I know lots of people have decided that now that they’re older, wiser and less angry with the world they’re over Brett Easton Ellis, and that his books, particularly his debut Less Than Zero and the callously excessive American Psycho , are just nasty, bitter and full of the kind of dead-eyed loathing that the world doesn’t need right now. But I’m not one of them. I think he does what he does exceptionally well, and that in a digital age his cold, detached cruelty is perhaps more resonant than ever. Just saying.
Archive for the 'Books:Other People's' Category
I’m a big fan of Chuck ‘Fight Club’ Palahniuk’s writing. I’m an even bigger fan of his warped world view. And I’m an even bigger fan of the way he’s created this whole cult movement around the first two. I would love to go to one of Chuck’s readings, but until he makes it to London I’ll have to make do with the film above.
Elmore Leonard knows so much about writing he could write a book about it... or at least a list.
I never wanted to be one of those writers who ends up writing endlessly about writing but never seems to do any actual writing. Then again I never wanted to be one of those writers who spent hours on the internet reading other writers’ writing about writing instead of actually doing any writing, but I do a hell of a lot of that and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t found it a most enjoyable and educational way to avoid writing. So, by way of a compromise, here are some links to some brilliant writers talking about their brilliant writing.
Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s now legendary ‘10 Rules Of Writing’, The Guardian ran a two part feature where the likes of Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Philip Pullman, Ian Rankin, Will Self, Sarah Waters and Zadie Smith divulge the 10 rules which either make them the writer they are or stop them wanting to self-harm. Some tips are more technical than others, but all are informative, entertaining and worth reading. My particular favourites are Richard Ford’s: “Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea” and Roddy Doyle’s very wise opener: “Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.”
There is a better life. And it looks a little something like this. A thought to conjure with on a cold, snowy/icy/slushy night in London in January. For more of the same, see my new favourite oversized coffee table book Poolside With Slim Aarons. Genius.
Nick Cave has a new novel, The Death Of Bunny Munro. He also has a very good website to go with it. Simple but effective, I especially like the video clips of him reading extracts and the limited edition idea – one already used extensively by HarperCollins’s innovative indie style imprint The Friday Project – is genius, not least because if they sell all 500 copies, and at the time of writing there are only 91 left, they stand to turn over £50,000. That’s a pretty smart way of making hardbacks profitable. The book will also, apparently, be available as an iPhone app, which I may well get just to see what it’s like.
New meaning to the phrase ‘the film of the book’. And the best bit, it really does make you want to buy it. Or maybe it’s just me.
I love magazines. I should do. I’ve spent most of my adult life writing for them. Increasingly though, magazines are becoming hard to like, let alone love. Grown bloated on d-list celebrities, fad diets, watches, cars, tits, cellulite, empty sound bites and hot air, they’re just another noisy distraction designed to entertain the shortest of attention spans. Of course, you could say that for something more substantial there are always books, and as someone who writes those too I certainly wouldn’t argue with their value. But it’s not the same. Books are about words sparking the imagination; a writer and a reader, alone in a space sharing a thought. Magazines are about words and pictures and how the two interact. They’re about a designer’s interpretation of an attitude, a photographer’s understanding of a subject, a writer’s assessment of the situation and an art director’s idea of how all three can best come alive on the page. Or at least that’s the way I think of them – exciting explosions of ideas, unexpected stories that grab the attention and suck you in.
The truth is that mainstream consumer magazines aren’t like that anymore. And it’s a recent change. In the last 10 years word counts have plummeted, the pictures are bigger (although, sadly, not better) and the imagination, the vocabulary and the subject choice have become so constrained that it’s hard to tell one men’s magazine from the next and all the celeb gossip weeklies from each other. I could blame Loaded or Heat or everyone else who’s helped cheapen the format, but the real point is not to blame others but to do something about it – which is why I’m currently trying to get a cool, quality, pop culture quarterly off the ground. More of that in another post.
Away from the mainstream though, the magazine is very much alive and well and lovable. Independent publishers are doing all the things which used to make me buy magazines by the armful. They’re spilling imagination all over the page, exciting with indescribably sexy images and delivering rock’n'roll in print, and making all of it so exciting you could just reach in and touch it.
I know this because I recently bought two amazing books. We Love Magazines
Both books are beautifully executed with the same imagination and attitude as the titles they’re examining, so while bloody expensive, they’re worth every penny. It’s enough to make you want to put pen to paper and start dreaming up your very own super cool title… oh, wait a minute…
I’ve been reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War – the legendary War For Dummies guide, written in 500 B.C., now worshipped by aspiring business types of the kind who go on The Apprentice and say things like, ‘No guts, no glory’ and ‘I’m a natural closer’.
Not that I’m after a job in middle management. Just curious.
Sun Tzu was clearly a very wise man who’d given much thought to the nature of conflict/competition and how best to succeed. Sun Tzu says… well he says a lot and most of it in slighty Yoda-esque backwards speak, but in a nutshell…
- Plan like buggery. Come up with a watertight strategy… and a couple of other watertight strategies in case the first develops holes.
- Research. Know your market, know your enemy, know yourself.
- Make the most of your resources, by focusing your strengths against opponents weaknesses.
- The best way to win a war is without fighting. Outsmarting your opponent is painless.
- Only fight battles you can win. When you’re dead, you’re dead.
Makes sense. So there you go, 2500 years worth of tried and testest strategic wisdom reduced to five bullet points. Now you too are ready to be a business samurai. Show me the money. Lunch is for whimps. Etc, etc.
Just finished reading John Niven’s Kill Your Friends
