I’ve always wanted to own a bookshop. Somewhere nice and quiet, with tables to sit down and read, some sort of tea and coffee arrangement and plenty of books to browse and buy.

I’m obviously not ever going to have one – after all, if Borders can’t cope, then how could I? But I can have a virtual arrangement, thanks to Amazon’s astore service.

You can find it here. I’m still stocking the shelves, but you should find some good stuff in there. In fact, they are all books I have read and liked, so you can blame me if they’re crap.

Disclosure – I get a few pence every time you use the bookshop. I’m not going to get rich out of it, though!

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Penguin, the publishers, have unleashed a cool idea: a novel written on a wiki. There’s a blog just for the project, too. Great that they are using open source tools: WordPress and MediaWiki.

The main Penguin blog (Typepad, boo) notes that:

Over the next six weeks we want to see whether a community can really get together, put creative differences aside (or sort them out through discussion) and produce a novel. We honestly don’t know how this is going to turn out – it’s an experiment. Some disciplines rely completely on collaboration, while others – the writing of a novel, for example – have traditionally been the work of an individual working in isolation. But with collaboration, crowdsourcing and the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ being buzz words du jour, we thought we might as well see if these new trends can be applied to a less obvious sphere than, say, software development.

Fair play to them.

[tags]penguin, a million penguins, wiki[/tags]

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Here’s the pathetic list of books I managed to read this year. Excuses: new job, wedding, house move.

11. The Prone Gunman – Jean-Patrick Manchette
10. He Died With His Eyes Open – Derek Raymond
9. The Damned United – David Peace
8. Four Stories – Alan Bennett
7. The Complete Talking Heads – Alan Bennett
6. Writing Home – Alan Bennett
5. Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
4. Port Mungo – Patrick O’Brian
3. Newton (Brief Lives) – Peter Ackroyd
-. Virtual Light – William Gibson (abandoned)
2. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (carried forward from 2005)
1. The Consolations of Philosophy – Alain de Botton (carried forward from 2005)

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Read Alan Bennett’s Writing Home over my holiday – probably, in terms of pages, more than I have read for the entire year previously – and of course it is superb. It’s actually my second reading, the first not really counting because I was about 17, and while I enjoyed it then, it was much, much better coming at it ten years later.

This time I didn’t read it sequentially, rather I dipped in and out choosing the bits I thought most interesting first. I was usually right in my judgment, especially in leaving the bits about growing up in Leeds until last. I liked the diaries much more than I was expecting too – I think I found them long and dull as a youth – and the sections about Miss Shepherd are superb, of course.

Some thoughts:

• He mentions Kafka and Auden a lot. Larkin too – those three keep cropping up. I’ve read the latter, and will pick it up again (Bennett’s review of Andrew Motion’s Life excellent and a useful companion piece to Amis’ from The War Against Cliche), maybe I should give the others a go.
• Sometimes you can be too self-deprecating. I felt the need to beat the book and scream “You’re a success Bennett!” If he is moaning about how terribly he is doing, where the hell does that leave us?
• It made me want to hunt out his other work. I’m reading Talking Heads now and will look at getting his other plays, both stage and screen, from the library or something. Has anyone seen and have thoughts on his television stuff, pre-Talking Heads? Stuff about spies and Kafka. I don’t remember any of it. I guess I was too young.
• C is reading Untold Stories at the moment, and I’ll grab it as soon as she has finished.
• Writing Home is a good title for a blog. I’ll take it.

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Originally posted on Palimpsest:

Well, I have now finished two books consecutively for the first time in ages, and at last my Palimplist is making some movement. I think I should thank Patrick McGrath for that. Port Mungo is every bit as good as everyone has said it is.

It is a remarkable book – superbly written yet easy to read, gripping yet horrifying too. I read it with an ever increasing sense of dread, the slow drip feed of what might be the truth opening more avenues rather than pushing you down one path. His characters are superbly drawn, and mostly vile, every one of them deeply flawed in some way, though some deeper than others, of course.

I gave it 5 stars, which it fully deserved, though it doesn’t get the red treatment because I didn’t love the book like I did Owen Meany say, or Gatsby. It’s a remarkable achievement, though, a brilliant book and I will certainly read more McGrath in the near future.

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Am currently reading On Beulah Height, by Reginald Hill. Not very far into it, but the change of pace is startling after Destination: MORGUE!, I have to admit.

There is a distinct paucity of Hill info on the web, just a forgotten author’s page at his publisher’s site, which is a shame. I think I might at least produce some links and do a Hill page on my site. Watch this, or rather that, space!

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Here, as promised earlier, is a slightly edited version of my Palimpsest post about James Ellroy:

Frankly, James Ellroy is God. He is without doubt the world’s best living crime author, and I’d wager that he’d the best crime writer ever. Fascinating, if horrifying, life, too: his mother was murdered when James was ten, a crime that has gone unsolved. He then lived with his father, a man who did the odd bit of accounting for Hollywood stars, was obsessed with sex and was hung like a donkey. Apparently. Anyway, James pretended to be a Nazi at his largely Jewish school, got kicked out, joined the army, got a dishonourable discharge (what an ungainly phrase), his dad died, James lived on the streets, sleeping in squats and parks, getting high by swallowing the swabs in nasal inhalers, drinking far too much, breaking into houses and stealing women’s underwear. All through his life as a creep (as he describes it) he was reading crime fiction, watching crime shows. He always knew he would be a writer, but just couldn’t be bothered trying. In the end, health problems made him kick the drink and the swabs, get a job and a flat and start writing.

Here’s a quick rundown of his work.

Brown’s Requiem (1981) – His first novel, written and published while he was still working as a golf caddy. I haven’t read this. I feel like I ought to, if I want to be a true Ellroy-phile.

Clandestine (1982) – I believe this was Ellroy’s first attempt to write about his mother’s murder. I haven’t read it. See above.

Lloyd Hopkins series: Blood on the Moon (1983), Because the Night (1984), Suicide Hill (1986) – these are the earliest of his books that I have read. Available in a handy omnibus format, they are Ellroy-like in their pretty graphic violence, and the high regard he holds women in is evident too, which comes out more forcefully in later books. However. Ellroy acknowledges the influence of Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon, and much of the serial-killer type content in a couple of these doesn’t really ring true: because, of course, it never does. Ellroy is much, much better when fictionalising real life events and characters.

Silent Terror, known as Killer on the Road in the States (1986) – I have this in my to be read pile. I don’t think it is amoung his strongest work, being his first real attempt at autobiography in his fiction. It’s a first person serial-killer thing. I’ll let you know when I have read it.

The Black Dahlia (1987) – Ellroy’s first classic, and the first book in the LA Quartet. He had for many years closely aligned the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short with that of his mother, and this book is his attempt at cahtharsis. It makes excellent use of some of the modernist elements of Ellroy’s style, notably the insertion of (fictional) newspaper clippings and police reports, often following one by one describing the same events, so with each one you build up a bigger picture of what is going on. It’s gruesome, gripping and the book where he really came into his own.

The Big Nowhere (1988) – The first book to feature Dudley Smith (edit: just realised this is a lie, he appears in Clandestine, apparently), though here only in very much a background role. The storyline is pretty bizaare, and unpleasant, involving communists, gay cops, an actor with a severely nacissistic streak, police corruption, drug deals and all sorts else besides. It’s the real start of Ellroy’s fiendishly complicated plotlines. Trouble is, much of the story is taken up with the hunt for a serial killer, and so I found it therefore pretty unsatisfactory in itself. It is essential reading, however, if only because it sets up the work of genius that is

LA Confidential (1990) – The book that really set Ellroy apart from anyone else writing crime fiction, anywhere, anytime, as far as I am concerned. The brutality, darkness and seediness that infests the novel grips the reader in. In this book Ellroy also starts really developing his style, the scattergun use of clipped sentences, one word sentences, one word paragraphs. Alliteration, too – sometimes you feel you are reading a scandal rag like those lampooned by ‘Hush-Hush’. Ellroy claims he writes about men better than anyone else on the planet, and he has a point. Probably his most famous book, what with Curtis Hanson’s film being released to tumultous praise in 1997. The film is brilliant, the book shits on the film from a great height. It has some good jokes, too.

White Jazz (1992) – Have only read this once, a couple of years ago. It’s widely considered Ellroy’s best, even better than LA…. I think it requires a re-read from me. Dave Klein, an LAPD detective, gets embroiled in the Dudley Smith / Ed Exley feud. The twists and movements and jumps in perspective come one after the other, and it is often hard to know who is on who’s side at any one time. I think that’s the intention, though. The Ellroy site says this: “When his editor asked Ellroy to shorten his 900 page work to 350, Ellroy did so by eliminating the verbs. Stylistically, it’s the strangest prose Ellroy’s written.” Too right. The last of the LA Quartet.

American Tabloid (1994) – The start of Ellroy’s move away from ’straight’ crime fiction and into a genre busting historical/noir/crime/politics thing he calls the ‘Underworld USA’ trilogy. This is brilliant, my second fave Ellroy and features his greatest character, Pete Bondurant. Telling the story of JFK’s assasination, and the Bay of Pigs fiasco from the viewpoint of the Mob, the FBI and the political establishment. I guess it might put people off – ‘duh, another JFK conspiracy book’ but it’s well worth reading for the other bits, which make up 90% of the narrative. Indispensible reading.

Dick Contino’s Blues and Other Stories (1994) – This is a collection of short stories centered on the characters in the LA Quartet. I haven’t read this yet, but own it and am looking forward to it. I believe it is known as Hollywood Nocturne in the US.

My Dark Places (1996) – Shocking. Part true crime, part memoir, this book details the murder of Ellroy’s mother, the failed police investigation, his life subsequent to that, and his own attempt to solve the crime. He fails in that, but the book is a triumph. I’ve read some reviews which claim the descriptions of police procedure drag, but they must be wimps: Ellroy’s momentum carries you through. What shocks is Ellroy’s candour, especially about his own feelings and failings. Excellent.

Crime Wave (1999) – A collection of Ellroy’s true crime (mostly) pieces from GQ. I don’t have this, so can’t comment, though I think gil might have mentioned it disparagingly in Palimpular past. Ellroy does have something of a fetish for documenting routine police procedures, which could get irritating, I guess. I’ll have to wait and see.

The Cold Six Thousand (2001) – This was Ellroy’s first full length fiction for five years, and the follow-up to American Tabloid, and is a beast. Long, inpenetrable, complicated and violent, it is brilliant. Some reviewers attacked it’s style, which I’ll admit is an acquired taste, but their inability to stick with it shows what a lily livered bunch of geeks they must be. The story mesmerises you – you haven’t a clue what is going on half the time, but who cares?! It’s a wild ride, and Ellroy treats his most endearing character (the afore-mentioned Bondurant) well and generally it ends pretty satisfactorilly for the reader, if not the protagonists, which makes forn a nice change.

Destination: MORGUE! (2004) – Another collection of different bits of prose, I’m not sure if some of the essays have been published elsewhere or not – there aren’t any acknowledgements. Covering true crime, boxing and autobiographical pieces, Ellroy is again at his most confessional. I’m in the midst of this at the moment, and it’s a really worthwhile read. The last two-thirds of the book are taken up with a 3 part novella, which I’m looking forward to. Will update when finished.

The follow up to The Cold Six Thousand and the last of ‘Underworld USA’ is putatively titled Police Gazette and should be published towards the end of 2005. I can’t wait. After that, Ellroy is moving onto the 1920s.

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I am currently reading the latest from my all-time favourite author, James Ellroy. It’s a collection of essays and autobiographical pieces, as well as three novellas. It is (obviously) brilliant.

I am currently putting together a fairloy lengthy Palimpsest post on Ellroy and his work, and the Wikipedia entry for him is rather sparse, so I might have a go at updating that. Will link to them when they are finished.

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I had a look round the Kingo branch of ‘The Works’ (which the carrier bag claims has the website www.theworks.gb.com) today. They seem to stock mainly remaindered stuff, but I got an Ian Rankine three novel omnibus for £4.99 and a volume of 2 Carl Hiaasen novels (Sick Puppy and Skin Tight) for £1.99. Bargain! I bought the latter having had my interest grabbed by this in the Guardian recently.

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