My Year of Regrets

Sorry about the silence on here recently. I don't have any other excuse other than to say that it's December, and I work in retail. If you've gone into a shop of any kind in the last two weeks, you'll know what I'm talking about.

On a happier note, that whole 'Death of the Book' thing that people have been going on about doesn't seem to actually be a thing that's happening. At all. At least, not if the store I work in is any sort of a guide. (Shameless plug: Avenue Bookstore in Albert Park, Melbourne. Come see us sometime.) You can't really give an e-book as a gift, can you? Even if it's only because of Christmas, the ink-and-paper kind of book will still be around for a long, long time.

Anyway, it's December, and I'm fucking exhausted (see picture). Hence, no blogs recently.

Starting today, though, you'll be getting a positive avalanche of year-end round-up type posts. Rather than the usual 'I liked/didn't like X, Y and Z,' I thought I'd begin with something slightly different.

This whole 'reading the stuff I already own' project is hard on two levels: one, there's a bunch of stuff I own that I figured I'd never read, ever (*cough* Proust *cough* Homer *cough* shitloads of others as well *cough*) and ploughing through them all will, at times, be a massive chore. But second, and by my reckoning even harder, is the fact that there are heaps of awesome-looking books being released all the time. And, working in a bookstore, I'm aware of every single bloody one of them. And they're always sitting there, right in the corners of my eyes, taunting me. So this first 2011 summation is not about books I've read, it's about books that have come out that I've really wanted to read, and haven't. These are my 'Regrets of the Year.'

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips.

Arthur Phillips is the main character of his own novel, and the first part of the book details his youth, travelling the country with his itinerant, conman father and Shakespeare-obsessed sister. When his father, in jail for life, bequeaths the adult Arthur Phillips a complete 'lost' Shakespeare play called, funnily enough, The Tragedy of Arthur, he has no idea if it's genuine, or if it's his dad's last great sting. Sharing a similar structure to Nabokov's Pale Fire, the main text of the novel is the fictional Arthur Phillips' introduction to the also-fictional Shakespeare play, which is then reproduced in its full five-act glory at the end of the book.

Having the balls to write an entire play in Shakespearian language is one thing, pulling it off to such an extent that critics are raving is quite another. And, now that somebody's thought of it, who doesn't want to read a Shakespeare-type play dealing with Arthurian legend? A number of my colleagues have been going mental about this Tragedy of Arthur, and I really want to join in.

The Submission by Amy Waldman.

After the destruction of the World Trade Center, a competition is held for architects to design the memorial. To ensure the contest's fairness, it's conducted 'blind' --- nobody knows who designed which entry. The jury, which includes survivors and relatives of victims, finally come to a decision, open the envelope containing the winner's name ... and discover that they've chosen a design by an American Muslim. Cue political and emotional fallout.

There hasn't been an enormous amount of serious fiction dealing with the events of 9/11, and what there has been (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and Falling Man by Don DeLillo are the two that immediately come to mind), I haven't read. This rather simple concept strikes me as an elegant way of tackling the issues that arose in the aftermath of the attacks. In particular, it raises the question of 'Where Islam stands in relation to the West?' in a more nuanced way than is usual, and it explores the notion that an inclusive multi-culturalism is necessary for the success of pluralist democracies, and more necessary now than ever.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.

Trying to summarise this insanely-confusing-sounding book without having actually read it is probably the ultimate in foolish attempts at summation. Here goes anyway: our main character, Charles Yu, is a time-travel repairman who lives in his time machine so that time doesn't have to actually move forward. His dad invented time travel, then went missing. While trying to find the one day in the future where he and his father get to meet, Charles winds up stuck in a loop where he's both reading and writing a book called 'How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.' After that, I've no idea what the hell happens.

That's as much as I've been able to piece together from blurbs, reviews, and talking to a regular at the store who's read it and loved it. With this and Tragedy of Arthur (and Crash), I obviously have a thing for meta-fiction in which the author uses himself as the main character. I do love sci-fi, but a lot of what's coming out these days seems stuck in a bit of a rut, and this one caught my eye because it felt new and different and, bravest of all, fun.

The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites.

The only non-fiction on this list, The Toaster Project details Thwaites' attempt to build a toaster from scratch. That sounds reasonably simple, doesn't it? But what if I tell you that the simplest electric toaster he can find has 407 distinct parts? And that when he says 'from scratch,' he really means it? As in, he begins by visiting mines in Wales and digging metals out of the ground. There ain't no 'heading to the hardware store' here, he learns to smelt (I'm not even sure what smelting is), and he makes his own plastic ... pretty badly, if the picture on the cover is anything to go by.

Post industrial revolution, the vast majority of us are so disconnected from the fruits of our labour that the concept of making something with our bare hands is ridiculous. Right now I'm typing on a keyboard, looking at a monitor, and posting on the internet, but I have no clue how any of those things work, or what processes are needed to call them into existence. Thwaites' quest might be a little silly (what good quest isn't?), but I suspect that what this book has to say about the products we use so unthinkingly, and where they come from, might just be fascinating. 

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.

The other four books on this little list are by authors I've never read before. This one's a bit different. Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex is one of the great books of this shiny new millenium, a beautiful novel that links the life story of a transgendered person with the history of the twentieth century, and uses the juxtaposition to shine new light on both. It's really stunning, and if you haven't read it, you damn well should.

So as soon as I heard that Eugenides had a new book coming, The Marriage Plot jumped to the top of my 'read that when I get a chance' pile. Everybody at the store was just as excited as me. We badgered the publisher's rep to get us advance copies. We chose it as the monthly read for our in-store bookclub. We were pumped.

Then it arrived, and people started reading it, and word trickled back to me. 'It's ... okay,' was the verdict. 'But it's no Middlesex.' And then I started reading the reviews. If I had to sum up the literary world's reaction to The Marriage Plot in one word, it would be 'disappointing.' My regret with this one is more to do with timing: I should have struck when the iron was hot, reading it when my expectation was peaking. Now it's no longer at the head of the queue of must-reads, and it'll probably be years, rather than months, before I bother. To feel this letdown by a book I haven't even read yet is probably stupid, but there it is.

So those are my top five regrets from 2011. When I get around to reading them, who knows whether I'll like them or not ... but until then I can still convince myself that they're five instant classics of indescribable beauty. (Not like Proust or Homer. That shit will never last ...)

Anybody got any recommendations for more good 2011 reads? Taunt me by sharing them in the comments. Please describe what's great about them in excruciating detail. I love it.

Cheers, JC.


currently reading: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
books to go: 94

Libraires Sans Frontières

From the closure of Borders and Angus and Robertson stores across the country, to Nick Sherry's prediction that bookstores won't exist within five years (What's he the minister for again? Oh, he's the Minister for Small Business. Good to know we've got his support!), you could be forgiven for thinking that the entire book industry is entering its end times.

  

Which, given that I work in a bookstore and would like to continue to do so, is an issue that strikes close to my heart.

But before we write the obituary, let's get a few things straight.

Borders didn't fail because of online trading, or e-books, or anything new-fangled like that. It failed because it was a bad bookstore. I used to work there, so I feel I can say this with perfect impunity: Borders was fucking shit.

If one day some Borders supremo had decided that they should stop selling books and start selling ... say, whitegoods, or clothes, or Volkswagens, nothing about the way the business ran would change. The fact that they sold books meant nothing to the people running the company. They would argue, I'm sure, that a business is a business, and then they'd point to pie-charts to explain why books should be treated like any other commodity. But book retail is (almost) unique, and can't be treated like you're running an 'anything' store. Why not? Because --- and this is probably the most un-cynical, high-falutin', philosophical-type thing I'll ever say on this blog --- books are important. Reading is important. Learning, and growing, and discovering are all important. Books are important.

In a good bookstore there will be a surfeit of knowledgeable staff who are enthusiastic about matching the right book to a customer's needs. At Borders there was a bunch of surly kids who didn't know a damn thing. Okay, this is an exaggeration, there were many good staff at both Borders I worked at ... but it's a slighter exaggeration than it should be. I worked alongside too many people who just didn't read, and had no interest in books at all.

And there were far too few of those surly kids anyway. Even if you did want to ask a question, good luck finding somebody to ask. When looking at ways to maximise revenue, Borders would always, always think first of cutting staff. Eventually their stores (vast expanses, all) were being run by skeleton crews. There weren't enough staff to help the customers, and there weren't enough staff to keep the store neat and tidy. That's not just my anal retentive side coming out, Borders un-alphabetised shelves were a massive problem: how can you sell somebody a book you can't find? Not once, in all my time at Borders, did any manager suggest that the state of the store might be having adverse effects on the bottom line, yet it was perfectly obvious to every member of the floor-staff. A manager did, at one point, suggest that if the computer showed we had one copy of something we should tell the customer we were sold out, to save us the time of searching for a book we'd never find. Can a store that contemptuous of its customers ever survive?

So then, if you're selling fewer books, how to make up the shortfall? Immediately after they were taken over by the REDGroup (hacks and morons, I guarantee), Borders went through their entire backlist, marking up prices to RRP +10%. With the exception of the discounted new releases that they stacked up the front, every single book, CD and DVD in their stores was more expensive than it should have been. They hoped, I'm sure, that people simply wouldn't notice. Which I guess is another pretty neat illustration of the utter contempt with which they treated their customers.

As the bills mounted up, Borders stopped paying the distributors, who stopped sending books to Borders stores. Major releases were simply skipped by the entire company. Long before they officially closed, I wandered into the Borders on Lygon Street to wile away a bit of time before seeing a movie at the Nova. Dave Eggers' book Zeitoun had just come out: a major new work by a major writer. Borders didn't have it. Across the road, Readings had a pile the size of an elephant. I knew Borders was dead that day, and that was nearly two years ago. Since then, it's just been the carcass twitching.

And former colleagues of mine, take heart, it wasn't your fault. The company simply didn't have any interest in letting you be booksellers, rather than check-out chicks.

I used to work at Borders. Now I work at a bookstore. End rant. (And check it out, now I'm punning bilingually!)

Cheers, JC.

currently reading: The March by E.L. Doctorow

books to go: 103