with the dust-bunnies under your bed. However disturbing it might be to imagine the misanthrope experiencing a satisfying tingle of shadenfreud from the sheer human misery contained, at least you’re offering them the nearest approximation of a happy Christmas they’re likely to have barring natural disasters.
2) THE NO-FACE
You got me a present, right?
Actual quote: ‘I don’t know what to do. My brother’s invited his new girlfriend round on her birthday. I’ve never met her, and all he can tell me is that she’s scared of hamsters. Apparently that’s hilarious’
Suggested gift: A hardback edition of Rebecca
The blurb: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…” Working as a lady’s companion, for the heroine of Rebecca, life looks very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsom widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding Mrs Danvers.
Why it’s perfect: Everyone loves Rebecca. Almost inarguably Daphne Du Maurier’s greatest novel, it’s a ghost story with no ghost, a love story where the heroine is never named but is, by the end, undoubtedly the plot’s strongest character. It’s a timeless classic, written in a wonderfully unpretentious style that doesn’t put off readers who might find older classics harder to digest. More importantly for the no-face, it’s almost completely inoffensive without being bland. Gorgeous hardback editions are available fairly inexpensively without looking cheap. (If all else fails, the no-face should appreciate the fact that they themselves could pass it on to their own difficult-to-buy-for friend). Bonus points awarded to those who include the URL for Mitchell and Webb’s parody in the accompanying card.
3) THE GAMER
No, no, anti-stereotyping league of Britain, thank you!
Actual quote: ‘My little brother is a nightmare. He only ever plays video-games, but if I buy him anything, he either hates it, already has it, or everyone else in the family has got it for him too’
Suggested gift: Ready Player One
The blurb: It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty and disease are widespread. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation. For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle. Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions - and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
Why it’s perfect: Admittedly, if the intended recipient is someone who loves games to the exclusion of all else, getting them to even open the book will be the real challenge here. You can lead a gamer to sci-fi, but you can’t make him/her read. However, I am disregarding the massive proportion of self-styled gamers who don’t exist as a cultural stereotype and do love to read – if your target is one of those, so much the better. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is an absolutely perfect gift for anyone who so much as picked up a console during the late 80s/early 90s and has a working knowledge of John Hughes films. Every page is a nostalgia trip, every sentence an homage to a culture that spawned the gaming industry. The fact that this is stitched perfectly into a futuristic and dangerous world makes it more than the novelisation of one of those irritating I Heart the 80s nostalgia docs, becoming instead a tense high-tech thriller with its roots firmly lodged in the recent past.
4) THE HISTORICAL ENTHUSIAST
Sigh, I know... but I defy you to find a better picture
Actual Quote: ‘I’d like to get my Dad a fiction book. He only really reads history and it drives mum mad. He keeps talking about battles to her when she’s trying to sleep’
Suggested gift: A few here, depending on the period of history concerned. My knowledge of (and interest in) battles is limited, so I’d recommend taking your chances with a Bernard Cornwell or two for that sort of thing. Here are a few more options.
First World War: Regeneration by Pat Barker (if you’re feeling super-generous, stretch to the rest of the series, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road)
Mini review: Regeneration charts the real life encounter between war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen when they met whilst in treatment at Craiglockhart Mental Hospital in Scotland. Wilfred Owen was recovering from shell shock, whilst Sassoon had been committed for writing a letter condemning the prolongation of the war which was read out in Parliament. Barker’s book is incredibly well-researched but, above all, beautiful and sad.
The Thirties: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Mini-review: An absolute JOY to read. Meet Katy Kontent and Evie Ross and travel back to 1930s New York, where they roam around the city, being fabulous – at least, initially… What sets this book apart for me is that it never hits the shallow waters of ‘fabulous fiction’ such as Sex and the City and the like. Katy and Evie are fun but flawed and experience events that SATC wouldn’t touch with a well-manicured fingernail. But what’s incredible is period fiction where the woman comes out on top. Katy takes some stick, and doesn’t always win, but she always has a nice little comment to finish off the encounter – she always gets the last word. It’s difficult to write about this without making it seem like standard chick-lit, but believe me, it’s not. It’s just that explaining what makes it stand out would be revealing a major plot point. And we don’t believe in spoilers! Take it on trust, people, it’s a wonderful gift.
Second World War: Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt
Mini Review: This isn’t actually set during the war, but it does feature one Winston Churchill. It’s perhaps an odd book to choose, seeing as it never mentions the battlefields, the holocaust or anything from the war itself. However, it’s an exploration of Churchill’s depression, through the personification of the Black Dog that he so often spoke about. On the one hand you see how depression can begin; encroaching slowly but surely into someone’s life and personal relationships. And, on the other, the long-term effects; explored via the Churchill character, on your life and career. As depressing as this may seem, it’s a wonderful and enlightening book.
5) THE CULTURE VULTURE
Oh Google images, you never disappoint...
Actual quote: ‘So, this guy only reads prize-winning fiction – or at least nominated. He’ll probably get more Hilary Mantel than you can shake a stick at.’
Suggested gift: The Teleportation Accident
The Blurb: When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. If you're living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn't. But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can't, just once in a while, get himself laid.
Why it’s Perfect: I am now taking bets at odds of 90/1 that the Culture Vulture will NOT have read this book. Whilst it was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, it failed (incomprehensibly) to make the shortlist, and is not yet available in compact paperback format which usually boosts sales of such books. In other news: It is Perfect. In every sense. The story of a man trying so hard to get laid that, despite hailing from Berlin in the 1930s, he manages to miss the rise of the Nazis is always going to be an eccentric read. It combines history, satire, farce, raunch and brilliant prose in more or less equal measures. Oh yes, and did I mention it was longlisted for the Booker? It bears repeating as, when the Culture Vulture peels back the wrapping on this diamond of a book, you can nod sagely, quote that fact and instantly gain 10 bonus points (exchangeable for five mince pies and a second helping of brussel sprouts at the going rate). But before wrapping it up and saying goodbye, give it a quick read, careful not to bend the pages – or, indeed – rip them out whilst roaring with laughter. Yes. It’s that good.
That’s enough recommending for one post, I feel. However, if you’re still at a loose end, why not pop into your local bookshop and ask a member of staff for some advice? You’d be surprised how many people are shocked SHOCKED that we actually read the books we sell. And if I can come up with recommendations for elderly women who hate the world, I’m sure they can fix your problem too. In the mean-time, let’s sit back and watch the Christmas gifting machine ramp up. There are (unlit) Marmite Xmas lights on Oxford Street which seem to show an elf vomiting into his little elf-hat. Let’s pause and think about that for a while... Oh well, at least it’s not a fridge.
