Something Amis(s) in the world of publishing

I will pretty-much read anything that puts the boot into Martin Amis, but this short post is spot on. Not just about Amis and the other literary appendixes, but also on celebrity culture and what matters in the world of letters:

When writers like Amis, or Philip Roth – who declared this week that novel-reading would be a fringe activity in 25 years – make their apocalyptic proclamations about the state of publishing, it seems apparent that their pessimism may in fact be rather strongly influenced by anxiety that their new work no longer carries the kind of cultural clout they have grown used to, not because people aren't reading novels, but because people aren't reading their novels.

Continuing this theme I've got plans for posts on what is currently wrong with publishing and the future of reading for pleasure, but like 90% of my 'planned posts' they will probably languish with all the other drafts until they get outdated or I get bored and delete them ...

Song for Sunday

JJ72 – Long Way South

It has been over a year since the last JJ72 song, so it must be time for another one ...

Band/artist of the week: Fulton Lights
Song of the week: Fulton Lights – Healing Waters

Song for Sunday

Camera Obscura – The Sweetest Thing

Also have a look at their 'lovely' acoustic version of Some Guys Have all the Luck and this gorgeous version of Super Trouper.

Band/artist of the week: Fulton Lights
Song of the week: Fulton Lights – Healing Waters

Song for Sunday

We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices

Song for Sunday

Girls – Hellhole Ratrace

Holidays

Mix CDs made? Check.
New Lego toys for plane? Check.
Suitcase packed? Checkish.
Sun cream packed? Check.
Twelve different types of healthy snack for plane? Check.
Reading matter finalised? Check.
Internet access? Nope.
Blog posts written and primed for publication in my absence? Sort of.

Off to the beach. See you in a couple of weeks ...

Song for Sunday

Little Birdy – Brother

Band/artist of the week: Low/Radiohead/Suede
Song of the week: Low – Back Home Again

Song for Sunday

Blur – Girls and Boys

Band/artist of the week: The National
Song of the week: The Twilight Sad – I Became a Prostitute

Song for Sunday

Heligoland – Hobson's Choice

Band/artist of the week: Fulton Lights
Song of the week: Fulton Lights – Healing Waters

Chronicler of the Winds

It is a long way from Ystad in southern Sweden to an unnamed coastal city in Africa, from a middle-aged detective to a 10-year-old street orphan, but it is a leap that Henning Mankell makes more adeptly than you might anticipate in (the horribly titled) Chronicler of the Winds.

Over nine nights, as the orphan Nelio slowly dies from gunshot wounds, he relates his life story to the baker José Antonio Maria Vaz and we gradually find out how his short life reached this point. The earlier years of Nelio's short life are horribly familiar from news stories and other accounts of children caught up in Africa's many conflicts, but once he makes his way to the unnamed city – which knowing Mankell's background as the director of that city's Teatro Avenida can only be Maputo in Mozambique – the story takes some interesting and intriguing turns.

The way Nelio's life is recounted in segments, while José and the rest of the city continue on with their struggle to survive, works well; providing a grounding for some of the more fantastical elements of the story. However, some of it just doesn't ring true and I couldn't understand why José would quit his job to become a (wholly ineffectual) teller of Nelio's story.

It is interesting that this book was written midway through the Wallander series (although not translated until much later) and I can only imagine what some of Kurt's devotees would make of it. Not surprisingly the publishers went for a much softer, more feminine cover design – presumably hoping to avoid getting too many complaints from the disgruntled single genre readers.

MBV Music

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. Everyone at GoH mansions has been laid low by various bugs, viruses and poxes for the last few weeks. It also hasn't helped that any spare time on-line always seems to disappear into the black hole that is my current favourite website – mbvmusic.

If I told you it was a music site that had free mp3s, videos, cover art, news, links and reviews you probably wouldn't be that impressed. And probably quite rightly point out that there are already many very fine publications who already meet all or some of these needs.

It is hard to say what is so brilliant about it, but the six superhero music nerds who run it have been almost solely responsible for all the new music that I have heard this year. And, even more impressively, I have heard a lot of new music this year. Outstanding finds so far include Son Volt, Wild Light, The xx, Fulton Lights, Young Galaxy, The Raveonettes and The Very Best.

Song for Sunday

Young Galaxy – Come and See

Song for Sunday

The xx – Basic Space

Song for Sunday

Amadou & Mariam – Sabali

Song for Sunday

Esau Mwamwaya – Warm Heart of Africa

Song for Sunday

U2 – BAD (Live)

Recently I've been listening to an amazing bootleg of U2 live at the Hammersmith Palais from December 6, 1982. This song came a year or two later but both take me back over twenty years to my early teenage years. Although I have to admit that I pretended I didn't actually like U2 until even later, when The Joshua Tree came out and they were already past their peak. Up until then they were always my younger sister's band and it wouldn't have been cool to admit that we liked any of the same music!

Song for Sunday

Raveonettes – Black/White

1000 novels

Another list. This time of 1000 novels that everyone must read. As Mrs Armitage would say 'who needs it?' Well, no-one really, but it did keep me occupied for a few evenings going through the list and ticking off the ones I have read.

The list is split into seven slightly contrived categories with about 140 titles in each one, designed I presume to fill up a dead news week in The Guardian. My top category turned out to be crime, which just edged out science fiction and fantasy (even more impressive when you consider that I have never knowingly read a fantasy novel) and then followed up by war and travel. My least read category was state of the nation, marginally behind love, with family and self and comedy not much higher up.

The precise numbers are as follows and, for anyone who is interested, here is the complete list as a spreadsheet, handily colour coded to show books I've read, am planning to read and planning to avoid.

Comedy - 21 out of 150 (14.0%)
Crime - 31 out of 148 (20.9%)
Family and self - 19 out of 146 (13.0%)
Love - 17 out of 141 (12.1%)
Science fiction and fantasy - 30 out of 149 (20.1%)
State of the nation - 16 out of 134 (11.9%)
War and travel - 25 out of 132 (18.9%)

A not-too-bad total of 159 out of the 1000, or almost 16%, and with another 111 books that I plan to read at some point. Feel free to add your own totals in the comments.

Forgotten bookmarks

Following the recent demise of Aloof from Inspiration (and the mysterious disappearance* of its previous incarnation at fangrrrl) I needed a substitute for the Places to Visit sidebar.

So, here it is: Forgotten Bookmarks. Stuff people have left in books. Brilliant!

* - Hello, is that the FBI? I would like to report a blog vanishing in suspicious circumstances.

Song for Sunday

Tunng – Bullets

The Beautiful Machine

Bikes and music. Sometimes the patterns of a life are set from early on. And it can be quite a shock to find others who you have never met with the same obsessions. He is also the only other person I have ever heard of who has suffered from sarcoidosis.

I enjoyed the early chapters a lot – he is great on growing up and the escape a bicycle offers. The years at university and just after are also fascinating, but from then on it becomes a bit hit-and-miss.

He is an opinionated and spirited writer, and you know he would be good company on a long ride, but the endless stories about rides he has done and coffee shops he has frequented lose their charm for the reader long before the author tires of them.

Tour round-up

So, farewell Tommo, Paul and Phil, late nights, Matt and Ned and Chris in the ITV podcast on the train to work and managing my own tour team.

All that remains is to check the predictions and see how we did this year. Pretty good I have to say. Certainly much better than last year ...

Top two on GC correct and only one place out for Lance. Bradley Wiggins surprised me to equal Robert Millar's fourth place from 25 years ago, but then again I don't know of anyone who predicted that! Evans and Sastre were big disappointments and Sastre couldn't even blame his team. I think that both are probably already past the peak of their careers, although it would be good if Cadel could prove me wrong.

Not bad on the green jersey either – if the commisars had stayed out of it and I had been a bit more optimistic about Thor. Boonen was completely invisible and if you had asked me I would have been hard pushed to even say when he abandoned. Quick Step would have been better with Alan Davies after all!

The mountain jersey wasn't quite so good – Sastre was 43rd and didn't do anything whatsoever in the mountains. Still, I was right about Contador in 3rd and Andy Schleck was close with his 4th place.

And finally, my fantasy team ended up 1556th with 1389 points. I could possibly have done even better if I had read the rules. Just wait for next year ...

Song for Sunday

The Skids – Into the Valley

Song for Sunday

Film School – Like You Know

Song for Sunday

The National – New Song

Apparently new album is on the way ...