The Humbling

Philip Roth’s latest short novel “The Humbling” continues his late fascination with death and decay - “the speeding up of slowing down” Like much of his more recent output it’s another departure from the usual Newark Jewish intellectual milieu, although there are still some resonances with earlier work.

Simon Axler occupies centre stage. A formerly feted and lionised performer he has precipitously failed - He can no longer act. His life in disarray and after failed attempts to revive his powers he retreats to his country mansion.
There, deserted by his talent, his wife but not, apparently, by his powers of seduction he begins a short lived affair with Pegeen, 40 year old voluptuous daughter of his closest friends and still reeling from her lover’s decision for gender reassignment. As buxom, beautiful lesbians go Pegeen may well be a geriatric male’s masturbatory fantasy but Axler is ultimately cast off when Pegeen abandons her heterosexual experiment.

Sex is a major element and some of the sex scenes are wincingly bad ( Roth is nominated in the “Bad Sex Awards” this year Bad Sex Award 2009) but there’s a hint of provocation that suggests it’s deliberately so. It sits so awkwardly with the beautifully controlled prose that the alternative seems improbable.

Roth’s celebrated ear for dialogue also appears to desert him but a more generous reading would allow the possibility that Axler is effectively snared within a performance. He doesn’t speak. He has dialogue. He emotes. The nature of his end would support this - Simon must have felt himself “a poor player”, “a walking shadow” his final act possible only if scripted.

Roth’s point could be that we are all similarly trapped in a performance. Unfortunately, for many, it’s one rarely written by Chekhov.

Yo La Tengo - Manchester Academy 2 - 7 Nov 2009

As I possibly alluded to in an earlier post, Yo La Tengo are one of those groups that are very difficult to categorise - "what sort of music is it"? Well, they kind of make jangly pop full of beautiful vocal harmonies, which is often buried below very beautiful dense guitar sounds. Something like that. But you are best having a listen yourself, as it is very difficult to describe music in words.

I don't think they tour the provinces very often, so I was very much looking forward to it. As usual, I had an extra ticket, and as usual, none of my "so called" friends could be bothered and/or had never heard of YLT. I ended up selling it to a tout for £5.00 - I have mixed views about touting online, but I think this "front of venue" type of activity gives you another chance to see a group that has been sold out for ages. I think touts play a very complex economic lottery with their market-making, but I would expect my ticket to have been sold for £25+ to the middle aged men who like this kind of music.

Anyway, Garry "Slippers" Bradbury met me at the venue (having purchased his ticket independently of me), and we first watched the very entertaining Euros Childs (ex of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) bash out his slightly shambolic brand of keyboard-led indie pop. His new album (Son of Euro Child) is currently available as a free download from his site - and is worth every penny. In fact, it is worth the tenner I handed over to him after the gig. We had an interesting discussion of the economics of making music available for free, and I was tickled to hear him say "economic model" in his broad Welsh accent.

The main event was fantastic. I am not particularly good at recalling names of songs, especially true of YLT material as their music often has a hypnotic quality that blends into a beautiful soundscape (see And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out). However, standout songs included If It's True, Here to Fall and the fantastic set closer You Can Have it All. I loved the way how they created such a racket with just 3 people on stage, though they are all clearly talented musicians as they regularly swapped between instruments.

The main singer, Ira Kaplan, said during the encore that they like to do a song by a band from the city they are playing at. As he couldn't think of any Manchester bands(I think he was joking!) he played I Wanna Be Your Lover by Bob Dylan - he chose this becasue it was one of the songs Dylan played when he first went electric at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in 1966. Right on cue, some wag from the audience shouted "Judas!". I laughed, anyway.

After the gig, I went to buy a t-shirt, and had a quick chat with Ira. I complimented him on his fabulous guitar playing, and said that now I had 4 lessons under my belt, I would soon give him a run for his money. Rather modestly, he said that he couldn't play guitar until AFTER he had been in Yo La Tengo for 2 years!

All in all, a great night out.

Invisible

Paul Auster has been described as “a one trick pony that’s saddled up and left town” so much in thrall to the conventions of metafiction that any narrative drowns under the weight of post modern literary artifice. This is arguably not the case with “Invisible”. Whilst the trademark preoccupations (memory, truth, despair …) are present they don’t obtrude. This is actually a, relatively, conventional coming of age story. Told in four interlocking parts, the prose is precise and controlled. The dialogue is convincing and the narrative voices are well differentiated. There are momentary lapses but these are neatly dealt with. Without revealing any plot details the interlocking parts are independently authored. Whilst the names have been changed to protect the innocent the text has otherwise been rendered accurately - it’s the post-modern authors “get out of jail card”.

It’s still a “tricksy” novel though, but it’s not a full blown “Philip K Dickian” “mind-f**k”. There’s the usual blurring of boundaries – Adam Walker is a Columbia student (guess where Paul Auster went), Georges Perec gets a mention – no one reads airport thrillers in an Auster novel, and as you’d expect it abounds with references and allusions (I think!). I’m fairly sure I didn’t get one half of them but I’m convinced Rudolf Born bears more than a passing resemblance to Kurtz although, naturally, it’s the Marlon Brando reincarnation that features. Sadly I can’t mention any others without a spoiler warning (or maybe that’s my get out of jail card?)

So Although “Invisible” is firmly within the Auster fold it’s also his most readable to date. With previous novels it’s hard to avoid the feeling that they are read in the main by cognoscenti ticking off or nodding to each reference in smug satisfaction. It’s still an option here but more than any of his previous work it’s also possible to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Popular Songs - Yo La Tengo

Not a post about books or reading, though I feel that Yo La Tengo make the sort of music that you could call literary. Having said that, the fist thing that strikes me about them is the gorgeous music and harmonies created by Georgia, Ira and James.

"Popular Songs" is surely an ironic title, but maybe refers to their ability to genre-hop between songs on each album. They have been around for 25 years - I must admit to only having been a fan for the last 5 or 6 albums - and are on the perenially cool Matador label.

I have scored myself a couple of tickets for the Academy 2 show in Manchester on 7 November - apparently Euros Childs is the support act, which should make for a really rather fabulous show.

Sad Holiday Reads

My all time top five sad/pompous holiday reads have to be:

The Poetics of Space - Gaston Bachelard
The Phenomenology of Perception - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Oneself as Another - Paul Ricoeur
The Architectural Uncanny - Anthony Vidler
The Principle Of Hope (Volume One) - Ernst Bloch

The laughter never stops on my holidays......

Holiday Reading

I had to go to Liverpool passport office yesterday to renew Louis’ passport.
We’re off to Lake Garda on Saturday so I had no choice but to opt for the same day service - For an exorbitant fee they can turn one round in four hours. I’m someone of fairly limited imagination when it comes to killing time so I ended up in “Waterstones”.

In a radical departure I’m taking some “holiday” books to Italy this year. As should have been made obvious through previous posts I’m verging on OCD with my books and whilst I fall short of bubble wrapping them before packing them in a suitcase I do wrap them carefully in towels. This year I’ve bagged some “3 for 2”’s so won’t feel too aggrieved if they don’t make the return journey.

Ordinarily my approach to book buying is quite conservative - I tend to follow authors and buy, where affordable, first editions. The only time I buy outside these parameters would normally be for book club purchases or presents ( I can see this could put me in a bad light! ) Whilst I’ve relaxed these conditions I still have standards so be assured I won’t be folding back the pages of any old rubbish. I don’t take my holiday reading lightly and it probably wouldn’t be a stretch to label some of my choices over the years pretentious, which brings me to the purpose of the post

What’s the most pretentious piece of holiday reading you’re prepared to admit to!
I’ll open with “Physics & Philosophy” by Werner Heisenberg ( sported on the beaches of Crete circa 1991 )

The Joy of Calculators

I'll admit it, I am a bit of a wannabe Mathematician. I recently completed an MSc in Applied Statistics where I had to get the wire brush on my very rusty residual A level maths knowledge. My meagre knowledge was stretched to the limits, and I had to really work hard to ensure that this did not hold me back on the course.

I am going to do A level maths again this year, 25 years after I embarked on it first time around. Contrary to popular belief, I don't think the syllabus is any easier - a very wide range of topics are still covered - but I do think that the assessment method are stacked in the students favour. The exams are spread out over 2 years, you can resit exams to improve your grades and there is a coursework elements for some of the pathways. I am really looking forward to it - though not so thrilled about having to sit the exam in a dusty sports hall.

Anyway, I love calculators. I have quite a few, and last week I got myself a TI-nspire, which is a real beauty. They are becoming more and more like mini-PCs, and on this model you can link a spreadsheet of data to a graph that can be updated dynamically.

In fact, calculators could clearly be much more powerful, but as their biggest market is the educational sector, they are restricted by what the various exam boards will allow.

I will give the TI-nspire a more thorough testing as my studies progress (I am aiming to complete the A level in a year), but I am impressed by what I have seen so far. And I already feel 3.7% cleverer.

Reason, Faith & Revolution

“The Craftsman” was the first non-fiction book I’ve read since Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” (about 18 months ago?). Ironically, Richard Sennett has rekindled my interest (although maybe it’s less a question of interest and more one of vanity). Since Non-Fiction books tend to summarise it’s possible to gain a passing familiarity with a few dozen at the expense of one book’s worth of effort? So there are greater economies with non-fiction. However, occasionally this attempt is self-defeating since one book often leads to another and before you know it you’ve racked up a couple of dozen (and not read a novel!) This could go on indefinitely but clearly doesn’t. What breaks the cycle? It could be any number of things but usually it’s the publication of a new book by a favourite author, a bookclub book (that I’m honour bound to read) or fatigue.

So I’ve put aside Ryu Murakami and have pencilled in some time with Terry Eagleton’s “Reason, Faith & Revolution” which according to one review “attempts to rescue Christianity from the Christians…” On the strength of “The Shack” they need all the help they can get!

PopCo

PopCo is a little like Apple - An enigmatic and messianic CEO, Senior Executives with eccentricities bordering on whimsy all veiling a maniacal obsession with market domination. Alice Butler finds herself in the creative department of a PopCo division via a job setting crosswords for a provincial weekly. When you’ve been raised by your grandparents, one a pure mathematician, the other a cryptanalyst it’s probably inevitable that your breakthrough product is a spy kit. With that kind of pedigree and a day-job in junior code-breaking she’s a walking illustration of geek-chic.

The invite to the annual PopCo conference may come from left-of-field but we find there was some fuzzy-logic to this decision. With references to planned obsolescence, viral marketing, negative-brands and ideation this is a novel with ambition, but not over-burdened by it. The childhood reminiscences, a vehicle for the introduction of the Maths and cryptanalysis, are a perfectly pitched relief. PopCo’s “Thought Camp” has its eye on the holy grail of marketing – the killer product for teenage girls. Alice eventually unearths a more literal treasure - Her grandfather placed the key to the location of a 17th century pirate’s booty in her locket and when she finds it it makes PopCo's "market-cap" look tiny.

A book dealing with corporate cyncism could be as soul-less as it's subject matter. Fortunately PopCo's flashbacks to childhood add emotional depth. Alice’s grandparents may have effectively bequeathed a multi-billion pound fortune but there’s more than a suggestion that the real treasure is the memory of the time spent with them.

The Right To Be Lazy

There's a whiff of "New Labour" about "The Craftsman" particularly the talk about organised labour's failure to "embrace" new technology. Paul Lafargue ( Karl Marx's son-in-law ) comes at it from a different angle ( and tradition )

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/index.htm

Going Out

The last time Matt saw sunlight it almost put his lights out for good.
Confined to his house his only contact with the outside world is Julie. Julie has problems of her own though. Whilst Matt can’t engage with the real world, Julie doesn’t want to. She’s so full of neuroses there’s nothing much left.

A chance virtual meeting with a lifestyle guru extending the possibility of a cure sees them and a motley crew of friends and associates load up a camper van and head for North Wales. Throw in some wicca, testicular cancer, a latent mathematical prodigy, and Matt wrapped in tin foil and we’ve all the ingredients for a re-working of The Wizard Of Oz. ( It’s not that difficult to spot and there’s an epigraph and a post script that give the game away ). Like the Wizard of Oz the storyline is the hook for some gentle satire. Only this time it’s consumerism, and brand saturation that take the hit.

The only real weakness is the idea that every character seems to have some neurotic apsect to their character. Anyway, I’m now going to take off the white gloves and replace "Going Out", spine un-broken, on the shelf next to the rest of the chronologically ordered, mylar protected, Scarlett Thomas first editions ( I’m joking about the gloves – I only wear them for hardbacks! )

Foie Humain is the the first story in Will Self''s short story collection "Liver". In it he gives full reign to his legendary verbomania. The writing is overly rich and relentless - It's the literary equivalent of being force fed butter. It's also, obviously, deliberate. The story relates the making of human foie-gras and the writing seems to reflect the experience. As I said I think this "self-similarity" is intended

The Craftsman reminded me a little of this. The first 2 sections felt like an "apprenticeship" - You're introduced to a few new tools but they don't sit comfortably in your hand. But you persevere. After many false starts and a few wrong turns, finally everything comes together. It's just a matter of patience, doggedness and a little extra time ( but thankfully not 10,000 hours! )

How us craftsmen manage our book collections....

On the subject of dealing with huge piles of books - I'm a big fan of Alexandria Book Collection Manager on my laptop.

Its free

It is very intuitive and user friendly

You can enter the info about your book collection by either importing a document/spreadsheet or by typing in author surname or title keyword(s)

- it then finds full title, author details, publisher, ISBN etc and also downloads a little thumbnail of the cover (the default image is the original hardback cover, for you lovers of first editions).

It is yet to fail me in terms of finding a book and cover image, but you can enter the book details manually and a scanned image of the cover if needs be.

You can also have sub folders and tags to organise things properly (one of the default folders it comes with is 'books out on loan', as if any real bibliophile would need such a category..)

It also comes with an 'owned' subfolder; 'borrowed'; 'read' and 'favorite' (its from the US of A). It also comes with a 'wishlist' folder that you can send to other people as a hint for that special present.

And each book entry comes with a 'notes' page where you can record your thoughts about the book, copy links to interesting websites etc. (And you can rate the book out of five stars).

And it is only available on Linux for us craftsmen that are still tending the flame of Hepatitus (or whatever his name is..)

April / May Bookclub

Just a very brief post to remind everyone of the next meeting. We're meeting at the Old Monkey on Portland Street. I've booked the restaurant for 8.30. It's not far away so if you can get there for 8'ish there will still be time for a quick drink.

Book Clearout

We have had a "bit of a clearout" of books from our "library". The book shelves in the back room were over-flowing with books, and we have had a cull. Interestingly, it is the crime fiction that has taken the blows and bullets on behalf of its more literary siblings.

There is a box of around 150 waiting to be disposed of (to a friend at the running club), with lots of Ian Rankin, PD James, Lee Child, Andrew Kavlan, etc.

The question is: could you bring yourself to give away a chunk of the books you have read and enjoyed over the years?

Our main criteria was: would we read them again? Would we want to press them into the sweaty palms of a friend and say "you must read this!"? The books that made it into the box failed the test, I am afraid.

It gives me some empty(ish) shelf space to fill up again....

Bright Young Things

Bright Young Things opens with a series of lightly drawn character sketches. Anne, Jamie, Thea, Bryn, Emily, and Paul are all looking for a something that answering an ad for “Bright Young Things” in some undisclosed way fulfils. After their interview they wake to find themselves on a small island outside a deserted, but well provisioned, house.

Six students in a house with plenty of alcohol but no TV - “Truth or Dare” anyone? If their fantasies and fears are anything to go by “Bright Young Things” are clearly fragile young things. They lead voyeuristic lives filled with video games, soaps, cartoons & film. Books rate rarely a mention. (There’s a library in the house but it’s never used)

Thus they swap their metaphysical isolation for a geographical one. Like previous Scarlett Thomas outings the plot is often a device. This time it's an excuse for extended commentary on Consumerism - The students are consumed with and by it. It’s no surprise that there’s initially little effort applied to escape - If your life is so hollowed out then you’ve not got much to go back for.

As a novel It's deceptively simple ( or maybe I am ) and although it wouldn't be one of my desert island books it's not one for the beach either.

Seaside

Suicide is painless…
Laura Carter’s signed suicide note is found next to her lifeless body. Not much scope for a mystery here until Laura’s identical twin Alex claims she’s Laura. Local recluse and crime writer Emma Winter hires Lily Pascale to establish the truth - cue philosophical musings on identity and “the Other”. The search for the twin’s identity runs parallel with Lily’s search for her own. In fact it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest the mystery is the sub plot and cipher for Lily’s/Scarlett’s soul searching.

it brings on many changes ….
Not exactly new territory but, hindsight being a wonderful thing, you can detect a shift toward the themes of “The End Of Mr Y” and sense the character Lily is spent. "Suicide" (Seaside) is the last of the series and Scarlett has, by the books end, effectively killed her off (Given the identity a kind of virtual suicide?)

And I can take or leave it if I please…..
I won’t be pressing this one into the hands of friends and acquaintances but I will be picking up “Bright Young Things”

I’ve recently been reading Scarlett Thomas – “The End Of Mr Y” was our bookclub book in November last year and I snapped up the back catalogue on the strength of it. “Dead Clever” introduces Lily Pascale lecturer in Literary Theory specialising in Crime Fiction and reluctant amateur sleuth. “Write about what you know” is the standard injunction to the would-be novelist so it’s no surprise to find Scarlett Thomas is a Lecturer in Literary Theory specialising in Crime fiction. It’s a neat dodge if you can get away with it - There can never really be any question about the validity of the narrative voice. Another advantage of the day job is that anything that skirts on or near the edge of cliché can be passed off as playing with the conventions - Her colleague Fenn Baker with his PhD on “The Heroine in Romantic Literature” bears more than a passing resemblance to Heathcliff, and true to form their romance is frustrated by Fenn’s honour (A drunken indiscretion leaves a student pregnant and he does “the right thing”). The student lectures create the opportunity for some clever pastiches of genre fiction which suggest it’s deliberate.

The second novel “In Your Face” confirms this. It switches back to London and whilst it still “nods and winks to the camera” is probably (I haven’t read much Crime Fiction) more traditional. It leverages “Dead Clever” but doesn’t rely on it and the distance from the university creates more “literary space”. There are the occasional narcissistic lapses – Lily is nearly always described as stunning, a genius, brilliant, etc.. but then Philip Roth’s new novel is apparently about a New York Jewish Professor of Literature “turning” a stunningly attractive 30 year old lesbian literary scholar so fairs fair!

All in all, so far, I’d say I was a fan but not quite a fanatic. That said I have lined up “Seaside” for my next read so it probably depends on what your definition of fanatic is?

The Part About Archimboldi

“The Part About Archimboldi” is the fifth and final part of 2666. Archimboldi is the much fawned over novelist at the centre of “The Part About The Critics” and the device that holds 2666 together (albeit loosely). We follow Hans Reiter’s progress from lacklustre and lonely childhood through the October Revolution, Stalin’s purges, WW2, Dracula’s castle and the sexploits and eventual demise of a priapic Romanian general, to arrive in a prisoner of war camp. Here he meets the pseudonymous Zeller who turns out to have orchestrated the execution of several hundred misdirected Jews (misdirected in the sense that they arrived on his “doorstep” rather than at Auschwitz). The arrangements surrounding the piecemeal slaughter are something of a bureaucratic inconvenience for Zeller. His listless recounting of the piecemeal slaughter is mirrored in the reporting of his murder. Although at this stage his identity has yet to be properly revealed, Hans Reiter (Writer) will later surface as Archimboldi an alias that is more than a nom de plume - Reiter strangled Zeller in what may be his single most civilising act. - There really is no document of civilisation that is not at the same time a record of barbarism.

Whilst 2666 is much preoccupied with the problem of “evil” it is also concerned with reputation. Bolano’s reputation as a novelist had been building toward the end of his life and it’s not unreasonable to assume that Amalfitano’s opinion of the pharmacist is his own -

"He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby-Dick. . .A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox. . .even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown."

Maybe there’s an element of special pleading in criticising someone who prefers the shorter works of the masters to the masterpieces .There are enough references to masterpieces to be fairly sure Bolano thought he was writing one. The reflections on literary longevity, however, suggest some doubt. They’re strikingly similar to Julian Barnes’s “Nothing To Be Frightened Of”. There comes a time when almost every writer is read for the last time. Their last reader dies and with them all trace of the author. So fame for most writers is transient and posterity is ultimately elusive. Most cannot choose how or even if they are remembered - Archimboldi’s father whose dying wish is to be buried with full military honours is slung into a common pit by his wife and daughter!, the German writer Furst-Puckler more famous as the inventor of Neapolitan(?) Ice-Cream.

Much has been made of the date 2666 as being enigmatic. It alludes to a sentence in “Amulet” that describes a deserted street as like

“a cemetery in the year 2666, a forgotten cemetery under the eyelid of a corpse or an unborn child, bathed in the dispassionate fluids of an eye that tried so hard to forget one particular thing that it ended up forgetting everything else”

Maybe it’s simpler than that. Perhaps its’ Bolanos way of saying that by 2666 none of this will matter?

The joy of bargain books

I was in The Works last weekend - a chain of bookshops specialising in remainders that are a feature of many British High Streets. A few years ago, I think they went into administration, as the Oldham branch was closed for around a year, before reopening around 9 months ago. When they did reopen, I guess they had problems sourcing stock, as they did not have many paperbacks in stock.

Anyway, the position has changed significantly. When I was in, they had 200+ different titles in their "3 for £5 or £1.99 each" offer, with lots of interesting titles. Having said that, I only bought one book, but it was a real bargain. I was going to buy "The Tiger That Isn't" by Blastland and Dilnot at full price in Waterstones, but they had a really nice copy of the original "posh paperback" edition (RRP of £12.99) in their offer - quite a result. They also had the large format version of the excellent Bad Science in the offer.

Only had a skim of the first few pages of TTTI, but it looks really good. The authors present the Radio4 show, More or Less, that specialises in the statistics of everyday life, so it is right up my street.

I'll post a review when I have finished.

Arco Iris De Gravedad?

Gather all lines together. This opening line was held by many critics to allude to “Against The Day” being Thomas Pynchon’s swan song. There must have been a few red faces in academe when his publisher released the publication date for “Inherent Vice” last year. This pointless speculation is lampooned in 2666’s “The Part About The Critics” where literary scholars had been relentlessly predicting the drying up of the elusive Archimboldi’s output only to be continually undone by further publications.

This coincidence seems to reflect a further correspondence - Bolano’s novels with their multiple narratives and cuts & jumps between periods, places and cultures bear more than a passing resemblance to Pynchon. The narrative arc of both 2666 and “The Savage Detectives” echo “Gravity’s Rainbow” (although the same could probably be said of any book that begins and ends in, figuratively, the same place). Even the search for Archimboldi/Cesarea Tinajero via enormous diversions and digressions parallels the search for the rocket. However “Gravity’s Rainbow” is, in comparison, less concerned with sex and death.

This ultimately is what 2666 is all about - There’s a sense in which “2666” is an uninterrupted meditation on death. Woody Allen said the difference between sex and death was that at least with death if you were caught doing it on your own no one would laugh. Bolano’s epigraph for 2666 is less comic, a line from Baudelaire “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom” - Santa Teresa in the desert of Sonora? Or, for a man who saw chaos and violence just beneath the surface of the everyday, a metaphor for life - the cradle that rocks above the abyss?

In Order To Figure You Have To Count.

2666 is the latest (and last) “novel” from Roberto Bolano. It’s a book in five parts, four of which were ready for publication before his death from liver failure in 2003 .Although intended for publication in 5 parts (he was aware of his increasing popularity and saw this as a way of providing a more stable income for his family) his wife and his literary executor took the decision to publish the parts in one volume (as they believed Bolano would have decided had he lived.)

I’m part way through “The Part About The Crimes” the section dealing with the serial murders of upwards of 300 women in Santa Teresa in Sonora (a thinly disguised Ciudad Jaurez that Bolano has likened to Hell)

Unsurprisingly for a writer staring into the abyss the central themes of the novel are violence and death. “The Part About The Crimes” is by far the longest section and catalogues in fairly flat prose and forensic detail the brutalisation and murder of scores of women. For the most part these women work in the maquiladoras (US assembling plants) and their deaths merit the briefest investigation by the Mexican police. Bolano counterpoints this casual indifference with the interest shown with the crimes of the “Demon Penitent” - A sacraphobic with a penchant for pissing on church floors and “offing” the odd priest. As Guadalupe Roncal, a fellow journalist, says to Oscar Fate regarding the murdered women of Santa Teresa:

"No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them."

In “The Part About Fate” Prof. Albert Kessler, an authority on serial murderers, makes a comparison of the treatment of the sacking of the Paris Commune with the coverage of a knife sharpener’s murder of his wife and his elderly mother. The thousands of slaughtered communards rate barely a mention yet the knife sharpeners crime is splashed across the news pages of Europe:

“…..How come? The ones killed in the Commune weren't part of society”

As a poet (when asked whether he considered himself a poet or novelist he said “A poet, because my poetry makes me blush less”) and outsider maybe Bolano was concerned about whether he would pass unnoticed. On the strength of 2666 he needn’t have worried.

One Thing Leads To Another.

As has already been said, one of the occasional joys of this book club is the discovery of a new favourite author (Haruki Murakami, Scarlett Thomas & Michael Chabon for me) It’s usually an expensive find. I realise it’s a little obsessional but If I’m really impressed with an author I tend, almost immediately, to trawl through Abe books and buy up the back catalogue. This wouldn’t be quite as much of a problem if I didn’t have a fetish for first edition hard backs. ( If the spitting image sketch (?) of Bernard Levin writhing on a bed of hardbacks is playing in your minds eye right now, I’m way ahead of you) So the high-fiving of a bookclub choice is always a bittersweet moment.

What prompted the post? Well, other than a desire to keep the blog rolling a pristine signed copy of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union arrived today. Who knows maybe one day I’ll even get round to reading it!

For De Mille, Young Fur-Henchmen….

There’s a section of Gravity’s Rainbow detailing the criminal activities of, I think, 30 fur-coat-stealing dwarves. They auditioned en masse for a part on a galleon in a biblical epic but failed to get parts. Apparently “For De Mille young Fur-Henchmen can’t be rowing” This “pun” on the expression “Forty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong” would have been completely lost on me but for the Steven Weisenburger companion.

Would I have enjoyed the book any less if I’d remained in the dark? Probably not. Whilst it’s possible to treat books as puzzles to be solved, If they’re any good they ought to work as plain old stories. This is true of anything by Pynchon. He may occasionally be wilfully obscure (the sections on Quaternions in “Against The Day” would defeat anyone without a Maths degree) but he also writes gorgeous prose and wonderful shaggy-dog stories.

In just the same way TMITHC works as an alternative history without needing to be aware of Dick’s ideas on simulacra. In fact pretty much everything he wrote can be seen as riffs on two concerns – “What is human?” And “What is real?” ( It’s an open question whether this is the result or the driver of his paranoia )
However I think it’s still possible to read “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?” as hard boiled detective fiction with a sci-fi edge and treat the philosophy as a gloss.

Is this true or am I getting my excuses in early?

The Man in the High Castle

Just a quick post - not about a Book Club book. I finally got round to reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Not sure why I have not read it sooner, but better late than never, I suppose.

I may have already said, but my main criteria for judging a book are: did I enjoy it? Was it a page turner? Am I sorry to have finished it? Would I press it into the hands of a stranger and urge them to read it?

Well, TMITHC ticked several of those boxes, but my main feeling at the end was: what was all the fuss about? It is well documented what a ground-breaking classic it is, and how it helped to pave the way for alternative histories. But when I finished it, I thought it was an enjoyable, intriguing read, but an all-time classic?

It shows how stupid I am, but I had to read reviews on Amazon, and look at its entry on Wikipedia to appreciate all of the nuances I missed, the many interpretations that could be read into the text.

And on reflection, I love this book. I think in future when I am approaching a hallowed text, I will read the "spoiler" reviews up front, so that I can more fully engage with the book.

What do you reckon?

Top 3 Book

Even though I only chose it for our group, and didn't ACTUALLY write it, I am still enormously pleased to report that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay has ended up in our Top 3 books of all time.

It is clearly about more than picking a book that will score highly - the most important thing for me in a book is one that will provide intellectually stimulating enjoyment. Honest.

But a Top 3 book - I wanted to cry when I heard the news, but I stayed strong. After all, I am currently growing a beard, so I have to be a man.

Review of our March 09 Northern Readers meeting

We met as planned at Apotheca in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. The Northern Quarter seems to have expanded massively over recent years, as I remember it as a collection of shops and bars around Oldham St, Tib St and the old market. That's the effect of city living for you.

Apotheca seemed quite a friendly place, with a good selection of trendy beers on draught served in tall glasses, at not TOO ridiculous prices. As I am off booze at the moment, I was disappointed that they did not have any Fentiman's Ginger Beer - though I did have one of that brand's "Curiosity Cola" drinks. Much nicer than Coca Cola, but I could still feel the enamel being stripped off my teeth with every sip.

We ate at the adjoining Dough restaurant, which has been open since October 2008. I have to start with a criticism: the service was incredibly slow, especially given the fact that it was only about two thirds full, and they had what seemed like dozens of staff roaming around. However, when the food did eventually turn up, the pizzas were absolutely delicious - my Florentina was the best pizza I have eaten in years. Highly recommended - and the waiter even listened to my gentle griping about the service, and seemed eager to improve.

The book itself (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) was very well received, and provoked lots of intelligent-sounding discussions. I chose it after searching around online for weeks - I was originally going to get a PopScience book, but stumbled upon the Michael Chabon book, and placed my order for 5 copies.

I won't give it an in-depth review here. In fact, at meetings my usual level of critique is not much more in-depth than "I liked it" or "I did not like it". I leave it to the others to raise the level of debate. However, the book manages to sustain its pace througout its 600+ pages, and it vividly brings to life the wartime and post-war era in New York, when it seemed anybody with artistic skills and a little imagination could make a stab at a (short-lived) career during the boom of comic books.

One of the joys of the book group meets are "discovering" authors to cherish - though the downside is the impact it has upon one's bank balance. Michael Chabon looks set to join Haruki Murakami, Magnus Mills and Scarlett Thomas on my "must buy" list.

The Savage Detectives

I'm not really allowed to say anything about the choice yet because each discussion begins with a justification of the book choice. (This can range from the confessional to the shame-faced ) and we tend not to play with the format. So I'll keep it factual.

This is our next book. Whilst I toyed with the idea of "2666" two things served to dissuade me. 1 - The price and 2 - The size ( 900+ pages). I'm not suggesting we don't have the stamina for it. It's just that I couldn't fit 4 copies in my bag!

March 09 book club - where to meet

Well, seeing as it is my book choice (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) that is being reviewed, I get the pleasure of choosing the restaurant, but the pain of paying for the meal. A mixed blessing, but it does feel good to "treat" my friends to a meal every so often.

I won't reveal the restaurant, as it is all part of the fun not knowing what you will be getting. However, can we meet for a pint at the rather poncy-sounding Apotheca Bar in the Northern Quarter. This is a link to their minimalist website, and location is found here on Google Maps.

I have booked the restaurant for 9pm, so can we meet at the bar for around "8ish".

Please make sure that you have eaten something for tea before you come out in order to minimise my outlay on the meal - there is a Credit Crunch, after all.

Choosing The Book ( Part Deux )

8 days and counting to the next bookclub (I don’t get out much)
It’s my turn to bring the book and as usual my offering has been piled up in the back room gathering dust for some time. It’s a risky strategy. Not because there’s any danger of being gazumped. It’s rather that there’s more time for the anxiety to build - There’s nothing worse than a look of mute indifference come the reveal.

It’s occasionally advantageous though. No choice is completely independent of the previous books. This is probably particularly the case if you’re following hot on the heels of a “top 10” - There’s surely a bit of pressure to up the ante. However if it’s already in the bag you save yourself that little bit of angst.

Bad Science

Not a Book Club book, though I don't think there is any specific rule why I can't talk about other books I have read.

Anyway, as I said, not a Book Club Book, but I have just finished Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It has taken me a while - it has been my Toliet Book, so I have read it in fits and starts. I actually manage to read quite a lot on the loo - I work from home, and am vegetarian......

Anyway, Bad Science is, at heart, a critique of how the press trivialises science, getting non-scientific writers to cover the major science stories of the day, to take as Gospel half-baked medical scare stories without investigating whether any real evidence underpins them.

Goldacre is a great writer - really entertaining, who viciously pursues the many targets of his ire, which include MMR, Gillian McKeith, complementary medicine, those who do not publish findings in reputable journals...

He writes for The Guardian, as well as badscience.net which has many loyal readers who help him to track down and mercilessly track down purveyors of pseudo-scientific bullshit.

Well worth a read.

The Most Divisive?

Here's a top 11 in order of divergence of opinion
(It's actually based on standard deviation of score which is probably a good enough proxy)

The Alchemist
Atonement
The Leopard
The Child That Books Built
The Bridegroom
Noughts & Crosses
London Fields
Moby-Dick
The Origin Of Species
Beloved
Layer Cake

All but two of the above are choices from over 4 years ago. This could suggest we're better able to judge a books reception. Alternatively we could all be playing safe. (Then again it could be neither. Thats Stats for you! )

My recollection is that the only books that provoked much argument / discussion were The Alchemist & Moby Dick (I think I conceded that "The Origin Of Species" was a selfish choice. I also put myself at a disadvantage defending "London Fields" since I hadn't finished re-reading it!)

And another thing..

To continue the theme I developed in an earlier post it does seem like the 'bad' books and the divisive ones are the ones we remember - The Alchemist and Moby Dick now have more mentions on this site than any other books. There are lots of books in the list to the left of this message that were very worthy, we all found them quite enjoyable and they achieved mid table respectability in our rankings, but we haven't mentioned them once on this blog. (And many of which I had completely forgotten about until I read the list again when this blog was set up).

Oh, go on then....

Given that things have gone a little quiet on the postings front I thought I'd ask one of those ice breaker questions:

We've got info on here about the top ten books, the bottom ten, the book with the lowest score (and why), and even Darwin gets a mention. But which books have most polarised opinion in our discussions? I seem to remember that most of the time we all pretty much rate any given book in the same ball park - but apart from Moby Dick I can't think of any that really split the vote.

Any thoughts? Maybe we need a top ten/five of most polarising books?

The Origin Of Species

I can remember an article from the late 80s in the independent by Lord Rees Mogg arguing that the Iskra Board split of 1903 lead directly to the Gulag. Chaos theory was very much in the vogue then, and leaching into the social sciences.

In a similar vein today’s anniversary (Darwin’s 200th “Birthday”) reminded me of one of those genuine historical contingencies. Contrary to popular belief Darwin was not the on-board ship’s naturalist of “The Beagle”. He was, rather, the paid guest of the ship’s captain. Capt Fitzroy, haunted by the suicide of his close cousin, precipitated by severe depression resulting from loneliness and the social isolation of rank, sought a gentleman companion to ward off a similar fate. He found Darwin. The rest is history! So a personal tragedy indirectly facilitates one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in history.

This year also marks the 150th anniversary of “The Origin Of Species” a book Stephen Jay Gould would read once a year. I chanced upon Gould about 20 years ago killing time while browsing in a bookshop. Had I not missed my tube our paths might never have crossed. So we have another “sliding doors moment” ., this one leading to the 32nd book choice – “The Origin Of Species”. Given the reception I’d guess there’s a few of our number that wish I’d not overslept!

Moby Dick & Dubious Book Choices

This post is only tangentially related to Moby Dick but I thought it deserved another mention anyway. It wasn't an enormously popular choice. The reason for this is alluded to in a previous post. For some, it felt like school work. It’s a mistake made and a lesson learned (if you excuse the "pun")

What I'm labouring ( shambling?) toward is this. We’ve all brought along a turkey. And the appropriate response? Hands up. Own up. Move on. Love the sinner. Hate the sin. (I could go on and on… )

A defence of unorthodox book choices? Kind of. There’s no harm in the odd curve-ball - We should all be allowed the occasional indiscretion.

In fact it’s probably necessary. An unremitting diet of masterworks would probably be like the episode “Nice Place To Visit” from The Twilight Zone. As “The Bard Of Barking”, Billy Bragg said “I like toast just as much as anyone but not for breakfast, dinner and tea”

The Alchemist again.....

I've not finished Kavalier and Clay, so I'll try not to look down while posting this....

In a weird kind of way, maybe the Alchemist wasn't such a bad choice after all (retrospective kudos to Simon) - if you include comments as well as main posts, it is now by a clear margin the most frequently mentioned book on this blog. What was it Oscar Wilde said was the only thing worse than being talked about?

I'll pop over to Amazon and see if they do a good deal on Katie Price's new book.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Reading Guide

I finished the current book club choice (mine) last night - I stayed up until extra late as I did not want to leave the last 20 or so pages unread. Without giving too much away, I am sorry that I have finished it - read into that what you will!

Anyway, a quick Google has uncovered a reading group guide at the following location: www.readinggroupguides.com. I originally reproduced the questions in this post, but realised it may spoil the book for those of us who have not yet finished (or started!).

We don't often use "reading guides" that seem to be increasingly available - we tend to play it by ear at the meetings, and you can't always predict which book will provoke the fiercest discussions. Having such a guide can often seem like school work, so ignore it if you want....

Choosing The Book

I probably take the responsibility far too seriously but given that buying the book-club book is almost an annual event it feels a little like buying a birthday present. You want it to be welcome (I’m assuming here that you actually like the other members of your book-club) If you’re keeping score you’ll also want it to be well received. The intensity of the desire will depend on how competitive (or insecure) you are. There are no universal rules. What you choose largely depends on the group itself. If yours endures then, over time, trends will crystallise.

These guidelines appear to work for us:-

NO FAVOURITES
If you choose a favourite book you are asking for trouble.
The very best outcome is group affirmation. It’s difficult to view anything less than this as anything but a sleight.

NO CLASSICS
As Chairman Mao once said “One swallow doesn’t make a summer”
Never-the-less the one occasion we chose a classic (“Moby Dick”) was for most of us one time too many.

NO CHEATING
If you’re ever tempted to choose a book you’ve already read in a bid to get a head start. Don’t. You may promise yourself that you’ll re-read it. In reality the siren song of Big Brother will seduce you and you will be caught out.

NO IRONY
Don’t attempt to fob off the book club with the latest from Katie Price with an oblique reference to post modern literary theory. It’s not funny, it’s not clever and it’s so 70’s.


Whatever the eventual choice, never be disheartened with a poor score. I’ve found that a degree of arrogance will help to offset any sleight felt. (I’ve used this to “defend” every one of my books that failed to make the top 10!)

The joy of libraries

Like most people who love books, I love libraries. However, I very rarely take books out, as when I do, I nearly always forget to take them back by the due date, and rack up fines as a consequence. On several occasions, the level of the fine has been greater than the cost of the book.

My non-borrowing may also have something to do with the fact that I want to own the book rather than just borrow it - in fact, the only books that I have borrowed recently are factual books (mainly maths / stars related) that I only wanted to dip into rather than devour.

Anyway, I was at my local library last night, and I had a look at the selection of remaindered books they had for sale. I ended up buying three:

* Batsford Chess Puzzles by Leonard Barden
* UK 2005 by National Statistics/HMSO
* Ghostworld by Daniel Clowes

All three for the total price of 50p. Bargain! I will definitely read the graphic novel (as will my son), and will dip in and out of the other 2 as the "need" arises.

I am sure libraries will be one of the "industries" that do very well out of the current economic climate, and long may they reign.

I just wish that the fines weren's so dang expensive.

The Alchemist

I was in the Oldham branch of Waterstones on Saturday. It is only a small branch, but I would imagine it has the same special offer displays as pretty much every Waterstones up and down the country. Well, they had a selection of "Spiritual" books - I would imagine that sales of such books are positively correlated with an individual's perception of his lot during the economic crisis.

Anyway, prominent (at least in my eyes) in this display was our old friend The Alchemist. It crossed my mind to perpetrate some evil deed on these books, maybe burning them, or knocking them off the shelf, or at the very least to turn the top copy around so that nobody would be entreated to buy this drivel.

But I did nothing.... Not sure if this now makes me a part of the Coelho machine - am I responsible for the people of Oldham being subjected to this "sub-GCSE Philosophy" drivel???

The Hall Of Fame

Although we've had to endure some dross ( see "The Hall Of Shame - Bottom 10" )
We've occasionally struck gold -

1 = The Restraint Of Beasts ( 9.8)
2 = The Wind Up Bird Chronicle ( 9.5 )
3 = Arthur And George ( 9.4 )
4 = Cloud Atlas ( 9.2 )
4 = Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ( 9.2 )
6 = Great Apes ( 9.0 )
7 = Ingenious Pain ( 8.8 )
7 = No Logo ( 8.8 )
7 = The End Of Mr Y ( 8.8 )
10 = The Leopard ( 8.6 )
10 = The Human Stain ( 8.6 )
10 = Vernon God Little ( 8.6 )
10 = The New York Trilogy ( 8.6 )
10 = The Book Thief ( 8.6)

Thanks to our resident statistical whizz-kid ( not me btw ) we also have a "Top 10" utilising the trimmed mean ( i.e ignoring outliers )

1 = The Restraint Of Beasts ( 10.0)
2 = Arthur And George ( 9.7 )
3 = The Wind Up Bird Chronicle ( 9.5 )
4 = Great Apes ( 9.3 )
4 = Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell ( 9.3 )
6 = Cloud Atlas ( 9.0 )
6= Ingenious Pain ( 9.0 )
6= The Leopard ( 9.0 )
6 = The End Of Mr Y ( 9.0 )
6 = No Logo ( 9.0 )
12 = The Human Stain ( 8.7 )
12 = Vernon God Little ( 8.7 )
12 = The New York Trilogy ( 8.7 )
12 = Atonement ( 8.7)
12 = London Fields ( 8.7)
12 = The Motorcycle Diaries (8.7)

The Secret of a Successful Reading Group.

This was my first reading group, and its the one I've stuck with over the years, but along the way I've flirted with plenty of other reading groups – Philosophy reading groups, Social Theory reading groups, Cultural theory groups, Poetry reading groups and even fairly bog standard general reading groups. Why do they all tend to fall by the wayside but this one continues – what's the secret?

Well obviously the quality of the company is a big factor – that goes without saying ;-)

But beyond that, what makes a successful reading group? Here's my top tips:

1. Make the meeting a bit of a special event

I can sit in my own front room and drink wine pretty much every night of the week – I don't really want to use one of my once in a blue moon nights out sitting in somebody else's front room and not even drinking wine because I have to drive home. Our meetings give me chance to come to a big city, eat in a posh restaurant and be surrounded by people who aren't married to their cousins – that all works for me on so many levels and I consider this to be a must for any civilized reading group.

2. The person who picks the book provides the book.

A stroke of genius – I could kiss whoever thought of it. In other groups I've been in somebody chooses a book but everyone has to get their own copy. Getting an e-mail that says 'we're meeting in three weeks to discuss Bernard Malamud's The Assistant' never really filled me with joy – it feels too much like preparing for a seminar. You pop down to the local library only to find that the person who chose the book has taken out the only copy, so you have to order it over the Internet. Then on the day everyone turns up with a different version or edition of the book. So when you say 'I really liked that description of Minogue on page 76', nobody else can find the page in question because they all have a different edition to you apart from the person who got a tatty old copy for 20p from the Cerebral Palsy shop with pages 70-82 missing.

We meet, have a meal, discuss the current book, but all the while there is a bag under the table full of bright shiny copies of The New Book. At the end of the evening we get the big reveal - they are ritually handed out, face down, by the person who chose the book – it's a mystery solved and a nice new present all rolled into one. So you get several free meals and nice free books, and once a year its your turn and the credit card gets a bit of a hammering – but it's so much better than the usual reading group thing (and in the long run it is no more expensive than having to buy your own copy of the book and pay your own way at dozens of meetings over the year).

3. It's supposed to be fun

I spend all day stroking my chin and pretending to know the difference between Ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism – I don't want to do it in my leisure time too. It's important to remember that reading groups are really an excuse for middle class people to meet up for a curry and a few beers on a regular basis behind a thin facade of self improvement, but don't take it too seriously.

The Hall of Shame - Bottom 10

As I said, we have now reviewed 70 books in our group. We started to assign scores out of 10 a few years ago, and then applied scores retrospectively to the whole list. Ian has produced some fantastic spreadsheets to analyse all of the information, and from this I can reveal that the current bottom 10 are as follows:

70: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (2.6 out of 10)
69: My Lover's Lover by Maggie O'Farrell (4.6 out of 10)
68: Noughts & Crosses by Ian Rankin (5 out of 10)
67: The Strategy Of Deception by Paul Virilio (5.4 out of 10)
66: Mr X by Peter Straub (5.8 out of 10)
65: Beloved by Toni Morrison (5.8 out of 10)
=64: This is Your Life by John O'Farrell (6 out of 10)
=65: Layer Cake by J.J Connolly (6 out of 10)
=66: I'm Not The Only One by George Galloway (6 out of 10)
=67: Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (6 out of 10)

The Alchemist is comfortably at the bottom, and my personal score awarded for this was zero out of 10, and it was lucky to get even that. I am mystified why it has sold mega millions around the globe. Anyway, I'll say no more and will reserve my bile for a future post about this abomination.

Some may find the inclusion of Beloved in the Hall of Shame, with Toni Morrison being such a revered author. I found the book okay, but the consensus was that it was a pile of cack - I paraphrase.

Any thoughts about the list, let us know!

Dissolution

Every bookclub meeting has more or less the same format - Drink, Starter, Main Course, Discussion - Woe betide anyone who ignores protocol! ( You'll gather from this that I am the most anally retentive member of the group. I also alphabetise books & CDs).

The discussions are generally spirited defences of the choice and fairly even-tempered. Of course there have been a few more "vigorous" debates over the years , notably over "Moby Dick" and "The Origin Of Species". (More about these in a later post.)

In comparison the discussion for "Dissolution" was muted. Once we got past the inevitable comparison to "The Name Of The Rose" we were pretty much spent. I think this is because it's not a book you can feel any passion for (?) Sometimes this happens and the bookclub meeting becomes less about books and more about keeping in touch ( and that's no bad thing.)

Our 70th Meeting

A couple of weeks ago, we met up to discuss our seventieth book - Dissolution by CJ Sansom.

We met in Manchester at Mr Thomas's Chop House on Cross St, followed by an excellent meal in a posh pizzeria (can't remember the name) - thankfully Simon was paying!

I QUITE enjoyed the book, though only gave it a 6 out of 10. It is set during the time of Henry VIIIth, and is centred around a monastery that Thomas Cromwell is intent on dissolving (is that the correct term?) where a brutal murder has taken place.

It is apparently the first in a series of Shardlake books - one of Cromwell's commissioners. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it being adapted for the small screens at some time, but I will not be rushing to read the sequel.

Kavalier & Clay

Well, it was my turn to choose the book this time. I was originally going to get a popular science book (The Tiger That Isn't by Blastland or Dilnot, or maybe The Code Book by Simon Singh. I would have bought the excellent Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, but suspected others may have read it), but in the end I went for "Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon.

It is set during World War 2, and is about 2 cousins who work in the newly emerging world of comic books. So far (up to page 260) I am enjoying it a lot - though in our book group we aren't really supposed to reveal what we think about a book until we meet up to discuss it.

The way our group works is that one person buys a copy of the chosen book for all 5 members, and then when we meet up 6 weeks later, he also buys the meal. On subsequent meets (when it is not your turn to buy either book or meal), it feels like you are getting a free meal and a free book. Of course, I know it is prepaid.....

Why set up this blog?

Our book group (reading group? no idea how to refer to it, really) has been in operation for around 8 years now. We meet every 6 weeks on average, and have read around 60 books since we have been together. We are based in the Lancashire/Cheshire/Merseyside/Staffordshire area of the UK.

Why bother with a blog? Well, we are a fairly geographically dispersed (by UK standards - the furthest flung members are probably separated by a whole FIFTY miles!!!), and it is a good way of communicating with one another between groups. Also, we can show the world what fantastic taste we have in reading. Well, maybe not - but we can perhaps discuss our dubious choices of reading matter with the wider world.

I'll tell you more about our group in a future post. Bet you can't wait....

I may also post a few photos. And persuade my fellow members to post some thoughts as well. How exciting!