Me And My Big Mouth

Books Of The Year: Number 1

1. Zachary Mason - The Lost Books of the Odyssey

Some bloke I have never heard of decides to 'reinvent' The Odyssey several times over with a series of supposed lost chapters.

I was very dubious to start with.

Three or four pages in and I was completely won over.

This is a magical book, full of mischievous invention, and should be required reading for anyone with a love of Homer's epic poems.

Here's what I wrote when I read it back in the summer:

In this remarkable book Zachary Mason 're-imagines' The Odyssey from a number of different viewpoints. Forty-four retellings of the greatest story ever told. It kept me spellbound for hours.

Tackling small chunks of the original story, Mason sometimes introduces a new twist, or changes the narrator, alters the books internal logic or remixes the original with fascinating results.

So you have a version in which Odysseus finds himself bored on Ithaka so sets off to retrace his steps, revisiting the scenes of his adventures.

In another, The Iliad is revealed to be an elaborate set of rules for playing chess.

Or the suggestion that Paris was, in fact, another name for Death and is was the Grim Reaper himself who stole Helen, leading Menelaus to declare war on Hades rather than Troy.

And one chapter is narrated by the cyclops Polyphemus, offering a slightly different take on the version of legend.

The Lost Books of the Odyssey is not, I would suggest, a book to sit down and read from start to finish. It isn't intended as a linear narrative - many of the chapters contradict themselves - and is, instead, a volume to dip into over a couple of weeks. Although, be warned, it is hard to leave it alone for very long.

This is a short work of epic imagination. It will, I am sure, prove a delight to anyone who has ever read and loved Homer's two epic poems, although those unfamiliar with them may well wonder what all the fuss is about. They are very much favourites of mine and it is high praise indeed when I say that I will be shelving this book alongside them.

It was, for me, the best book of 2010.

Books Of The Year: 4...3...2

4. Stieg Larsson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

For some reason this books appears to have become the new Da Vinci Code. It winds some of the literati up the wrong way. I say they need to remove their heads from their arses as this is great stuff. Yes, it is genre fiction - it's a crime novel, for fuck's sake - but it is a compulsive read.

I guess the assumption is that anything this popular has to be shite. The assumption is wrong. Larsson is a wonderful storyteller and in Lisbeth Salander he has crafted an unforgettable literary character. It pained me to put this book down when I was reading it. I stayed up till the early hours to just read one more chapter. I lost myself in it for days.

I suspect some people are reacting to what they see as the hype around this book. Word-of-mouth is not hype. The buzz and excitement around this book have come from the people reading it, and that is why it has been so successful.

I have deliberately avoided reading the rest of the trilogy. I am pacing myself, saving book two for next year.

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3. Chip Kidd - The Cheese Monkeys

Imagine, if you will, Dead Poet's Society directed by Andy Warhol. That may get you close to understanding what The Cheese Monkeys is all about.

A new student enrols in the only art course left open to him when he leaves it too late on his first day in college. It turns out to be a life-changing decision as his teacher turns out to be either a genius or a complete nutter, depending on your point of view.

His controversial and abrasive teaching style causes uproar in the class but gradually, lesson by lesson, he manages to get these kids thinking and, most importantly, seeing differently.

Chip Kidd is best known as a designer of book jackets. His work is emblazoned across the front of countless volumes on American bookshelves and he is one of the most reknowned artists working in the field.

He is a better novelist.

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2. Kent Haruf - Eventide

I hope she won't mind me mentioning this but I recently received an email from the novelist Adele Geras thanking me for introducing her to the work of Kent Haruf and expressing her dismay that she had not discovered him before.

This is the sequel to Plainsong, my Book of the Year in 2009, and is every bit as wonderful. Like its predecessor, it weaves together a number of stories and is set in a small American farming town. Many of the characters from the first book appear here, some of the previously peripheral roles being brought to the fore, and a few new ones are introduced.

Haruf does not go in for fancy language. His prose is simple and sparse, but it also conveys more truth and emotion that almost any other writer I know. He understands people and how to put their lives on paper.

And he had my crying like a baby.

Books Of The Year: 7...6...5

7. Ray Robinson - Forgetting Zoe

One of the biggest literary crimes of 2010 was that this wonderful and haunting novel of a kidnapped girl spending a decade in an underground bunker was completely ignored by the prize judge committees in favour of Room by Emma Donoghue. Room isn't a bad book but this is better.

Perhaps the fact that the English author decided to set his novel in America and write it in an American voice put them off. Maybe the skill with which he accomplished this feat lead them to believe he wasn't English at all and therefore ineligible.

Whatever the reason, they were wrong. Robinson is already one of the most versatile and accomplished writers we have and he is only three books in to what is destined to be a significant career.

My pick for the most overlooked novel of 2010. It is unforgettable stuff.

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6. Claire Tomalin - Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

A philanderer, a corrupt offical, a wife beater, a short-tempered man obsessed with status - let's face it, Samuel Pepys was a bit of an arsehole. He was also one of the most fascinating men ever to put pen to paper and this biography rightly won a stack of awards when it was published some years back. I don't really know why it has taken me so long to read it but I recently listened for the umpteenth time to the BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Pepys diaries featuring Oliver Parker, Bill Nighy, Simon Russell-Beale and Roger Allam and felt the need to finally pick it up off the shelves.

It brought an extra dimension to the diaries for me, and proved that the radio version was a very faithful adaptation, but also filled in the considerable gaps in my knowledge concerning the life of Pepys before and after the diaries, which after all covered less than a decade.

It is a lively and evocative portrait.

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5. Stephen Hall - The Raw Shark Texts

Publisher Jamie Byng was so excited when he acquired this book back in 2006 or so that he sent me a copy of the unedited manuscript. I didn't read it. I was shortly to leave Waterstone's and had enough on my plate. What a fucking idiot. This is the most imaginative and original novel I have read in a long while.

A man wakes up with no memory. A note in his hallway, seemingly from himself, directs him to a doctor who imparts the information that this has happened before, that some painful event in his past keeps wiping his memory.

But then he starts to receive more letters from his previous self, and these tell him of a bizarre and unlikely danger, a thought-shark that is out to kill him.

This is an exceedingly odd novel that plays with the very text that make up its content and ends up fucking with you brain in increasingly entertaining ways. Bits of Murakami, The Matrix, Jaws and Twin Peaks thrown in a blender and reformed into something very impressive indeed.

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Books Of The Year: 10...9...8

OK, I have waited till right at the end of the year for my countdown to ensure as many books as possible could be considered. The rules are simple: any book I have read this year is eligible with the sole exception of books I publish or titles that I have re-read.

I hope that's clear. Now, onwards and upwards.

10. Kate Williams - Becoming Queen

Not only for making the early life of Queen Victoria as compelling and entertaining as the best historical novel but because it introduced me to Princess Charlotte, the woman who would have been queen had it not been for her untimely death.

I usually take my time over non-fiction books, especially history titles. I need to consume them at a different pace to make sure I take it all in. No such problem with this book which I sailed through in just a few days but am sure I took more from it than I normally would. I just got completely swept up in the whole thing and only wish there was a book covering the rest of Victoria's reign that was quite so enjoyable.

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9. Jonathan Lee - Who is Mr Satoshi?

A year without a new Murakami novel to read is a tough one for enthusiasts like me. Fortunately, there was this accomplished debut to more than adequately fill the gap.

A reclusive Englishman travels to Japan in search of someone for whom his recently deceased mother left a mysterious package, the Mr Satoshi of the title. He quickly falls in with a pink-haired college student who helps him track down the missing gentleman.

This doesn't have the magical trickery of a Murakami but is all the better for it, stops it from being a copycat novel. I predict big things from the paperback, out next year.

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8. D.J. Connell - Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

Writing comedy is hard. Writing a good comic novel is even harder. Seriously, how many novels have you read that had you laughing out loud throughout? Compare the laughter ratio of a funny movie with that of a supposedly funny book. Rarely is there any contest.

Julian Corkle is a young man with big expectations. Growing up in Tasmania might not be the best start in life for a future television superstar but Julian isn't going to let that stop him. He has plans.

What follows is a flurry of camp escapades that puts Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to shame. I really did guffaw with laughter several times and can report that the wife, who insisted on reading it immediately after me, also shed a tear at the end.

More books of the year to follow tomorrow.

Movies Of The Year

Just five films stood out for me this year. They weren't all released during 2010 but that's when I saw them which is what counts in my book. Two I saw but do not make the list are Inception (the more I think about it the less impressive it becomes) and Toy Story 3 (it was OK but nothing special).

5. Tamara Drewe

Because I laughed like a drain.

4. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I loved the books and thought the movie was a mighty fine adaptation.

3. Wendy And Lucy y

A girl loses her dog and goes off in search of it. That's pretty much the entire movie but Michelle Williams is wonderful throughout and is quickly becoming one of the finest actresses of her generation.

2. A Prophet

Gritty French prison drama. Another movie with a stunning central performance.

1. Sunshine Cleaning

Rare to find a mainstream motion picture written by a woman, directed by a woman and with two female lead characters. I thought this was subtle and tremendously charming. And then there is Amy Adams. Oh, Amy Adams!

 

A Christmas Song For Sunday

The Last of the Melting Snow - The Leisure Society.

Merry Christmas

If you have taken the trouble to come here on Christmas Day then may I offer this Icelandic festive song, performed by Amiina, as my gift to you.

All the best to you and yours.

Stuck, Quite Happily, In A Rut

I am always excited when a new book arrives from Concord Free Press, not least because of that lovely word free. CFP give away every book they publish, they just ask the reader to:

a) make a small donation of time or money to a worthy cause

and

b) pass the book on when they have finished reading it so that others can do the same

Now, a) seems fair enough but b) is always difficult as they publish such wonderful books. This latest, called Rut, is a dystopian novel set in the Rocky Mountains forty years from now. I have only dipped in so far but it is great.

You can find out more about Concord Free Press and their inspiring mission at their website.

Albums Of The Year: Number 1

1. Agnes Obel - Philharmonics

It is staggeringly beautiful.

I hope you have enjoyed my albums of the year rundown. I have pulled together as many of the tracks as I can (with a few substitutions) on this Spotify playlist.

Most Wanted Book Blogger Awards

I have been nominated in the Most Wanted Book Blogger Awards.

Which is nice.

If you visit here, like what you see and can be arsed to vote for me that would be jolly decent of you.

No worries if not, I probably won't bother myself.

Albums Of The Year: 4...3...2

4. Olafur Arnalds - ...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness

Modern classical music from Iceland and it really is remarkably beautiful.

3. Amiina - Puzzle

More from Iceland, and still beautiful but also slightly odd.

2. The National - High Violet

So close to being my album of the year but just pipped to the post by something really rather exquisite. The National are clearly the best band in the world at the moment. I hope that doesn't spoil them.

Join me tomorrow morning where my favourite album of 2010 will be unveiled.

40 x 40: The Odyssey & The Iliad

Back in November I started a series of blog posts about my 40 favourite books of all time to mark my 40th birthday. It has been tremendously self-indulglent but I have enjoyed it immensely and many of you have left comments so I hope you have enjoyed them. Today we reach the final selection.

The Odyssey and The Iliad.

Why?

Because they are the greatest stories ever told.

I prefer the Richmond Lattimore translations but those by Robert Fitzgerald and Robert Fagles are also very good indeed, the latter would be my suggestion if you want a more modern version.

If I could only own one book it would be a single-volume edition of these epic poems.

Here endeth the 40 x 40. Pop back in ten years to see how much has changed for my 50 x 50. Assuming I don't get hit by a bus in the meantime.

If you want to check out all the 40 x 40 books you can view the original posts here or there are two Amazons list I have set up here and here.

Albums Of The Year: 7...6...5

7. Kristin Hersh - Crooked

Back in July I published Kristin Hersh's latest album Crooked as a book. The idea was cooked up over a series of phone calls between myself and her husband/manager Billy O'Connell towards the end of 2009. Kristin wanted to do something different with this album. She and Billy liked what we were doing at The Friday Project and felt that some sort of book was the way to go.

What we ended up with was a music and publishing industry first with a beautiful full-colour book containing artwork, lyrics and essays which included instructions on how to download the album plus loads of additional content. The only way to access the extra stuff was to own the book. The physical object was given an important role once more despite our obssesion with the digital world.

I only played a very small part in this project but it is one of my proudest publishing achievements and it is a bloody good album.

6. Jonsi - Go

The chap from Sigur Ros gets as close to a pop album as he is ever likely to.

5. Band of Horses - Infinite Arms

How such a beautiful voice comes out of such a haggard looking man I will never know but this album has been on repeat play since it came out earlier in the year.

More tomorrow.

 

40 x 40: A Wild Sheep Chase & Dance Dance Dance

39 books in to my 40 favourite of all time and finally I mention Haruki Murakami.

And an omnibus no less.

This special edition of A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance was published in one volume in 2006 after the then buying manager of Waterstone's* suggested it as an exclusive for one of their 3 for 2 campaigns. It conveniently allows me to include two of his books as one selection.

I first discovered Murakami in what is still my favourite secondhand bookshop, Leigh Gallery Books in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. It is where, during my late teens and early 20s, I would go shortly after each payday and spend my spare cash on books. It is also where, sometime around 1990, that I found this book:

As a lifelong fan of Columbo, I couldn't resist the sheep in the raincoat and it is still one of my favourite book covers of all time. After a few pages of reading the book itself I realised that here was my new favourite author and I was excited by the information on the back flyleaf:

Born in Kobe in 1949, Haruki Murakami studied classic Greek drama at Waseda University, then managed a jazz bar in Tokyo from 1974 to 1981, during which time he published three novels. The third of these was A Wild Sheep Chase, which earned him Japan's prestigious Noma Literary Award for New Writers and ended his career at the jazz bar. His next novel, The End of the World and the Hard-Boiled Wonderland, won him the coveted Tanizaki Prize. With the publication of Norwegian Wood in 1987, he became Japan's best-selling novelist. Issued in two volumes it has sold a total of 4.01 million copies to date. Dance Dance Dance, the sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase, is his most recent work; published in 1988, in nine months it has sold over a million copies.

OK, so remember that I was full of the excitement of a new literary discovery. Now, let's look back over that blurb and pick out a few key points, shall we?

'... during which time he published three novels...  His next novel, The End of the World and the Hard-Boiled Wonderland... With the publication of Norwegian Wood in 1987, he became Japan's best-selling novelist...  Dance Dance Dance, the sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase...'

So that meant there were two books prior to the one I had just read plus three more since, one of which had sold over four million and another which was a sequel. I was in for a reading frenzy.

Or at least I would have been if any of these books had actually been published in the UK.

These were the days before the internet. Buying books meant finding them in bookshops. I searched everywhere for Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled and especially for Dance Dance Dance but to no avail. What I didn't realise at the time was that Murakami was in the process of finding an ongoing deal with a UK publisher and that his many Japanese novels would gradually appear in English over the next decade thanks to the wonderful Christopher Macelhose at Harvill, the man who would one day suggest that I interview Murakami at his biggest ever UK event at the Prince Charles Cinema in London.

So I spent much of that decade searching high and low for new work by the great man. Some were snapped up as they appeared in print for the first time here or in the US, others were tracked down in obscure translations only available in Japan and intended for students over there who were learning English; all were cherished and all increased my appetite for more.

My relationship with the books of Haruki Murakami is the most important literary connection in my life. He has been my favourite author since that day over 20 years ago when I found myself staring at a sheep in a raincoat. These are my two favourite books of his and this omnibus had to be included in my 40 x 40 list.

*OK, OK, it was me.

Backlog

My 40 x 40 project has taken up a lot of room on this blog in the past month or so but you have all been very patient with me. Time and space issues mean I haven't been able to blog about all the books I have been reading while that was going on so here is a brief round up.

Robert McCrum - Globish

A look at how English, or a global version of it, has now become the world's language. A genuinely fascinating piece of non-fiction that gets your brain working overtime but remains an easy read throughout.

Michelle Paver - Dark Matter

This is the second book with the same title I have read this year. Both have strong premises, both are cracking reads until tho thirds of the way through but both ultimately disappoint with weak and confused endings. This story of an expedition to the Arctic between the wars sets up a potentially spooky ghost story but it just fades away in a pointless mess by the time you finish reading. A real shame.

D.J. Connell - Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar

Imagine Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding in book form. Very funny indeed. Mrs Big Mouth grabbed it from me and was moved to tears by the end. A real stand out book of the year that has't quite found the audience it deserves. Yet.

Mark Kermode - It's Only a Movie

Anyone who listens to Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode's film review show on Radio 5 Live will know what to expect from this memoir (of sorts) by the bequiffed movie geek. It is full of anecdotes from his career as a film journalist, and very entertaining they are too, but I have heard most of them before.

Leanne Shapton - Was She Pretty?

I was rather taken with Shapton's novel in the form of an auction catalogue, Important Artifacts, and this earlier book is a collection of simple drawings of different people with just a couple of accompanying sentences. The author imagines each person as someone's ex-boyfriend or girlfriend and captures the essence of their character in a handful of words. Only takes a few moments to read but the effects linger.

Claire Tomalin - Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self

I have been fascinated by Pepys ever since listening to the extraordinary BBC Radio 4 dramatisation many years back. I was working at Waterstone's when this hugely acclaimed and successful biography came out but had put of reading it until now, prompted by my listening again to the radio adaptation. The book is every bit as wonderful as the critics would have you believe.

Juliana Hatfield - When I Grow Up

Quite possibly the finest rock memoir I have read. Not because it is full of sex and drugs and trashed hotel rooms (although there is a soupcon of such goings on) but because of the sheer honesty of the thing. Here is an indie rock legend who almost broke the big time but stepped away, back into semi-obscurity. In the book she tells it like it is - of the boredom, the anxiety, the geeky obsessive fans, the drudgery of life on the road, the disappointments, the expectation - but isn't looking for sympathy. This is simply what she does, it is her job and When I Grow Up is the first such book that captures the whole rock music as a job thing in a way that makes sense. A real eye-opener and not just for fans of Hatfield's music.

Albums Of The Year: 10...9...8

Between now and the end of the year my blog will be full of lists of things I have enjoyed during 2010. First up, my favourite albums. There are ten of them and here are numbers 10 to 8.

10. Kate Nash - My Best Friend Is You

This, complete with swearing, was our album of the summer as we holidayed on the Isle of Wight, the whole family singing along as we drove through tree tunnels, along coastal roads and through deserted country lanes.

9. Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo

I know next to nothing about this lot but their album has been a surprise grower on me over the past few months.

8. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Seems to be on nearly every end of the year list going. There's a reason for that.

Tune in tomorrow afternoon for numbers 7 to 5.

 

40 x 40: The Man Of Bronze

To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious figure of glistening bronze skin and golden eyes. To his amazing co-adventurers - the five greatest brains every assembled in one group - he is a man of superhuman strength and protean genius, whose life is dedicated to the destruction of evil-doers. To his fans he is one of the greatest adventure heroes of all time, whose fantastic exploits are unequalled for hair-raising thrills, breathtaking escapes and bloodcurdling excitement.

High above the skyscrapers of New York, Doc Savage engages in deadly combat with the red-fingered survivors of an ancient, lost civilisation. Then, with his amazing crew, he journeys to the mysterious 'lost valley' to search for a fabulous treasure and to destroy the mysterious Red Death.

The Doc Savage stories started out as a series in American pulp magazines in the 1930s but became a mass market hit during the early 60s when they were published as a range of novels written by Lester Dent (under the house name of Kenneth Robeson). That is when my father collected the many volumes that he passed on to me when I was a teenager.

I remember loving them when I was younger and going back to them as an adult I still managed to lose myself in the sheer b-movie exuberance of the whole thing. I don't think the novels are in print any more. I think they could do well if they were reissued, they'd certainly be a match for many of the young adult series out there.

The Man of Bronze is the first in over 100 Doc Savage novels.

2011: A Short Reading Challenge

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by The Times to knock up a couple of hundred words looking forward to the world of books in 2011.

They published my words of wisdom on their website last Saturday (Dovegreyreader got hers into the print version, I was relegated to digital) but, due to the paywall, I am unable to link to the article here.

So I might as well repeat myself for your benefit, especially as there is a bit at the end I am very keen to tell you about:

The landscape of literature is changing and the modern reader is evolving at alarming speed. As evidence of this, 2011 will see ebooks really take hold in the UK and overtake the hardback in terms of influence with the reading public. The format is bringing a remarkable range of books to what is often a new audience and that audience is extremely vocal online, taking word-of-mouth to a higher level than ever before.

But my excitement about these digital developments is tempered by some significant concerns. Agents and publishers need to get their fingers out and ensure that our finest literary voices are fully represented on the format – too many modern classics have yet to be digitised. And newspaper literary pages (both online and off) have to start dedicating space to ebooks or they will seem out of date to the modern reader.

On a personal level I’m looking forward to the first volume of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 which is due for publication sometime during 2011, and I am going to immerse myself in a major reading challenge, starting a blog in which I read one short story every day for the whole of 2011.

Yep, in what is either a stroke of blogging genius or an act of complete stupidity, I am going to start an offshoot to Me And My Big Mouth in which I will read a different short story each day and blog about it. More on the project before the year is over.