Another week has passed me by with a lot less posting than I would like...
I got up this morning and decided I seriously needed to binge read over the weekend so I went to every decent bookstore I could find in search of a hit. It's a shitty and sad state of affairs out there at the moment. My adoration of crime thrillers is quickly becoming an albatross around my neck as the only authors on display are either those who I have chewed up and spat out already or those I have buried in a ditch out of disgust separated only by those who have let their books into the big bad world with awful cover designs and will therefore never be bough by me or anybody else. As a slight aside to this, I have totally given up on horror. If somebody could get their ass into gear and publish something good, they would clean up. Nothing good has come out of that stable since Barker pimped out Gallilee... what's that? Ten years ago?
Please don't bother leaving a comment that says "why not try Joe Hill". I'll tell you why - he sucks that's why. He might be Stephen King's son but that counts for nothing on the shelf. Heart Shaped Box was the most disappointing book in living memory.
Where was I? Ah - the bookstore. We have two branches of Waterstones in Canterbury. One is going downhill faster than a stream and the other is faring slightly better as it either a) has more choice or b) has the same choice but is better laid out. However, the first thing I see in the slightly better store is the staff's 'Desert Island Choice' which included Wuthering Heights and Catch 22. That my friends is one suck-ass desert island library to be stuck with. I think I would rather have Joe Hill.
Anyway, I settled on a copy of Bukowski's Ham On Rye (who is fast becoming a favourite around here) and I thought I would go with a gut instinct and also picked up Bringing It All Back Home by Ian Clayton. I was in the mood for coming back with a big stack to wade through but this was not to be. I think I'll throw the book money in a big pot instead and when The Lovers comes out, go and buy it from an indie book store at full jacket price as a (useless) gesture at the chain stores.
I hope this isn't all going the same way as record stores...
Some other cool stuff infiltrated my life today as well. I have always liked the thought of liking art - art that you hang on the wall, not art in a comic book - but I've never really been that good at appreciating anything about it. I tend to run on instinct and therefore like only Bosch (who hit me where it hurt first time round), a fair amount of pre-Raphaelite guys and whatever the name of the guy is who painted the Samurai on a Horse print that I have - yeah, I should probably find that out.
Anyway, I saw this picture up for sale and fell in love instantly - and also discovered that the artist, Govinder Nazran (now sadly no longer with us), has an exhibition on until mid-June. I should probably go. Stuff like this doesn't come along too often for me.
So apart from being accosted by a woman in the street for saying the Christian bookshop would never close down like all of the regular bookstores because it was funded by blood money (which was pretty funny really), being exceptionally disappointed by the zodiac floor I had based a whole book on in Canterbury Cathedral (but was still pretty damn killer for a million other reasons) and not being asked to be the new frontman for Queen (which I only want to be asked to do so that I can say no), I just had the best day I can remember for years on end.
Life is good. Let's go to work...
Currently reading: one of those books I mentioned earlier.
Currently watching: Nothing. Everything has finished for the summer. This is probably a good thing.
Currently listening to: Shinedown: The Sound of Madness and Jani Lane: Back Down To One
