The Bedside Crow

Well, it's not everyday that somebody calls from Hungary to order a copy of Robert Walser's The Tanners (with the introduction by W. G. Sebald).

And we had it in stock.

(Almost) late opening the shop.

Because I was listening to Steve Reid on Midweek talking about this.

I love the idea that as a kid he lived next door to Thelonius Monk, who used to go out into the street and direct the traffic.

Oh my aching sides.

So should online retailers pay a modest levy on their substantial profits to reward independent bookshops for drumming up their trade?

Tom Sutcliffe ponders the future of his local independent bookshop - without doing any maths, save for simple subtraction, and don't get me started on the irony of his book example of choice. Survival of the fittest, what?

[Elsewhere in the same paper I read that independent bookshops are suffering from the ending of the Harry Potter gravy train. Yeah, right, lots and lots of gravy.]

Death in Sainsbury's (the second annual bullet to Clarkson's head).

The first annual here.

Freedom, Rhythm and Sound.

A week or so ago somebody from Soul Jazz Records 'phoned to tell me about the book Freedom,Rhythm and Sound - revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83 compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart baker. 

 I said, yes we've got that, it's great. Sold three copies already. 

I sensed that this wasn't the response that they had been getting from some other independent bookshops.

We chatted some more and then a couple of days ago a copy of the accompanying CD arrived in the post.

Which made my day (thanks Steve). And so to celebrate I give you the Art Ensemble of Chicago in their pomp.
  
 
 

Poundland - not as cheap as you thought, then.

On the Today program this morning Evan Davis visited the Watford Poundland for a piece about the discount store, its attraction to the middle classes, and the opening of its 250 store.

Oh look, he was heard to say, mid-way through the report. You have books! For a pound. You have Dylan Jones' biography* of David Cameron for a pound!!

*A very generous description.

Running Dog.

...in 1973, when my first novel was accepted for publication, I was in similar straits: young, endlessly drunk, trying to support a wife and two children, writing at night, hoping for a break. The break came, but until reading Sklenicka’s book, I thought it was the $2,500 advance Doubleday paid for “Carrie.” Now I realize it may have been not winding up with Gordon Lish as my editor.

Stephen King reviews Raymond Carver a Writers Life by Carol Sklenicka.

[Somebody, somewhere out there, has a photograph of me and Raymond Carver, him with his arm around me, having said, hey, let's do this thing properly.]

Hoovering The Roof. 7.00-9.00 pm Thursday 26th 2009

Event Alert!

On Thursday 26th November we will be hosting the launch event for Hoovering the Roof an anthology of stories and poems from the East Dulwich Writers Group.

More about the group here.

New York City 1962 (with thumb).

Establishing shot from Richard Stark's Parker - The Hunter adapted and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke.

Well it certainly looked like him.