Grand Tour Of Forfar

Before setting off on holiday I learnt my hairdresser was also going away at the same time. While she was heading to Mexico on a long haul flight, I would be heading to Forfar. For our own individual reasons we've both worked long summers, so agreed that we needed a holiday[3].

There is a lot to do in this part of Scotland, and rather than give you a break down of the top ten activities to put in your Dundee bucket list I thought I'd stick with what I normally do: write about books, music and things with 'pop culture' references and footnotes.

Info Freako. During my first trip to Dundee I found Groucho's Records tucked away. We'd visited the Discovery Centre and had been on the lookout for something to eat and there it was. This time round the plan had been to eat in Madigan's Food Emporium amongst the bountiful book supply (they do cakes as well), though they were shut for a private occasion[1].

No such problem with Groucho. I had a good look through the records and CDs and came away with Liquidizer by Jesus Jones. I've never owned this before, I've had copies and streamed versions, and there was a nice, takes-me-back-to-1990s-shopping-at-CEX offer for me to inspect my disc. I checked and it looked nothing like Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation.

Sadly I didn't bring my record player with me to listen, I'll wait until returning home. Next month is my birthday and I will be taking my player, along with a selection of lps[2].

Luckily the holiday cottage has a DVD player and I've been able to watch Star Wars Episodes IV- VI. I've also watched the final, official trailer. I am excited, though possibly I am embracing the dark side of caution too. My ticket for the big show is for Friday morning, enough time to comfort myself against any possibility of it being a dud film[4].

It was a galaxy far, far away. Both Star Wars and Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy put forward the idea of there being a duality of bright centre and dull to a galaxy. Both also forward the concept of a drive that could propel a craft across the width of the galaxy, though in H2G2 this is considerably more difficult that in Star Wars[5]. I will be spending more time considering galaxies as I bought John Gribbin's A Very Short Introduction: Galaxies in St Andrews's Topping & Co.

St Andrews is the birthplace for Scotland, though it is unlikely there will be a feature film featuring Jet Li extolling this fact. On a late October Monday university students were engaged in RAG activities, which involved foam and literary costumes (well, Lewis Carol playing cards and wizards of the Potter world). St Andrews is an interesting, university town overseeing the North Sea. There is history here, not the recent, coffee shop comings-and-goings of coming-of-age princelings[6], but longer, further back in time history. The coast around here, Northumbria northwards, is carved by the last ice age, the rise and fall of hill and mountain caressed and stroked by the movement of a retreating ice sheet. There is a tender seduction by the ice sheet, enveloping the landscape with a lingering embrace that leaves everyone changed afterwards.

From Toppings I also purchased Frank Furedi's The Power of Reading. This is part of a wider Ilkley Literature Festival experiment, with The Art of Asking also purchased (this one from Dundee).

Another ongoing experiment is examining intercontextualisations with Monkey: Journey To The East. Hermann Hesse wrote Journey To The East (purchased Bouquineste, Aberdeen), and having read Siddhartha and noticing similarities with Monkey, there's high hopes for Journey. Alongside these book versions, there's also the Enslaved: Journey to the East video game, Damon Alban's 'rock opera'. Where do these text diverge and where do they align? Aside from the central theme, what do they include?

Television is a visual medium where a lot of information has to be delivered quickly. It wasn't until I read a story featuring Jessica Fletcher that I realised her late husband was called Frank. I have two Jessica Fletcher books now, the first novel in the series and the sixteenth (my latest purchase). Unlike other series where I get a little (slightly impossibly over-the-top) obsessed about reading in order, because of the random nature I watch Murder, She Wrote I don't mind so much reading the books out of order.

Out there in a different universe there is a lot of disorder because of chaos. Sorry, because of the powers of Chaos. Warhammer 41k is universe of war, the playground for strategy games and stage for role-playing. I've never really played Warhammer, mostly because I am not great at miniature figure painting and because I don't know many gamers around Leeds. My engagement with it comes through books, and the books I enjoy the most have been written by Dan Abnett. I think this is more Abnett than Warhammer, having read his stuff in comic books, other stories, and 2000AD, there is a noticeable style to his writing. One almost wonders if, like the Pixar films that are self-referential, do Abnett's books across all universes interconnect? Would Eisenhorn come save the inhabitants of Wild's End[7]? Either way, I have a new Dan Abnett book (Xenos).

Notes
1 - If I lived up near Dundee I would not hesitate to have my private functions here as often as possible.
2 - I will be thirty nine, and plan to mark this birthday with a copy of the Beatles's White Album.
3 - There is a Franz Ferdinand lyric off their first album, one that I think is imprinted in my mind as a way to approach a healthy work/non-work balance. Also, my hairdresser had a few suggestions on how I could achieve a plan to dye my hair after my birthday.
4 - This is the same reason I am not seeing Spectre straight away, and (whisper it so the fanboys don't hear) why I've still not seen Avengers Age of Ultron.
5 - There is a very well-known instance in Star Wars where distance and time were mangled. I won't talk about that, I will though highlight scene in Episodes IV (where Han Solo discusses 'travelling the length of the galaxy' as a significant distance) and V (where a short period of time is said to have passed for the Millennium Falcon to be 'the other side of the galaxy by now').
6 - Princelings, next to younglings, all slaughtered by Vader's fair hand when he carried out Order 66. Of course in reality there is no way we would herald in a republic by trusting the generals of an elite of clones coming from the Eton system.
7 - As I have been waiting patiently to finish reading the first part of Wild's End, this eventuality might happen, and I so hope it comes about.

Bridging gaps between things: Reading And Writing In The Digital Age (Ilkley Literature Festival)

It must be fair to say that given the title of my blog I'm probably going to be talking about music in all its forms and books in all their genre. Even when I try discussing something else those two things shoehorn themselves in, though most of the time I'm already there, keeping the door open for them to sneak in.

I give quite a lot of thought to writing. I am a writer in the same way a person with a camera on their phone is a photographer[1], capturing things that catch my interest for a limited audience of one, myself. My interaction with the books and music I write about is essentially just an attempt to capture that joy of knowing and sharing that looked.

Ilkley has a literature festival[2], and at the weekend I attended a session on reading and writing in the digital age. The Chair was Claire Malcolm[3], and Jen Campbell[4], Rachel Kerr[5], and Simon Savidge[6] were the panelists. There were some very interesting points made by all three panelists and the Chair, and given the interested parties in the audience (I have to assume there were other writers, bloggers, vloggers, podcast creators and curators in the Playhouse) all of these will be picked over elsewhere[7]. I shall write about the things that pricked my ears and led to conversations on the way home.

Instead of getting all Dickens-esque on you by stating there is nothing new, there is everything new, I noticed that the Chair and the panelists all discussed the internet in terms of making it easier to bridge the gap between different things. Online one can find groups with similar interests, similar desires, and therefore share similar tastes.

Interestingly, the power of bloggers and all also came up. Partly in how they help the conversations and partly in how authors can (again) bridge the gap between themselves and their audience. Rachel Kerr gave quite a few examples of how Unbound helps make this happen commercially; Jen Campbell and Simon Savidge gave the reviewer/commentator/interviewer/bookseller side of this interaction. Simon, who is always fantastic to listen too, gave the view as one of the many, us book addicts. Actually, all of them did.

I digress. At the end of the session there was a questions from the audience section. One writer asked how they could use the internet to market their work more effectively without "getting bogged down with Facebook and Twitter." The advice was that 'getting bogged down' is exactly what they should be doing, making connections with groups with similar interests and tastes. Jen Campbell had the best suggestion in that the writer should sell by not selling their work but selling themselves. 

Internet reviewers' responsibility when writing about older work was raised. It was generally agreed that when discussing such books one should mention the age at which it was written. Sat at home later it occurred to me that there is another side to this question, that of how historical novelists handled the times they write about.

Indulgent booksellers engaging in their favourite pastime of being negative. I had never seen Jen Campbell speak live[8] though knew of the vlogs and Twitter account, so it was good to hear her input as a bookseller. Possibly because I spend my time in record shops but I didn't know digital sales for ebooks had plateaued. Jen managed to conjure up an image of a typical bookseller singing the Frazer refrain of "we're doomed, doomed" while also selling more children's books. Jen celebrated the state of book sales and reading.

Imagine my incredulity when there was something a panel member discussed something I disagreed with. Luckily everyone was sat down and there was strong spirits available nearby.

Immense numbers of books are published ever year. Rachel Kerr suggested this was upwards of 200,000 and may be 'a bad thing'; Jen Campbell raised "Super Thursday"; and Simon Savidge and Jen both discussed the number of review copies they are sent both solicited and unsolicited[9]. Volume is a difficult thing, one can't encourage readers to find connections between books and authors whilst also calling for the number of books and authors to be restricted.

Individual taste also plays a part. Simon Savidge mentioned the individualistic nature of books (and ultimately book reviewing), and here there should be celebration. Celebrate all reading, from ghost written celebrities to writing about ghosts.

If volume is a problem show where and how it is a problem. All those books have a market, it might not be the size the publisher wants, but it's there, people want to read it. Eventually everything finds itself on the backlist, waiting patiently to be found and cherished somewhere, somewhen, by someone. 

In Ilkley there is Grove Books and Grove Music. Even though I was there for the literature festival I didn't buy a book. Instead I found a collection of Modern Jazz Quartet albums on CD. While I had one vinyl lp before the flood[10], and had heard other tracks by MJQ before, this was a bit of a find.

Precisely for the same reason that all but one paragraph in this entry starts with the letter 'i', one should always take a trip downstairs, through cupboards to Narnia, ask to take a look out in the back, or demand to see the special stuff. It might not look special to begin with...

Notes
1 - Here is a challenge for you, at what point is something a Something? Acknowledgement of one's work by others, receipt of payment for one's work, or actually doing something?
2 - Actually, since living in Yorkshire I've grown evermore impressed with the total amount of stuff that is on. Morley was the first literature festival I went too, there's crime in Harrogate, and books in Huddersfield, Halifax, Headingley, all over.
3 - chief executive of New Writing North, a great regional resource, twitter
4 - Booktuber, bookseller and book writer, twitter
5 - Unbound, twitter
6 - Blogger and organiser for the Green Carnation Prize
7 - I shall now attempt to bring as many of these posts together here, adding over time:
Simon Savidge - A Weekend in Ilkley (and Ilkley Book Festival!)
Jacqueline Saville on The Tip-Tap Of Monkey Keyboards
8 - I had seen Simon Savidge previously in Leeds, discussing his work and the Green Carnation Prize.
9 - Encouragingly, either collectively or individual of each other, they had good coping mechanisms.
10 - Lonely Woman, and yep, that flood.

Penrith of Eden

In the centre of the world there is a theatre where all the colour of behaviour explodes. I could expect different reactions from readers, from it makes sense to words are misspelt, from meh to I saw what you did there, Mr Dustjacket, and it is/is not clever.

My sentence was deliberate to prove a point. If one puts in the effort there is a reward, and this is true of messing around with words[1] as it is to promoting towns and businesses. And interesting towns and businesses need promoting to provide an alternative to bland, generic high streets and retail destinations.

Penrith is a destination. I've passed it so many times without stopping[2], but on the way back from Wickerman Festival we decided to call in. The rain was falling, we had no idea what was in Penrith, but there must be at least lunch.

There was, in a small cafe overlooking the corn exchange, soup and a refreshing cup of coffee. Highly recommended if you can find it[3]. Along Penrith's streets and roads were lots of flowers and pavement furniture (provided by Greening Penrith, though I wonder if they'd also be Penrith In Bloom). The independent retailers matched this with their own guide to cafes and shops, helping you enjoy their town even in the rain.

Of all the shops I found two bookshops. Hedgehog Books serves up new books and scones, with quite a lot of recommendations and signed first edition. Beckside Books also had signed first editions, though of the older, secondhand variety. Both are worth checking out, just like Penrith as a whole.

And if you're staying the night and go to the cinema, would you tell me about it?

Notes
1- What are you doing in that boat, Ratty? Just messing about, also stop calling me ratty, I'm quite happy most of the time.
2- In my head it might have been full of tigers, like those old maps that show land masses with dragons and seas full of kracken-like seamonsters.
3- The cafe would please all those who spell their sins syns.

Fake plastic shopping

On recent travels I noticed a couple of shops had shut. I know a lot of shops shut recently and there is nothing exceptional in individual shops shutting when the economy is the way it.

First up is Folk Devils in Whitby. I had been there in the last year, yet earlier on in May I walked pass and it was closed. No forwarding address, no notice. Then there's the unknown record shop in Newark. I have not been in it for at least ten years (not been in Newark more than twice in the interim years) so it shouldn't be a surprise.

Yet, should we be surprised. A recent visit to Newark had many shops replaced by restaurants. What local feel can there be if everything is generic burger and mainline clothing? There's one secondhand bookshop in Kirkstall, what chance does it stand against a monstrous new development?

Ah, and before anyone says market and cultural preferences, consider this.

A bookseller wants to sell you a book and will spend time recommending titles. It does not work with every book you buy on recommendation but generally you and the bookseller are in a win-win situation.

A property developer wants to sell land. They will generally fill their developments with the most generic, mainstream shops and coffee shops they can find because the most generic, mainstream sells the most to the largest amount of customers. The only risk they will think about is what threatens their development: if a planning office objects, use money to appeal to government. In a situation with a property developer there is only win-lose, and customers, even generic, mainstream ones, will lose out.

Considering the variety of space available in a development like Trinity it would be interesting if there was more variety in the shops. The most alt shop in there at the moment is owned by Sports Direct. There's bling but no bookshops, fashion without style.

That's what's on offer from the developers, fake plastic trees. Customers could do with real ones.

Postscript. Yes, that is a reference to Canary Wharf.

Where did I go...

A slight hiatus recently, though have still been reading and listening. Since I last wrote I've been listening to James and Brian Eno's Wah Wah, possibly my most favourite James l.p., and read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and The Game Of Thrones by George R R Martin.

A weekend was spent in Oxford for the Bookcrossing 2015 conference. Alongside the book swapping (there were a lot of books wild released on Sunday across Oxford). I managed to find Truck Store, purchasing the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1 and a secondhand Never Loved Elvis by the Wonderstuff. Truck Store is nice, small and friendly, though I was a little put off by the coffee shop side of the business. Coffee drinkers aren't necessarily the best vinyl listeners, and watching boys under the age of ten run around knocking CD cases off shelves wasn't my kind of shopping experience.

What is my most desired shopping experience? Why yes, a publisher selling all the titles in a series. Oxford is home to Oxford University Press, a fact that had been unknown to me in a physical sense until walking pass the shop front. I like the Short Introductions series, and came away with some rarer (to me) titles including Ethnomusicology (like being an existentialist seems that I share some key traits of an ethnomusicologist), dinosaurs, and a signed book on the ice age. I know, signed and about the ice age.

Norwich is a fine city and is home to Fine City Sounds. While flicking through the rather lovely sized collection (and reasonably priced too) I got to listen to some interesting thoughts from another customer about Joy Division. Obscure is the word, though batdodah is also descriptive.

Obscure in a more pleasant way is searching for rare records by bands long disappeared. The Joy Division *fan* found something I wanted. Luckily he returned Urusei Yatsura's Fake Fur 7inch single on white vinyl. 'Tis a Pavement- and Sonic Youth-referencing joy.

I can remember my first ever Urusei Yatsura gig in Lincoln when they toured with Mogwai. On my record shelf there's a signed split single from the tour, and it is next to another split single from Lincoln, Agebaby and Olivia Honey.

All of that is almost twenty years ago. And yet, with that magic that music has, it's all there fresh in the memory. The absolute way Frequency Dip "came into my life and stayed there for a while" (to paraphrase Honesty Joe off the same l.p.). The way bands like Urusei Yatsura live on in collections, why it's nice finding The Fall and Diana and Marvin unexpectedly.

To bring all this up to date, while in Oxford I let something go for it to be returned to me differently. Mort by Terry Pratchett has many personal memories and experiences. I released the second copy of the paperback in Oxford (with some very life changing moments linked to it) and replaced it with a new hardback edition with silver leaf on the cover (I think it's silver leaf, could just be expensive tin foil).

One of my uncles introduced me to Discworld. I have nephews, I know my course of action.

James,Wah Wah
Jumbo Records, Leeds.
Urusei Yatsura, Fake Fur single, The Fall, This Nation's Saving Grace
Fine City Sounds, Norwich
Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, Diana And Marvin
Vinyl Vault, Holt
Various, Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1, the Wonder Stuff, Never Loved Elvis
Truck Store, Oxford
A Very Short Introduction To: Dinosaurs; Ethnomusicology; the Gothic; Ice Age; Landscape; Happiness
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Terry Pratchett, Mort, Simon Sylvester, The Visitors
Waterstones, Leeds

Postscript. You should read The Visitors, it was recommended to me by a friend who also agreed the Brass Fastening was an MC from Detroit in the 1880s. Seriously though, read The Visitors.

Books baked well

BECT is a community trust that supports Bakewell and Eyam. They have a bus, and I saw it while watching rugby in a pub in Youlgreave (I'm naming no names as the regulars engaged in the dullest golf clubhouse chat ever). They need an extra, new bus.

To support their fundraising they opened a bookshop in Bakewell, the Book End, on Bridge Street. There's some nice titles, and it's freebie February so all books are three for the price of two. I came away with A Singular Man by JP Donleavy.

There were other bookshops in Bakewell, the eponymous Bakewell Bookshop (very nice range of books and sections for local authors and "set in Derbyshire") and a rather odd one that proclaimed itself open and locked the door. Seemingly this was a use of the word open that I am unfamiliar with.

JP Donleavy, A Singular Man
The Book End (BECT), Bridge House, Bridge Street, Bakewell, Derbyshire

Note: "It's only golf clubhouse banter, chat, jokes-". 

No, it's utter crap, it's men (predominantly) using language to create an Other they can be superior to. Yes, it's terrible your wife is having trouble getting a job due to her age, but it's even more terrible you said the French rugby player Mathieu Bastareaud was a gorilla (what, you thought none of the non-locals heard?). 

Equality does not work in unequal societies, the equality needed to support your wife is the same equality that does not look at Bastareaud and view him as a lesser human.

Not taking a Bath

I am not an expert on Dylan Thomas. You might name your favourite poem to me and I will be as unable to place it as you might my favourite lines from Under Milk Wood. So, it is with some excitement that I found a new-to-me title.

When I first saw it I didn't know it was Dylan Thomas. The spine just said Thomas and Davenport, and as such was just a curiosity that I had every intention of returning to the shelf when I had ascertained who had actually write the book, Who Killed The King's Canary?

A book that I would like to write is How Soon Should A Writer Update Their Second Edition? Herbert Read is a writer I am rather fond of, and in the same Oxfam Books in Matlock that I found Thomas I found Read's second edition of Contemporary British Art. The first edition  'came out six years after the second World War', so the revised second edition followed in the mid-to-late Sixties (it is packed in a bag somewhere and I can't check just yet). There are colour plates, and one of the black and white plates is of Peter Blake. I have so far not read Why Your Five Year-Old Could Not Have Done That, I assume it takes the more celebrating aspect of Read rather than the sneer of contemporary newspaper writers.

Two interesting reads to come.

Herbert Read, Contemporary British Art (2nd Edition), Dylan Thomas and John Davenport, The Death of the King's Canary
Oxfam Book, 70 Dale Road, Matlock, Derbyshire

Barter at Barter

Travelling back from Edinburgh felt like racing sleet and snow, it was in front, behind, at the same time all the time. When it wasn't snow it was idiots trying to live out their misguided Top Gear fantasies and overtake in inappropriate places (it's a fallacy, Top Gear is a controlled environment and very far removed from reality like all rom-com sitcoms are).

After the driving came the pleasure, arriving at Barter Books in Alnwick. Stopping here is a tradition, an institution. If travelling North of Newcastle I implore you to make it a stop-off point. A wide range of pleasure can be sought at Barter Books, food, words and music. If your pleasure does not involve one of these in some way, I am not sure I understand you or why you are reading this blog. Maybe one click too far has brought you to this oasis and you are currently contending with the unfamiliar desire to discover a book.

Or a record.

Or a fantastic slice of flapjack.

I didn't start off with a list. I had a couple of authors and titles in my head that I thought I'd like to look for, and upon finding nothing available on said 'not-list' I mooched around and wandered.

I wandered far and wide, among Christian mythology and Northumberland folktales, across dead desert and dessert to dye for, from Jonathan Strange to Strange Fruit. And I found her. Jessica Fletcher. In book form. There's a co-author, someone called Don, but the book I walked away from the scene of the crime with a Murder, She Wrote book. I might just have to read it next.

Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain, Gin and Daggers
Barter Books, Alnwick Station, Northumberland

Postscript. Another tradition, and another I suggest you try out, is drive along the A1 around Newcastle. Say, Whickham, as if he's betrayed your younger sister for money. It will help you feel better.

Post-postscript. I have a particular fascination with Jessica Fletcher and Murder, She Wrote. This has resulted in me watching the same episode more than once on TV during the same day. To paraphrase the shopping trolley from Bo Fowler's Scepticism Inc, I was mad then, I'm much better now, I only named a central character in a story after her (see Coming Soon).

An Armchair Confession

I need a soundtrack for this blog post. Something suitable. As it was cold out in Edinburgh I thought maybe Belle & Sebastian's Winter Wooskie, but that doesn't quite get the mood of this confession.

What works is Been Caught Stealin' by Jane's Addiction. It works very well.

There are some places that one knows like the back of their hand. I am fairly capable of making my way around central Edinburgh, and that includes some of the cutty-across-streets and bridges that crop up. Near the Grassmarket there's a couple of bookshops and other curiosities. It's Sunday, so a little hit and miss that smaller independent shops are open, and it's not a problem if they are closed, but sometimes it's worth having a look to see if that book shop last seen in 2009 is still there.

It is, along with a few others down the road from the College of Arts Library. The strip-club has gone, but the only people that lament the closing of a strip-club unfortunately will find another way for the sexual objectification of others. The others are closed but Armchair Books is open.

And how, so many nice books ordered in fairly useful descriptions. Literature, Poetry, Warhammer, Art Net. Easily a considerable amount of time was spent among the shelves, and deep inside I found a copy of Wisden's 2008. I decided against this as I don't remember much happening in cricket in 2007 (or at least I don't remember anything I would want to remember at a later date).

What I did come away with was Herman Hesse book (Knulp), Alastair Reynolds's Absolution Gap, and Asterix and the Banquet. The last two books are good finds, Armchair's windows proudly show of the invitation to find Asterix inside. As for Absolution Gap I had been standing in Waterstones Princess Street not three hours earlier contemplating whether I should buy this and end the Revelation Space trilogy.

Now, my confession. Armchair Books have a small selection of Richard Brautigan books. I even asked if there may be some others elsewhere in the stock. So, these five titles of Brautigan were almost technically in the right area but not together. I helped, I rearranged them and the next person looking for Brautigan will find them all together after Melvyn Bragg and before Brooker.

Asterix and the Banquet ("Text: Goscinny. Drawings: Uderzo"), Knulp, Hermann Hesse, Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds
Armchair Books,
72-74 West Port, Edinburgh

Minimum

I remember comic books I read in the 1980s. I remember Beanos and others, a really odd few months of reading GI Joe, and sequential art in the form of Rupert the Bear and other newspaper strips. I vaguely remember reading an odd issue of 2000ad.

I recall with a strong feeling when I started reading comic books properly. I happened upon some Simpsons comics and the rest is history.

Between 1996 and about 2004 I read quite a bit of Simpsons but fell out of love with it. My best ever Simpsons related  experience was reading them in a terrible flatshare in east London with my best friend in 1997 fighting away the feeling that London and university were not for me.

Today I needed to make up a minimum amount to pay by card. There was nothing appealing in the big two, so I feel on a old-friend and purchased Simpsons Comics #216. It's not 1997 good but for once in a few years I did think about reading it again.

Ok Comics, Thornton's Arcade, Leeds

In the back is the gateway to Narnia

Visiting Horncastle in Lincolnshire on the chance there might be 'one or two bookshops'. I spent most of my teenage years in Lincolnshire (tend to think of it as my hometown and where I grew up) and yet there are a number of places I know very little about: Louth, Market Raisen, Retford...

And Horncastle. It's kind of in the middle of the fens, on the way to the coast and Skegvegas (or "so eggs gas" as predictive and ever-so-helpful text would have it), so you kind of need a car or the patience to use public transport. Once there you need patience to use the public car parks, East Lindsey District Council being helpful in not highlighting there locations, but there's so many rewards for making the effort.

First up was Jabberwock Books on St Lawrence Street, packaged with books. Unfortunately nothing caught my eye aside from a handful of Maigret books I already own. The market was in town while we had lunch, then it was visits to Age UK, Sue Ryder (where I almost bought a record until it fell apart on me) and the Red Cross.

Then we headed out along West Street. On the drive in looking for a car park we'd spotted a likely looking shop, West Street Books. How right we had been, the woman shopkeeper welcomed us with a description of the shop "and through the wardrobe to Narnia you'll find another room of books. Shout if you need anything."

"Or need help back from Narnia," my wife replied.

There is a treasure trove of books in the West Street Books shop, over many subjects. I saw two different versions of the book I am currently reading (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) and spotted some nice literature and poetry titles. In the end I plumped for Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, a book I hadn't really paid much attention to until now. 1960s counterculture literature appeals to me though I had been searching for Richard Brautigan.

With plenty of antique and collectibles shops, as well as three other booksellers we weren't able to visit, I think it won't be long before we're here again.

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
West Street Books, 9-11 West Street, Horncastle, Lincolnshire

Postscript. There is a large collection of Charlie Brown and Snoopy books in the West Street Books, and everyone will agree with me Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest of counterculture antiheroes

Wailing in Whitby

Like a dud note played in a simple melody, there is something not quite right about returning to work on a grey and wet Monday morning having spent Sunday lunch time eating fish and chips in the sun overlooking Whitby bay. I almost took my jumper off yesterday; today I am wearing a running jacket and a hat that is trying to  keep the rain off my face.

It was a whistle stop tour of Scarborough and Whitby. The weather forecasts last week predicted rain and 'the end of the Autumnal warm weather'. They had been wrong, the rain when it came was early and not quite as heavy. We didn't arrive in Scarborough until afternoon because of a meeting in Leeds, so the visit was a bit rushed. First stop was Taylor's Cafe and Books for lunch and a copy of Jim Dodge's Stone Junction. Down in the Market Vaults there's Revolution Records and nearby Mrs Lofthouse's Book Emporium.

Revolution Records was rather nice, there's a good selection of music (I only looked at the vinyl though there's CDs and a couple of second hand books) and the prices were reasonable. I foolishly passed up purchasing 'Now That's What I Call Quite Good' by the Housemartins as well as '200 Motels' by Frank Zappa (though it might have been listed as The Mothers).

Heading back through the town centre towards the car we also popped into Revival Records, again, a short visit so that we could also visit the Mojo Music Café. I thoroughly recommend this place, the coffees were lovely, staff friendly, and the business seems to do a lot to promote the local music scene.

Saturday night was spent in the best youth hostel in the world*, Boggle Hole. Aside from spilling a pint and a glass of red wine I am sure the staff were glad to have us there. With the tide receding we went for a walk, south first towards Ravenscar then northwards towards Robin Hood's Bay; this place is one of the most beautiful and relaxing I've ever been to. 

Sunday was a trip to Whitby and the aforementioned fish and chips. As it is October and there's not nearly as many people around we bought them from one of the 'award winning' fish and chip shops and cafés along the quayside. I can't remember which, though Magpie seems to spring to mind (though that might just be the sight of one on the wreck of the roof on the Majestyk opposite my office window). 

During previous visits to Whitby one of the record shops there always seemed to be closed. Luckily Folk Devils was open and I picked up a copy of Siouxsie and the Banshees's singles collection, Once Upon A Time. The shop is lovely and worth the wait.

Jim Dodge, Stone Junction,
Taylor's Cafe and Books, 14 Bar Street
The Book Emporium, 2 Queen Street
Revolution Records, Market Hall
Revival Records, 6 Northway,
All Scarborough

Siouxsie and the Banshees, Once Upon A Time,
Folk Devils, 16 Sandgate, Whitby

Notes

*This come from a survey of two people in the age bracket 29 - 39.

My reading habits...

In November I will be 38. My parents-in-law bought me a gift of a Reading Spa from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights. Prior to attending I had to submit an email on my reading habits.

This is what I wrote:

I like well written, well thought out books. I tend to think of all fiction as speculative, I'm not a fan of genre as a means of picking books to read. I don't mind it being lengthy if the author wants to take me somewhere the long way around (Les Miserables, Night's Dawn trilogy, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), though being concise is also appreciated (Georges Simenon, Richard Brautigan, Francois Sagan, the Foundation trilogy). I like unlikable characters if they are well thought out (Johannes Cabal, Walker Percy/Confederacy of Dunces). I also like writers who can make illogical narrative leaps which actually make perfect sense when they are explained (Richard Brautigan, Hunter S Thompson). I suppose one could say I prefer older crime (Maigret, Poirot as characters, John Dickson-Carr as a writer), though time of writing is no guarantee I'd enjoy reading it (Len Deighton and Harry Palmer are a turn-off, le Carre's Smiley on the other hand is rather approachable). I like speculation, escapism (some times in the guise of a Warhammer book or Alistair McClean, Peter Temple off the radio), though realism (Trainspotting) or autobiographical work is interesting (Moab Is My Washpot, Down and Out In London and Paris, Girl With A One Track Mind). I like horror, especially HP Lovecraft, and have recently started to enjoy more gothic novels and stories (Castle Otranto). Douglas Adams's Hitch Hikers Guide has to be one of my most read books (I probably quote/paraphrase from it daily). I read graphic novels (Judge Dredd, Usagi Yojimbo, Scott Pilgrim) though I am not looking for a recommendation. I like a bit of poetry though mostly this comes down to buying the Forward Prize every year. I read Wisden yearly. I am not a fan of overly promoted books, I am not likely to want to read something if a newspaper columnist says I 'have' to read it. I like intercontextuality, 'mash-ups', and pop culture references (as perfected in the Simpsons).

The premise of a reading spa is quite simple. One talks for about thirty minutes, an hour, about the books they have liked and the disliked, and one of the staff at Mr B's then goes off and picks some recommendations. The gift comes with a voucher for books, so you will leave the shop with new books to read.

And my, did I. I had six from Mr B's, I found another in Hay-on-Wye a couple of days later. I won't list the titled that were recommended, just say that going along to Mr B's Emporium is certainly an experience I would recommend.

Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights,
14/14 St John's Street, Bath

Postscript. Okay, I will talk about one book I was recommended. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer is a very good read, the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy. It is sketchy with the facts, the narrator is an unreliable witness, and there is a creeping dread with just about every single page turned. It is fantastic and imaginative, and I devoured it as if I was the vanguard of an alien invasion force. Or am I.

Yes, but what is the murderer's demographic?

Recently I've been trying to write a brief outline of my reading habits. There's a shop in Bath that offers a book recommendation service based on this and a chat in store, it will be interesting to see what they recommend for me.

While I tried to be as concise and clear as possible one thing I was very, very definite about: I like reading books in sequence. I find it very hard picking up book number two in the series, or that the book in my hand that seems really good is actually is the sequel to something the author wrote five years previously. 

It is rare for me to read something out of sequence, even when the book is a freebie (I have a review copy of Peter F Hamilton's Judas Unchained, I bought and read Pandora's Star before looking in it). The only exception seems to be when the book in question is out of print or impossible to find, like Georges Simenon's Maigret series. There's some 75 novels for Maigret alone*, even when they appear in shops it won't necessary be in sequence (I know, why can't secondhand bookshops plan to stock only the books one is looking for, right?), or the title is the revised title. Gladly, Penguin is republishing the books in (a kind of) sequence, so today I bought third in the series from Waterstones in Leeds.

I didn't check this time, there's a corner of the shop that I've never been a fan of. 'Cosy crime' as a genre-definition is truly horrible. The only true cosy crime is the orange and purple number sometimes found in certain tea shops and charity shops. 'Cosy' crime is supposed to bring together Marple and Poirot and Hamish Macbeth and Maigret, yet when one actually reads them the crimes aren't 'cosy', the motives and the reasons are plain human nature, and human nature is messy. 

My relationship with crime fiction has slowly changed, moving from the sensationalism to the exploration and speculation on human nature. My relationship with Doctor Who has changed to, from the scary, behind-the-sofa Urbankans, to a more enjoyable, not-so-scary-but-still-a-little-bit speculation on human nature (again, I wonder where all this speculation is coming from?).

Ten Little Aliens, Stephen Cole, The Late Monsieur Gallet, Georges Simenon,
Waterstone's Leeds

* There's some 400 Simenon books. Maigret is possible his most famous work (it has been translated across the world, there's even a rather nice sounding Japanese series from the 1970s, Michael Gambon played Jules Maigret in ITV's 1990s version). More information here.

Not that Slightly Foxed, but a slightly foxed

I took my time, I circled around, read the contemporaries, made myself aware of some of the stories via radio and TV, eventually I got a MR James book.

The trip out of Scotland was fun. The rain was heavy and I managed to mishear a direction that resulted in a drive through in Edinburgh and Leith, but arriving in Berwick meant a trip to our regular chip shop (Canon, Castlegate). There's lots of books to be found in Berwick, with a couple of secondhand bookshops and charity shops. Berrydin Books is always worth a look, and I came away with an Ursula le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven. I'd never read much beyond the four Earthsea novels (there are four, I know most people know it as a trilogy but there's a fourth and it's the best in the series) [I haven't just stuck my tongue out in defiance, honest], so this will be a welcome addition to the growing 'to read' pile by my bed.

A trip through various charity shops and a market stall named Slightly Foxed but not the Slightly Foxed of London. Mysteriously I can't remember where, it might have been the heart-stopping British Heart Foundation, the blood-red Red Cross shop, or the plain and not very chilling Shelter, but I found a collection of MR James stories. I knew about James for a while, he's been mentioned by a couple of authors I like, and I've seen some Christmas TV adaptations, so this volume will be another good addition to the pile by the bed.

The rain held off. The old bridge looked fantastic against the new one. The ghostly closed shop frontages where slightly scary (in a broken-down, world economy way).

The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula le Guin, Collected Stories, MR James
Berrydin Books, Castlegate, Berwick
Canon Fish and Chips, Castlegate, Berwick

Almost a disaster

After much walking-past-the-front-of-the-shop-to-see-if-the-owners-were-in I spotted one of them. I knew what I wanted to ask, I'd seen the book four days earlier and really wanted to add it to my collection, and yet when I was last in the shop my wife and I were the only people around. No one to pay money to, no one to say what a lovely bookshop we were in.

The book was The High Girders, John Prebble's account of the Tey River Disaster of 1879. I had heard of the disaster though didn't know much. The book's wide claim of the decline of British engineering will be interesting to see if Prebble can demonstrate his argument. Though I think the desire to buy the book is down to two things.

I was in Dundee earlier in the week.

And, I was thwarted in my efforts to purchase the book earlier this week.

The High Girders: The Tey River Disaster 1879, John Prebble
Callander secondhand bookshop

Europa!

I have only been to Stirling once, to visit the castle during the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986. I don't recall it much, a vague impression of a long and cobbled road leading up towards the castle lined with antique shops with porcelain in their windows.

Almost thirty years later and only part of my recollection is incorrect. Stirling is a good wandering town, once you find your sense of direction. There's an art gallery underneath the castle mount that has a good history of the area (and there is a lot of history bound up in that part of Scotland).

Sadly though it was a bit of a whistle stop visit. Lunch, a couple of bookshops and record stores, then on to the next destination.

While we were in Stirling I also bought The Man With The Golden Arm (Stirling Books) and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Oxfam).

Leggy Mambo, Cud, Wake of the Flood/From The Mars Hotel, Grateful Dead, Big Bang!, We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Going to Use It, Southside, Texas
Europa Records, Stirling

Ok, Go!

Awards are funny things. In publishing there are some relatively small awards that should be shouted from the roof tops compared to some of the mainstream ones that seem to warp time to include the latest release in their longlist.

Today I popped into Ok Comics. I shop there fairly regularly, they keep me stocked up in 2000ad, and I get collections and trade paperbacks from there. Jared and Oliver are really friendly and helpful; ask for a recommendation and they will suggest something you'll be glad to have read.

Anyway, I popped in today and saw Jared being interviewed outside the shop door. He was discussing how awesomely amazingly groovy (my words) it was to be nominated to the shortlist of twelve comic book retailers in the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. Ok Comics is the only European retailer in the list for the award which is like the Oscars for comic book stores (Ok Comics words).

The prize is announced on Friday night, I can't imagine what the atmosphere will be like if Ok Comics won. Probably the same as New 52 launch night with Free Comic Book Day times by ten, and then some more.

Aside from the recommendations and the events, Ok operate a free graphic novel library and one of the best loyalty schemes ever. Visit, say hello, enjoy a truly independent shopping experience in Leeds: I am willing to say that more than 80% of non-sequential art readers will find something they will enjoy reading.

The other big publishing award news this week was the release of a longlist. It seemed to include a book that seemingly has only been released this week too, so either it is very good or very heavily promoted. I won't name names.

All I will do is highlight how wonderful the Green Carnation Prize is. If you ever get the chance to listen to Simon Savidge talk about books take it: it was one of thee best book events I've ever been to.

Postscript. If by popping into Ok Comics my colourful shirt should appear in the background to any video content then the only thing I will say is this: I am fighting a war against the white shirt-wearing office workers of Leeds. In the words of Los Campesinos! it is a war I will surely lose.

Shipping containers and their drivers

With some bookshops and record stores one has a pretty good idea where their focus lies. They might have a theme; only sell antiquated first editions; have the largest collection of romance in Cumbria. They may also have a pretty clear business plan in that over 95% of their sales are online so therefore their retail space is primarily to support this with occasional visits from the public.

• 

Secondhand books and records sell well on the internet, and the possibilities of finding that elusive record or book increase once one goes online. Out of print Brautigan? Why yes, those collected editions of the novels are online waiting for your card details. James’s One Man Clapping record which will not be reissued according to the band? It is there, on CD or vinyl, and tape if you want to go that far*. The internet connects people, sometimes the people charge a little too much or expect a low price automatically, and if one wanted to they could amass a library of word and sound from the comfort of their arm chair.

Over the Grand Depart weekend in Yorkshire we found ourselves the other side of the Pennines with only a trip down and around Manchester to get home. Sharston Books is in Manchester and we’ve been meaning to go for years. They sell online and have books upon books upon books in a warehouse and shipping containers, so it seemed there would be a lot of choice. Sharston Books is based on an industrial estate just off the M60, near Manchester Airport (I think, the only reason I have for this is passing the rather dated looking Airport Hotel near the junction for said motorway), and easy to find. It is a warehouse and there are shipping containers, though everything is relatively well organised. To me it gave off the impression of being a store for their online operation that one was able to look around – this is no big thing though.

I came away with the second volume of Robert Graves’ Greek Myths (a much better looking edition than my first volume), the first in the Vampirates series, and Douglas Adams’s The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. My wife also found Mary Poppins Comes Back (see above) amongst other titles, and we were impressed with the price. Might not be rushing back though if I’m driving by again and have a little spare time will pop by.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Robert Graves, Greek Myths Volume II, Vampirates
Sharston Books, Wearlee Works, Longley Lane, Manchester

*Tape is a terrible format, my original copy of One Man Clapping was on tape and it warped in a car stereo never to sound the same again.

I have never been more ready to do this write now

One of the reasons I wanted to start writing about book and record shops was the difficulty I have found in finding up-to-date information on them. While researching this trip to York I found one BBC student guide to the record shops from 2004 (including a good write-up for Borders) and a list of booksellers in York the majority of which appeared to be private homes where one had to request a catalogue before arranging a visit. The list of booksellers turned out to be doubly useless when the first entry on it turned out to have closed.

Rather than going through the twenty odd shop names I pulled out, here is where we wandered and shopped. The first bookshop we visited was Fossgate Books, which had lots of books though nothing to tempt us. After that we found some books in an antique centre around the corner (I didn’t check the name, they had about 400 records at £2 each if you fancy finding it). Then it was our first crossing of the city centre, via the Shamble Market to Goodramgate.

On Goodramgate there are a number of decent charity shops with both books and records. There was also a man who checked every hardback copy he could find to see if it was a first edition. Uncharitably we thought he was trying to find something to sell on at profit. From Goodramgate, across the river to Micklegate, where there were a lot of race goers. There is also a very nice Oxfam with a little cubbyhole of records in the back. And then off towards the minster, for Minster Books.

We came away from York with about ten books. Unfortunately I didn’t make a note of which came from where, though all the prices seemed fairly reasonable. Particularly in Fossgate Books, staff were happy to offer advice and see if there was something we were looking for. What I did come away with was a reason to continue exploring the city for its literary treasure.

Fossgate Books, Fossgate

Books for Amnesty, PDSA, British Heart Foundation, Oxfam, Goodramgate

Oxfam, Micklegate