Man Booker Prize - I stick my neck out.

OK, earlier I wrote a post about our Booker Book Challenge and also to encourage you to vote for the book you thought would win the Booker Prize tonight. (vote NOW=>).
I was undecided about who I was going to plump for earlier, but I've had some time to think and I reckon I have decided who I'd like to win now.

I have already reviewed Deborah Levy's Swimming Home HERE.

But what about the others.....

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayl

 

Set in the drug riddled underbelly of Bombay in the 1970s, this is an atmospheric read and captures the smells and tastes of the city. But where Jeet Thayl excels is in the dream like drug fuelled undertone of the whole book. It's a dangerous, bleak and desperate read . Not all the characters in the book captured my imagination, although some, especially the tragic Dimple and truly horrible Rumi were spot on.
Although I found the descriptions of the various drug trips a little monotonous at times, this lively descriptive novel is full of great imagination.

 

Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

 

This is, ultimately a story about the relationship between Yun Ling, the only survivor of a Japanese POW camp  and gardener Nakamura Aritomo, the Japanese gardener who she employs to build a garden in memory of her sister who died in the camp.
It took me a little while to get into the story, but once there, it was wonderful. The writing is poetic, the imagery and the sense of place is spot on, and the story of the relationship and redemption is memorable.
There were a couple of things that slightly spoiled my enjoyment. Firstly, I got confused about the timeline of the book. It chopped and changed a bit too much for me to fully relax into the story and the author italicises the Japanese words throughout the book. I didn't know whether to google them or to just carry on reading and not worry if I didn't work out what they meant.
But overall, these are small complaints and I really did rate this book highly.

 

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

 

 
This is the story of Futh, a hugely unremarkable man in his 40s, recently separated from his wife and embarking on a walking holiday in Germany, revisiting a holiday of his childhood.
His circular tour begins and ends in a hotel in the town of Hellhaus. This hotel is run by Ester and her husband and it is ester who is the stories secondary character. She is trapped in a loveless marriage and consoles herself by having sexual encounters with the hotel guests.
The Lighthouse of the title, is a perfume bottle (shaped like a lighthouse) that Futh carries with him at all times. This is the only thing he has to remind him of his mother, who abandoned his family when he was twelve.
As Futh sets of on his holiday we can only watch as this shambolic, socially awkward and tragic character's situation becomes more and more desperate.
There are hints of Magnus Mills in her writing and although towards the end of the book, I could see what was ultimately going to happen, it didn't make it any less harrowing.
Alison Moore has written a wonderful novel, which I adored.

Umbrella by Will Self 

Bloody hell. Will Self. I love some of his books. Cock and Bull is fabulous, truly fabulous. But sometimes I wonder whether he makes it difficult for the reader on purpose. This is 400 pages of 'stream of consciousness' narrative, as far as I can tell. I haven't finished it yet, so I cannot give it a full review. The first 20 pages were almost enough to put me off completely, but I gave it a second chance and I am now (after 130 pages) beginning to 'Get it'.
But the argument remains. Books are meant to be read. Yes, they can be challenging (I encourage challenging), and I like a bit of stream of consciousness writing. My love for Mark Leyner, a master of this type of writing, is well documented. But they need to be accessible.
I withhold judgement until I've finished the book.

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (I haven't read).
Again, I am mental for Mantel. Fludd and Wolf Hall are two staggeringly brilliant books and I have no doubt I will devour Bring Up the Bodies. A review will be forthcoming.

So I have to stick my neck out and say who I think will win.
It depends what the judges are looking for.
I'll tell you what would be good for the book industry. Even if Mantel doesn't win, hundreds of thousands of people will read Bring Up the Bones. If Will Self wins with this book, I suspect he'll sell loads, but many people will not read it or finish it.
The most accessible AND LITERARY book on the list is The Lighthouse by Alison Moore. If this wins, it will raise the profile massively of the book, it will sell a hundred thousand at least and most of those bought will be read and enjoyed. I'd like to think this is what books are all about.
The Booker Prize judges should think about this when making the decision.
Or maybe they shouldn't. Hey , I don't know, maybe Hilary Mantel should win.
No. I think Alison Moore.
That's it. (I did enjoy Swimming Home too)


No Alison Moore it is.

phew.

 



 

The Man Booker Prize 2012

So, tonight's the night that the winner of the Man Booker Prize is announced. This is all very exciting for book fans. As a fan of books I am very excited.
Each year in the shop we run a Booker Prize Book Challenge. This is how it works.
As soon as the shortlist was announced, we ordered up copies of each of the books. Those who wanted to take up the challenge were invited to meet on an evening in September to say hello, take home one or more of the titles, and enjoy some rather lovely wine.
Over the next five or so weeks challenge was to make a concerted effort to read as many of the six shortlisted books as possible.
 The group will meet again, tonight to discuss each of the books. After a heated debate, the group will vote for whom they think should win. We’ll then watch the televised ceremony, and hopefully cheer as our choice and the actual winner is one and the same. Or more likely, shout and curse as our least favourite book takes the glory.
Take make things more affordable, for a one off payment of £25, people could borrow each of the 6 books and get to keep their favourite at the end.

This year I've managed 4 and a half (I will try and make it 5 by this evening) of the books. The one I haven't read is Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. I remember, when reading Wolf Hall (the book that precedes this one), how difficult it was to read quickly. I adored Wolf Hall and wanted to savour the rich language and immerse myself in the story. I suspect the same applies to this one, so i'm going to read it without feeling any pressure to do so quickly.

So, of the 4/5 books i've read, I thought 3 were excellent. I am struggling to decide who I want to win (although I know who I really don't want to win).

My personal success at picking the winner is not great. I did choose Wolf Hall, but last year I was a big Jamrach's Menagerie fan and the year before I wanted The Room by Emma Donoghue to do the biz.

I have set up a poll on the side of the blog. It is purely unscientific. You can vote on who you think will win. We shall see if it corresponds with either a) the actual result or b) who the Booker Book Challenge group think should win.
Whichever book is leading  at 8.00pm BST, I shall bet £10 (TEN POUNDS) on, at my friendly local online bookies*.
Don't let me down.

VOTE NOW!

*bet responsibly

London Tales by Greg Stekelman. Last 10 copies!

Last year I published my first book. It was called London Tales and it was by the brilliant Greg Stekelman (TheManWhoFellAsleep).
here it is.

What started out as a plan to reissue Greg's first book "A Year in the Life of TheManWhoFellAsleep" soon blossomed into this wonderful idea to create a collection of Greg's illustrations and turn them into this extraordinary and beautiful book. You can read more about it here.

 We produced just 250 copies of the book which are all numbered and signed.

Greg and I agreed early on that when we got down to the last 10 copies we would offer them at a discounted price.

AND THAT MOMENT HAS ARRIVED.

 

We will be selling the last 10 copies of London Tales for just £25 (not, as Rhodri Marsden so eloquently put it "forty fucking quid" )

If you want to get your hands on a copy, please head this way.

Once these copies have been sold, that's it. It will no longer be available.

I'm really proud to have published London Tales. As someone who loves books and has spent many many (many) years working in the book industry, this has been a very special time for me. I hope, if you do decide to purchase a copy, you'll appreciate what a gorgeous book it is.

Ask Caitlin Moran a Question, Win a Signed Copy of Moranthology

HEY!

Caitlin Moran is coming to the Big Green Bookshop tonight. 

Yes, you heard me right. 

Tickets have sold out for the event, but here's a chance for someone on Twitter to win a signed copy of her new book, Moranthology.

Simply tweet a question you'd like to ask her, using the hashtag #askcaitlin. 

We'll then print them off and ask Caitlin to answer a few of them. The person who asks the question that Caitlin deems the best will win a signed book. 

Go on. 

Remember you can still order signed copies of Moranthology from our website here

End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas. Number 3 of #365BigGreenBooks

Book 3 in the challenge. Already way behind schedule.
This is one of those books that I've been meaning to read for years. I've had so many people come in to the shop and pick it up and say, 'oooh, have you read this? it's amazing'. And i've shuffled my feet and said '..er, yeah. I've heard it's really good'. And so earlier this year I finally got round to reading it.

The End Of Mr. Y

Well, it didn't take me too long to realise why people were raving about it. This is a truly wonderful book. It's trippy.
 I still haven't quite worked out how to describe it. Is it a fantasy? An adventure story? A philosophical conundrum? A magical time travelling freak festival?
What I can tell you is that it grips you from the very first moment you open the book.
The main protagonist, PHD student Ariel, comes across a seemingly impossibly obscure book which, whilst incredibly important to the studies she's doing, also has a 'curse'. Everyone who reads it or is in any way involved with it, dies. Yoinks.
The book takes her on a most amazing journey, both in reality and in her dreams.
There are some parts of the book that I had no idea what was going on, but I have to tell you, it made no difference to my enjoyment whatsoever. Scarlett Thomas knows how to write. She knows how to engage the reader.
I guess it kind of looks at life, existence and being (trippy, like I said). There is also a mouse god in it called Apollo Smintheus. YES.
I am not going to reveal anything more about this book, because I want YOU to read it. It is book that people should read.
(9)

Earth Abides by George R Stewart. Number 2 of #365BigGreenBooks

Here is the second book of the ridiculous challenge i've set myself. We have a few Book Groups at the shop. I oversee the one we hold on the second Tuesday of each month. How we choose the books is quite democratic. Everyone writes their choice down on a piece of paper and puts it in a hat, and then one is picked at random. It seems to work well. A couple of month's ago, out of the hat came Earth Abides.

Earth Abides

This pleased me greatly. I like a bit of post apocalyptic fiction, and by the sounds of it this was right up my street.

"Oh no", I hear you cry, "not another one of those 'end of the world', over the top stories".

NO.

The story is set around California. Nearly all of the population has perished an unknown disease. Ish Williams, having been on a scientific study of the mountains around California, somehow survives. Returning to civilisation he finds no humans alive. Being something of a loner, Ish is able to deal with this far better than the other (very very few) survivors he encounters.
It dawns on him that he is now in a position of great responsibility if civilisation is going to survive and begins a quest to find people who will help him rebuild and repopulate the earth.

What is so very very special about this novel is that it doesn't go over the top, like so many other books on the subject. It is beautifully paced, and incredibly thoughtfully put together. It looks specifically at the issue of what would happen to the planet if humans were virtually wiped out. It not only focuses on practical issues such as the neglection of roads, and water pipes, the eventual end of electricity, food, transport and homes, but it also looks at stuff like religion and reproduction.

Ish finally finds Em, who, like Ish understands the importance of her survival. She's a hugely important figure in the book (possibly the most important), and together they begin to build a Tribe, a group of people who will hopefully be able to repopulate the world.
It very cleverly then goes follows the Tribe through 3 or 4 generations and looks at how this group of people develop and thrive.
I don't want to give too much away, but I was pretty blown away by this book.
The Book Group were also full of high praise for it and (of the 22 people who attended the meeting) its lowest score out of 10 was 6.

I gave it a 9, because it's that good.

If you want to buy it you can do so here. FREE P+P.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy. Number 1 of #365BigGreenBooks

So, the challenge that I've set myself begins. To review 365 books in 365 days. Books that I've read since January 1st 2012. You can read a little bit more about this here 

 

Where do I start?

Well, I guess this is as good a place as any.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

I was on holiday last week. Yes, it was lovely thanks. We went to Bude in North Cornwall. So I took some books with me to read. This was one of them. It's been longlisted for this years Man Booker Prize and I'm delighted that such a new and small publisher such as &otherstories has a book on the longlist, although to be honest when it comes to sales, it's only when a book reaches the shortlist that things really start to kick off.
Anyway, I thought I'd give it a go. It's probably not the kind of book I would usually read, but the more I think about it, it has many of the ingredients that I like in a book. Dark humour, unusual prose, and a powerful and thought provoking storyline. Hey, what's not to like?
The story is set in a villa near Nice in the mid nineties. A famous poet, just arriving there with his family sees what he thinks is a body in the swimming pool. It turns out that this body is in fact very much alive. It is Kitty French, who is about to turn the whole families holiday upside down.
She is a huge fan of Joe's and wants to share a poem with him that she's written.
The family (strangely) insist she stays with them until she sorts out alternative accommodation. Kitty seems to possess a kind of hypnotic hold on the people she encounters throughout the book, and her self destructive nature threatens to destroy all of them. It looks at how depression can affect people differently and how difficult people can find it to totally remove it from their lives. If I had to fault it, I'd say that Jurgen the hippy German handyman, who spends his days getting stoned and reading Hermann Hesse seemed caricatured, but this is a  small fault.
At just over 150 pages, it didn't take too long to read, but to suggest that 150 pages is too short would be doing the book an injustice. I think that Deborah Levy uses language thoughtfully and doesn't fluff the novel out with flowery descriptions or pointless asides. The story is tight, powerful, sometimes disturbing, but delightfully written.
Whether it makes the Booker Shortlist, we shall find out tomorrow. I suspect not, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't (my predictions for the shortlist by the way are, Hilary Mantel, Will Self, Nicola Barker, Alison Moore, Michael Frayn and Ned Beauman). If it does, then it will make doing this years Booker Book Challenge a bit easier.
So part of the rules of my challenge is that I have to mark books out of 10. Remember, this is just my opinion. You may have very different thoughts about it.
(7)
It's available to buy here. Free P+P too (and we also pay our corporation tax). x




365 Books in 365 Days

I like books. So much so, in fact, that I read quite a few of them. Some make me shake with excitement just thinking about them. Some make me pleased that I've read them. Some make me angry. But every book I read makes me feel something.
I get many opportunities to share these feelings in the bookshop, where I will delightedly bang on about (for example) how incredible chapter 33 of Mr Chartwell is or how simple the language in Brooklyn by Colm Toibin is, but how it draws you into the story without realising it.

Ah, books.
Books, books books books.

Despite my woeful lack of bloggery on this particular blog recently, I also like typing words and making them into sentences, which I then like to post online.

So, I thought, why not combine these two things into one bigger thing. A THING.
So here's the THING.

Announcing 365 BIG GREEN BOOKS (twitter hashtag #365BigGreenBooks). One year, 365 book  reviews (that is a tagline).

Here are my rules. I made them all by myself.

• 365 Big Green Books will start on Monday September 10th 2012 and finish on September 9th 2013
• all books must have been read since January 1st 2012
• at least 30% of a book must have been read to register a review (I am not going to finish reading a book I can't stand)
• all genres of books are included (although it's likely that it will mainly be fiction and kids)
• Each book will be marked out of 10
• I do not have to review one book a day.  e.g. I can review 5 books in one blog if I like.
• This rule isn't important, please ignore it.
• I can change the rules. I made them, I can break them.

So, that's it really.

This is what I am hoping to achieve by doing this.

1. It will allow me to share my love of books with you.
2. It will stimulate debate about the books I have read.
3. I will be recommended books to read by you lot, that I might not have read otherwise.
4. It will encourage me to blog more here.

I'm quite excited about this. I thnk it's going to be a good THING.
I think i'd better go and read some more books now.
x

"Epiphany", by the Fairy Bookmother.

On a dark day in December, "Appalled of Harringay" learnt of the statistic that one in three children do not own a single book.
"That's real poverty", she cried (for it was a she).
"This is a situation up with which we cannot put", she continued.
She ran (stopping only to catch the 141 bus) to the Big Green Bookshop for a why-oh-why session with Tim and Simon. When calm had been restored, they put their heads together and the Fairy Bookmother Intiative (FBI) was inaugurated, its aim being to share the enjoyment of reading & work towards raising literacy and reducing book-poverty amongst children in the borough of Haringey.

Using a donation from the Fairy Bookmother, the Bookshop supplied books to certain schools in the borough with the remit of getting the books into the hands of those children who were least likely to own a book. This proved tricky, but it was a START.
The Fairy Bookmother is not a millionaire philanthropist (with or without a youthful ward) and is therefore looking for people who share her outrage and would be willing to join with her in further developing the FBI. This may mean a small donation or something less tangible.
She wishes to remain anonymous, at least outside the group, but if anyone is interested in helping out in any way please contact the bookshop.
You could be an individual, a business or maybe you are someone in Haringey Council who may have the facility to take this initiative to another level. Whoever you are, if you think you can help, please get in touch.

Thanks.

Tel. 020 8881 6767
Email. enquiries@biggreenbookshop.com

PAY WHAT YOU LIKE ON ANY OF OUR SECOND HAND BOOKS

 Last month we had a big old sale of on all our 2nd hand books. We'd been inundated by your generous book donations and we'd got to a stage where we had boxes and boxes of books that we just had no room to display.
Rather than leave them in boxes, feeling sorry for themselves, we decided to set them free and offer all our 2nd hand books to our customers at whatever price they wanted to pay.
It worked really well and we were able to free hundred, if not thousands of books on the day.
What the day also achieved was raise the profile of our second hand section. This has led to us getting boxes and boxes more second hand books since the day. This is brilliant, because what it means is....WE'RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN. 

Yes, this Saturday, ALL DAY we're having another

PAY WHAT YOU LIKE ON ALL OUR SECOND HAND BOOKS 

day.

Once again, you can choose up to 6 books and pay as little as 1p for each. You could pay a tenner for each too, but that's up to you.
We still have well over 3,500 secondhand books here and we're bringing in a load more.
We're hoping for another sunny day so that we can get the tables and boxes outside again.
It's great that we can do this, as we know that lots of you were really sad that you missed the last one.

PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS