About the book: ‘Cats and dogs are near to death as they embark on a seemingly pointless search for food and water.’
Sadly Stephen Moore’s book is out of print. Look at the dog’s face. You will see it in your nightmares.
Archive for October, 2009
Thinking about sex.
Tuesday 27th October 2009Over the weekend I was talking with a bookseller friend of mine, who was telling me a customer had come in to return a book by A M Homes. He said he never would have bought it if he’d known she was a woman. Nice. (more…)
Wednesday 21st October 2009
If you want to see me looking tired and sounding like I’m speaking through a duck whistle, then this is for you. I also talk about writing the book.
Stuff that goes on
Wednesday 14th October 2009Writing and working in a London book shop
During the week I rediscovered this photograph of Strange’s Corner – the pie shop my grandparents owned in Sydney in the 1950s. My mother worked in that shop selling hot cross buns, ice cream and meat pies. I used the picture when I was writing, but I’d forgotten how lovely it was.
Important things took place in that shop. My mother was born there, she got her first vile kiss off the speckled boy who helped my grandfather bake. There was the postman who used to sing I can tell by your eyes, you’ve been eating Strange’s pies. This was the place that my mother became paranoid about God, believed that every time the sun split through the clouds he was accusing her of stealing sweets, which she was. It was the place she came back to after being saved twice in one night by Billy Graham, and it was the place she decided there was no God. I have a converted DVD of her 21st birthday party, which was above the shop where there was a roof garden. In the film my grandfather is on a pogo stick with his brother. They are no good at it, but are buggered if they’ll let the kids have a go before they’ve mastered it. It’s the place she made up her mind to leave Australia, and told my grandparents. I suppose it was there the letter was sent to my uncle telling him he’d been conscripted to fight in Vietnam.
I looked on Google maps with mum and we located the site where the shop had stood – just a car park now. Things change, as always.
But it’s funny how some patterns repeat over generations, I’ve always found that interesting.
Where I work, Review bookshop, 131 Bellenden Road, Peckham
Particularly when you have a visual comparison.
An Embarrassing Problem
Wednesday 7th October 2009Writing and working in a London book shop
I was at the Jonathan Cape Booker party last night (not the telly one, the booze one), and had a very lovely time. It’s only just occurred to me now, at work, nursing my head and feeling nuts after too much coffee, that I haven’t read even one of the books on the short list. A lady customer pointed out to me that, considering I’m a writer and I work in a bookshop, that’s a bit rubbish. She’s right. When I’m asked by customers in the shop which of the shortlist they should start with, my suggestion so far has been to read the smaller ones and maybe by the time you get around to the bigger ones, they’ll be in paperback. I realise this is not an okay thing to say. (more…)
