Transcription
Hello again, and welcome to this channel of mine. Me and Socks are talking about books. I've made a decision about reading. For the past few months, I've been reading one book at a time, which has been nice. But then you get stuck. I went back and thought about what I was doing. Oh, sometime last year, I had about twelve things lined up. They were different categories of books, and I loved that. I read a chunk of each, and I got through much more stuff. Not that that's the point; getting through stuff isn't my point. What I loved were the juxtapositions of moving from one kind of book to another.
I went back to this journal from last spring and summer and found the page where I listed the kinds of things that I dipped into. They were: a book that is one for dipping into, a kind of miscellany; a proper novel with real people; a short story collection; memoirs; a rock biography; a reread; a book club book; and genre fiction in all kinds of genres. I’ve got a big long list of the different kinds of genres that I love, from novelizations down to historical sagas or ghost stories. I've pulled together things surrounding me and thought about what my current heap looks like. So I'm going to talk you through my reading heap because I think it's the way forward for me just now.
My dipping-in book is this, which has been on the bookcase downstairs for so long, and I have dipped in over the years. It's Britton's Fantasmagoria: Compendium of Monsters, Myths and Legends by Terry Brovon. Quirk published this; it's quite a witty compendium, quite nicely illustrated with line drawings of monsters and things taken out of old encyclopedias and all sorts. Look, some legendary horned creatures! It's a lovely book, actually useful for making stories out of. It says it's not the kind of book you would sit and read cover to cover; that's my point. I think doing things this way allows you to crack your way into books that you might just have on the shelf and never get to. I think that's my point. I've just realized I haven't got a poetry book that I've picked for this list. I'll have to address that.
Okay, a dipping-in book; a proper novel with real people. Well, I have no idea if these are real people or not, but I bought this at the weekend: *Gay Werewolf* by Tony Santella. I've heard such great things, and I've been looking forward to it. Brian, an aimless slacker in his 20s, has been struggling to maintain his transition to adulthood almost as much as his monthly transitions to werewolf. Really, he's not great at the whole werewolf thing, and his recent murderous snack-cidents have got his best friends Nick and Darby suspicious and caught the attention of Tyler, a hot wear entrepreneur with a startup idea for the mythological wellness market. Tyler wants Brian to be part of his vision, but as the two get closer and Brian drifts further from his friends, it becomes clear that Tyler's plans are much more nefarious than a little Lupine Enlightenment. It's interesting; this is kind of like a follow-on from the old urban fantasy genre of the early 2000s—those kind of mystery books that involve shape-shifters and a bit of gay sex—and now they've gone a bit more mainstream and a bit more openly comedic, which is all to the good, I think.
For a short story collection, I want to go back to this. I've been thinking about Batman for some reason; I don't know why Batman's in my head. This is the sequel anthology, *The Further Adventures of the Joker*, edited by Martin H. Greenberg. It's the sequel to a collection. So sorry, my whole tripod thing fell over because it was attacked by a pile of books. I hope that wasn't too distressing. Yes, the Joker and Batman. In 1989, on summer holiday in Carile—the last family holiday we took, actually, while I was still a teenager—I read *The Further Adventures of Batman*, edited by Martin Greenberg, and it was published by—I can't even see that—Bantam Books, which did lots of science fiction stuff at the time. It was such a good anthology, and I was so pleased to find out that there were sequels that I don't think we got in this country, or even they might have been of limited availability. But it's really interesting; people like Robert Sheckley and I think there was even one by Asimov. Can it be Sher Teer—Sherry S. Teer, I think? Anyway, so that's a bit of Batman waiting around.
A biography: I've been meaning to read this for ages, this book about Meryl Streep, who I think is really interesting in lots of ways. I've had this on my shelf for so long. Maybe the fact it's a biography puts me off; it's not going to be as much fun. I don't know, but anyway, it's there. That's my memoir on my pile. A rock biography: I already began it last night and talked about it in my last video—James Griffiths' book about Squeeze. I'm going to set these books off again; it was like an earthquake in bookland. A kids' book, or a middle-grade book, or a YA book. What I've chosen is another Paul Zindel book, *Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball*, which I got myself when I enjoyed *The Pigman* so much back in January. He's a writer who's new to me, so I thought it's a great chance to—I went eBay crazy and bought a number of Zindel books. You see, it can't be summer holiday reading without at least a few—I was going to say Puffins; this isn't Puffin. I don't know who published this—Grafton, or somebody—or Fontana Lions, with a different logo. They used to have a very friendly logo with a lion, and at this point they clearly changed it because it is summer holiday reading. Definitely now; it's the very end of July; it's stiflingly warm in Manchester, and I'm ready to finish my novel and take a little time off my own work.
Now, a paperback in any genre. I've got in this list, and then I make a note that genre for me can break down into novelizations, romance, horror, spooky SF, fantasy (either epic or urban), Romany (a late arrival there in the list), historical, and sagas. I'm sure there are others as well that I like, but for this I'm picking one of my Galance masterworks that I bought a big box load of last week. This is Alfred Bester's *Stars My Destination*, something I've never read. I read the blurb last week in my video dedicated to this, and loads of people go on about this, so that's on the list. I will finish *Wildmind* by Natalie Goldberg. That's here on my list as—in two categories. It's a book club book because it's part of my private book club, but it's also an inspiring book about writing or art, and that's a category in this—something that I can dip into that is going to fuel and nourish the creative part of me. Something—where's this?—a reread from a long time ago. I could find you the photo of me reading this in our garden in Cliffe in 1981, and I am sat with a China cup and saucer at a garden table with this. It's not this very copy because I lost my copy a long time ago, but it's the same edition of *Clash of the Titans* by Alan Dean Foster, and it's ready for a reread.
So that was—what was that?—forty-three years ago. Book club book: Our next book club round our houses locally is *84, Charing Cross Road*. It's my choice—Helen Hanff's book, in letters going backwards and forwards, a nonfiction from the bookseller in Charing Cross Road and her in New York. I've read this again and again, and it's ready for a reread, too, I think. A gay novel; that's a category by itself. This is *Find Me* by André Aciman; he wrote *Call Me By Your Name*. I know lots of people who are snobby about the book and the film; I loved it. It felt properly nostalgic for a certain kind of 90s gay fiction, and so the sequel is very welcome. I do know people who are quite snobby about it, but you know, people are snobby about everything. A Doctor Who book; that's a category by itself as well because I still have so many unread that I need to get through them. I think the category is actually Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, *Murder, She Wrote*. They're not necessarily just sci-fi, but they're series books and series that I am attached to. So not just genre, not just novelizations; they are series that I need to keep revisiting to keep going with them, checking in with the characters. This is *The Rise of Rebellion on Treasure Island*, an Eleventh Doctor novel that came out last year as part of the Puffin mashups series that I'm involved in, and I haven't read this one yet, so that's on my pile.
A cat book: I think a cat book should be on the list. I'm going to add that as a definite—a definite cat or dog, you think? Or dog as well, Socks? Nope, just a cat. This is Antonia White, and a Virago reprint of her *Minka and Cie*. This was something passed on as a recommendation and a lend by my friend Rosie, who loved it, and it's got nice pictures of cats, so that's on the pile. A literary biography: Now, this is a big category for summer for some reason. The holidays—summer and Christmas—are the times that I end up with massive literary biographies. I haven't for a few years. I love the ones that are letters, that are diaries, that are salacious, that are set in glamorous places like Paris or Venice or New York or California, and often there are mid-century writers who get involved with film stars and the world of film, and then get burnt and then have to go and live in the mountains and write some salacious novel about everyone they know. So people like Tana French; those kinds of biographies. This one is the letters of Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy; it's called *The Animals*; it's the love letters. I saw a documentary about them that talked about this and talked about their letters and the cartoons that they drew each other and the DFT kind of made-up world that they created for each other in their letters. Then again, I've got to be careful; this is what happens to a toppled mountain; it falls on you, and you get carried away forever in a pile of unread books.
Now, the last category is to do with comic and graphic novels. I've still got ongoing this huge thing, *40 Years of Screen Comics*, which I've talked about a number of times on this channel. I'm still only about a quarter of the way through, but then there's no rush; I've waited forty years for it to come back, and it would be disappointing to finish it in a flash. So I'm dipping into this; that's the kind of graphic novel component. And I have a handful of actual comics from when I was reading them as a kid. So I've got Marvels from the 70s and 80s and Nutty comics and Buddy comics. Look at the Hulk! This was when they relaunched Spider-Man in 1979 with backup strips of Godzilla and Daredevil, and they stopped having—with this particular issue—glossy covers. They went cheaper and more like the Beano and Buddy and so on, and Dandy. I'm still disappointed because look, when they used to be glossy, they were very smart. Anyway, so I've got a handful of comics to add to the pile as well. This means that they're going to get carried around with me all the time in a book bag. The other thing is *The New Yorker*, which is always in the bathroom—the pile of the last three months' *New Yorkers* that I work my way through very slowly. So that's everything I'm reading at once or intend to, which is just so alluring.
I think the point is that we adapt to different things at different times, and so for a little while this year, one at a time was good for me. Really, the question is—the idea is—that it's the thing that keeps you inspired and stimulated. And if that's fine for just one book at a time, that's great. But if you get stuck on a book or it's not giving you everything it can be stifling, and it can stop you. What I found is when I had loads of things on the go, I was never bored. I could drop something and then move on to the next thing; it was there, ready to go. I could go around in a big circle. In a whole afternoon reading, I might dip into six books, but I end up reading more than usual, and I think that was good, if occasionally overstimulating—you know, when your head starts spinning with too many ideas. You got a bit like that, right? I'm going to try not to knock my camera over again, and I'm going to go now. So let me know down below in the comments if you read anything like this, or if you organize yourself like this (but nobody does; I love it!), or if you are intrigued by any of the titles I've talked about. Okay, I'm going to go. Goodbye, and I'll see you again soon in the next episode.