Ha ha ha bonk (laughing my head off)

Sara Crowley3 Comments

One of my colleagues got pranked yesterday. Someone asked her for a book about a man who ate his own faeces or some such, and she looked on the computer for it… They then told her she’d been secretly filmed for a comedy show and asked her to sign a release form so they can use the footage. She declined. Thing is they obviously don’t realise that she didn’t bat an eyelid or react because we get genuinely asked for similar all the time and have learnt to display blank disinterest rather than blush or question.

There’s a regular who asks for a medical book about giving birth, and then says it’s for work so he needs it to be more graphic than the general pregnancy guides, then asks if we have anything that shows “women’s bits” opening wide in more close up detail.

There’s the guy who came screeching in, drunk, demanding “I NEED LESBIAN PORN NOW”.

There are the faux photographer’s who buy “art” books that are really just tits and arse shots.

The man who asked for water sports and didn’t want the sport section.

The woman whose boyfriend told me she was looking for rude books to get off on.

I’m sure there is an alternative health book that advocates the drinking of urine.

And so on.

So yeah, when someone asks for a book on pooh, we will just look it up and tell you if we have it. We’ll even offer to order it for you if we don’t.

Just isn’t funny is all.

(Oh, this post is gonna fuck with my google stats isn’t it, sorry to disappoint any one who is here for another reason than book blether!)

I’m not listening!

Sara Crowley2 Comments

I went to the Small Wonder short story festival on Sunday. I had my first internet meet too! Vanessa Gebbie (whose on-line writing forum I am a member of) and Elizabeth (another forum member) picked me up at Lewes station and we returned to Vanessa’s for lunch. I have to admit I was nervous about meeting for the first time but Vanessa made me feel so welcome and was even lovelier than I had imagined she would be, somehow softer and warmer. She really is all kinds of ace…thanks Vanessa.

On to the festival where we saw Will Hodgkinson speaking about his books Guitar Man and Song Man and how a song can be a short story. He was joined in conversation by a singer/songwriter called Mara Carlyle, and she sung a song in a voice so wonderful, clear, sparkling and gorgeous that I promptly forgot everything else!

Fay Weldon was up next, a grande dame full of wit and experience. She was followed by Yiyun Li, who seemed immensely likeable and interesting. My problem came when they read from their books. I listened for a bit and then my mind began a drift away from what they were saying, the words washing over me as I mused on gawd knows what and then pulled myself back into focus. I thought about this afterwards, trying to recall other readings I have been present at.

When I have seen poets speak their own words they have brought sense and meaning with them (Les Murray reading his poetry illuminates in such a stunning way it really is akin to a translation). However this magic hasn’t occurred when listening to writers of prose. My light bulb moment is in realising that I simply like my words to be on a page. I want to see them, and when I can’t some concentration is lost.
I don’t like reading prose aloud either, although I know that as a writer I am supposed to. in order to check for rhythm and such.
Erm, that’s it actually, not sure why.

A silly quiz, just because…

Sara Crowley6 Comments


You’re Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Which is all rather disappointing. I am certain that I can’t possibly be Watership Down!

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No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

Sara Crowley7 Comments

The front cover of this collection of short stories has one of those Egger quotes on top. He says the book is “incredibly charming, beautifully written, frequently laugh-out-loud funny.” His quote continues on the inside cover and says that fans of “Lorrie Moore should rub this book all over themselves,” which is actually a stupid thing to say when taken literally!
Anyway, I hadn’t heard of July, despite her apparent fame as director of the film ‘You Me and Everyone We Know’ but you my love of Lorrie Moore and Dave Eggers combined to make this a must buy.

(Oh, incidentally, July made a promo for it which was shots of writing on top of her fridge that said basically buy this book. It felt to me like try too hard to be DIY indie cool, and actually put me off.)

It is impossible for me to review the book without using the work quirky. There it is, dammit, this book is a collection of QUIRKY short stories. The snarky short story writer that is me feels bitchy and wonders if I had subbed any of these tales would I have had them placed in McSweeney’s, The New Yorker et al. Or is it just that her achingly cool connections get her the kind of respect I dream of?

So, to the stories themselves. This is where I admit that I was utterly charmed by her voice. Her characters are lonely, uneasy, searching. They are normal people doing normal things that then slide into oddness. There is humour and sadness in them, but there is also an essential feeling of hope.

In ‘I kiss a door’ the narrator tells us in just over 4 pages her discovery of a shocking truth about her friend. July has great skill in choosing just the right words to breezily explain something that could have been laboured and over written and made so much more complex. This is her greatest talent I think, her ability to use dialogue or to invite us in to her characters mind and tell us things with deceptive ease. Several times I thought, wow, that’s so clever.

‘Something That Needs Nothing’ begins with this;
“In an ideal world, we would have been orphans. We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents. I even had two.”

I think that gives the flavour of all the pieces, the narrator telling us something personal, a little strange and yet it feels like truth.

On the down side the voice sounds the same no matter who the narrator is supposed to be, but it is an intriguing and eminently readable voice!

There is a slight unevenness to the quality of the stories, I thought some much more effective than others, but it is good, it’s thought provoking, fun and witty. And it turns out that Miranda July is talented and sparkly and thoroughly deserving of her publications and I am just jealous!

Morning people vs afternoon people.

Sara Crowley7 Comments

I went to work yesterday for the first time in almost 3 weeks. I worked on my favourite floor, fiction (like, wow Sara, we wouldn’t have guessed that.) In the morning there were books to be shelved, customer orders to be rung through, displays to tidy and lots of customers. The customers were cool: one said how much she liked my necklace, another thanked me for “being lovely”, a professor chatted, lamenting the enormous amount of factual books he has to read, saying how he misses fiction. Time passed pleasantly enough. Then after lunch the weather became muggy and the customers became snappy. A man punched the lift door because it closed before he got there, families dragged screeching children around the store, the staff became niggly, the day dragged hotly on.

My personal pet book shop hate is when a customer will ask for a book, and in the course of our transaction will announce with some kind of pride that it is not for them as they don’t read. This is always said loudly, brightly, as if it is a cool edgy thing that they say. Personally I assume from that point on that they are a moron! I mean, by all means don’t read if you don’t wish to, I think that you’re missing out on one of the most pleasurable things this life offers, but then again I don’t listen to classical music and I know how many people get huge satisfaction from doing just that. The difference is that I don’t feel any need to walk into a classical music shop, approach the assistant and proclaim that I don’t like it.

At the end of the day a man insisted on slowly explaining his favourite stories to me despite me saying that we were closing. When I said that I’d have to hurry him as it was 6 o’ clock he became most disgruntled.

I left the store and waited at the traffic lights outside, men with cans of Tennants lager in their fists faced down drivers as they swarmed arrogantly across the road, daring the cars to move.

I got to the train and sank into my seat, tired, wanting to have some quiet reading time, but 5 children squashed themselves into and onto the luggage rack adjacent to me, and proceeded to fart and make monkey sounds all the way home.

I fantasised about resigning.

Bleurgh-y.

Sara Crowley6 Comments

My husband is not much of a reader, one book a year is about his limit, plus a couple of wrestling magazines and graphic novels and a gazillion reprts on dementia and elders. He is smart as anything, a fabulous musician, an expert in his field, just not into reading for fun. Anyway, he looked at a couple of bits I have written recently and said ‘There’s a definite theme to everything you write,” which instantly had me intrigued. I’d love to know what my recurrent theme is.
He said “It’s like here’s a gorgeous juicy apple, oh, but wait, it’s full of maggots!”

Oh.