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It never seems so dystopian when the birds are singing
Given you can't legally libel the dead, I will be disappointed with any TV drama about TV's arch-enemy Mary Whitehouse which does not depict her as a hypocritical crack ho, portray her killing puppies for kicks, and finish with the image of her burning forever alongside Cromwell in one of the deepest pits of Tartarus. Also from the Beeb: arrests and cautions for stealing the neighbours' internet. Of course, if you're inside as opposed to sat out front of their house in your car, you're probably a good deal less likely to arouse suspicion.
With The System of the World done, I've no library books left, and need no longer let my choices be determined by return dates. I confess there's a tendency within me which would let release dates take their place, but it's a tendency which must not be given its head. That said, I am on a pre-release at the moment; Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I'd feared that when people say he can really write, what they'd mean is that he can really write if all you read is books by and about serving politicians, just like fans of Houllebecq and Murakami are impressed because they've been trapped within modern 'literary fiction' and so find said mediocrities comparatively heady stuff. But so far...yes, Obama really can write, and he really does seem like one of the good guys. He's come right out in the bloody prologue in defence of evolution, for starters, which oughtn't to seem much but in modern American politics, does.
I like bookshops as much as the next bibliophile, but I've never really been into the blanket fetishisation of the independents. Derby had two when I was a kid; neither of them was a patch on the chainstores in Nottingham, which of course eventually colonised Derby too and destroyed the relics unfit for survival. Even in London, my nearest is the promisingly named Prospero's Books which is, alas, hopeless for anything except local history. And it hardly helps the independents' cause when you get snotty comments like this one from Crockatt & Powell: "A friend of ours, John, who runs a bookshop in Crystal Palace, had a great saying about Harry Potter. It's not a book - it's a book-shaped tin of beans." No, it isn't. That's exactly the sort of attitude you complain about when the big chains say "customers are consuming media" instead of 'reading books'. Perhaos some in the industry *think* of Harry Potter that way, but then the failing is theirs, not JK Rowling's and not her readers'. Regardless of one's feelings on her merits or otherwise, it's not as if she's the sort of hack who can be accused of jumping a bandwagon - she started the damn bandwagon rolling. She wrote the book she wanted to write, it was a success, so now she's finishing the series she envisioned. Was she meant to leave the story unfinished because people liked it? Do you even know what point you're actually trying to make, you snotty, sanctimonious little indie cretins?
With The System of the World done, I've no library books left, and need no longer let my choices be determined by return dates. I confess there's a tendency within me which would let release dates take their place, but it's a tendency which must not be given its head. That said, I am on a pre-release at the moment; Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I'd feared that when people say he can really write, what they'd mean is that he can really write if all you read is books by and about serving politicians, just like fans of Houllebecq and Murakami are impressed because they've been trapped within modern 'literary fiction' and so find said mediocrities comparatively heady stuff. But so far...yes, Obama really can write, and he really does seem like one of the good guys. He's come right out in the bloody prologue in defence of evolution, for starters, which oughtn't to seem much but in modern American politics, does.
I like bookshops as much as the next bibliophile, but I've never really been into the blanket fetishisation of the independents. Derby had two when I was a kid; neither of them was a patch on the chainstores in Nottingham, which of course eventually colonised Derby too and destroyed the relics unfit for survival. Even in London, my nearest is the promisingly named Prospero's Books which is, alas, hopeless for anything except local history. And it hardly helps the independents' cause when you get snotty comments like this one from Crockatt & Powell: "A friend of ours, John, who runs a bookshop in Crystal Palace, had a great saying about Harry Potter. It's not a book - it's a book-shaped tin of beans." No, it isn't. That's exactly the sort of attitude you complain about when the big chains say "customers are consuming media" instead of 'reading books'. Perhaos some in the industry *think* of Harry Potter that way, but then the failing is theirs, not JK Rowling's and not her readers'. Regardless of one's feelings on her merits or otherwise, it's not as if she's the sort of hack who can be accused of jumping a bandwagon - she started the damn bandwagon rolling. She wrote the book she wanted to write, it was a success, so now she's finishing the series she envisioned. Was she meant to leave the story unfinished because people liked it? Do you even know what point you're actually trying to make, you snotty, sanctimonious little indie cretins?
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Oh I went past The Alexandra today and it looked distinctly closed. Shutters down and corrugated iron over the door by the looks of it. How sad.
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But two very welcoming and friendly indie bookshops that will happily allow idling, flicking through and even reading quite substantial portions of books before or without buying: Owl Bookshop, Kentish Town Road, & the Stoke Newington Bookshop, SN High St.
These two, and Foyles (which is definitely rambling enough to allow uncensured browsing) are the main reasons why I've wholly started to prefer indie bookshops since I came to London, after previously being wary of them despite my principles.
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Also - rumour has it that there is some form of Special Guest at B&D tomorrow and thus early arrival is recommended. Take this with as much salt as you wish; I genuinely have no further information.
Foyles is a little like Paris for me; I always suspect I missed the golden age.
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