Proof, no pudding AKA Free Books For You

Hello eleven readers plus stragglers,

There was a time when I didn't think this was a problem. A surplus of books? Jeepers, cry me a river, Oxbridge. I was a bibliophile and the people who scanned my many bookshelves, blinked and said 'Have you really read all of these?' just Didn't Get It. The point wasn't that I'd read them all but that I would eventually, once the perfect mood, the perfect infinitesimal requirements of readership fell into place. The point was that my library was there, always waiting for me.

I'm ashamed to say I find the sight of this actually physically comforting.

Internet, this is bullshit. I work in the Book Industry. I can't tell you where because I'll get sacked (seriously, there was a whole meeting about it and everything) but the upshot is that over my nearly two years of employment, I have brought home hundreds of books to add to the hundreds of books I already owned.

I'm drowning.

I think a lot of people who love books live this way, this lovely aesthetic-based lie. The spines on the books we acculmulate tell the story of what we deem to be our best selves. It rarely mirrors our actual reading, which while voracious, is much more fly-by-night, spontaneous and pleasure-based. I've seen this a lot with people (like me) who come from non-reading families and are the first person in the entire family tree to go to university. We construct this insane collegiate persona where all reading is good reading and our fancy intellectual intentions count for as much as the act of reading itself.

Enough is enough. I am prepared to stop pretending I'm fucking Harold Bloom.
And you can punctuate that sentence any way you wish.

The problem is that Ebay isn't really the place for bibliophiles, or at least bibliophiles who want to make significant coin - I've blogged a little about the few books I've put up for sale and the truth is none of them, except for the signed Jackie Collins have sold. It's a little depressing. Added to this, I have stacks, mounds, mountains of proof copies that I can't (on aforementioned pain of job loss) sell on for profit. I have so many books that I liked the look of, or wanted desperately to be the kind of person that *would* read that kind of book, that I could construct a fairly decent and watertight fort.

I could take the proofs back to work - but I know they'd get instantly pulped and I know charity shops don't like to take them on account of your garden variety proof copy being a homely beast and non-too-sturdy, all of which makes them difficult to shift from a retail perspective. Tell me about it, Oxfam.

To that end, I have decided to offer them up to the teeny portion of the internet that reads this thing - Twitter too. I'm going to start small and offer a clean thirteen copies of various novels and non-fiction titles in proof copy form that I've either read, or frankly, am never going to read.

Here's a selection of what I'm offering, with links to Amazon for fuller plot synopses:

Midsummer Nights - Editor: Jeanette Winterson. Short stories based on opera plots from ace people like Jackie Kay, Andrew O'Hagan and Ali Smith - UNREAD. I love these authors but really? Opera plots? Really? The least interesting thing about opera? That's your book?

Generation A by Douglas Coupland - Limited edition numbered proof, as if that means anything close to jack - READ. Well curate's egg-y. Will review.

Love & Obstacles by Aleksandar Hemon. Novel from polyglot wunderkind of ilk that makes everyone sick with envy. UNREAD. BASTARD.

Newspeak in the 21st Century - Non Fiction. Essays on media culture. UNREAD. Because part of me stubbornly refuses to find the time to be informed.

Fordlandia - Non Fiction. Chosen primarily and shamefully for its exquisite cover, rendered super small on the front, which speaks of a beatific small-town tranquility that pushes all my David Lynch-y (and secretly unironic) cheese buttons. Have since acquired actual book and, of course, it remains UNREAD

Ablutions by Patrick Dewitt - Novel. UNREAD. Drunks. Despair. Lyricism. Cheap cheap paper.

Alien Hearts by Guy de Maupaussant - The kind of novel that I want to read in a park looking sexy, pseud-y and utterly unattainable but never will. I am also utterly attainable.

The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant - READ and LOVED in parts. I obtained an actual published copy. This proof is battered like an old pro from surfing around in my handbag for weeks.

The Complete Cosmocomics by Italo Calvino. UNREAD. See also: 'Alien Hearts'. Calvino and I have never seen eye to eye, no matter how many rabbits he pulls.

Making An Elephant by Graham Swift. Essay. Mostly UNREAD. Books on the writer's craft are the procrastinator's porn. Still, Swift and I don't get on, so on it goes.

SO: if you want any of these books,you can and FOR FREE. All I ask is that if you're outside Norwich that you pay for postage so I don't go insanely broke.

Just e-mail me at rebecca_wigmore at the hotmail with the dot com. First come, first served. Points for reviews, witty conversation and general human interaction.

I await you,
Becky.

Sex & Mothers

Hello readership,

Well, I've had a week of relatively low blogging/auctioneering achievement. In my after-day job I'm an artist and I'm preparing a performance show right now. It's got puppets, self-help, Jimmy Stewart, and it's a bloody nightmare.

Anyway, I've listed two things today because they continue our theme of dedications, memory and good ol' fashioned sexy motherlove. I doubt Adam Thirlwell and Jackie Collins have ever been paired off, but I think they make a cute couple. although I do suspect you could fit Adam Thirlwell within Jackie's mighty cleavage and maybe even have room for one of her small dogs:

That woman knows how to take an author photo, am I right? No Granta-esque passport shit for her: amp up the cleavage, sweep over the fringe and bung a pool in the background and you're done.

I won Ms Collins in a literary pub quiz at the Norwich Waterstones. It was a proud moment for all. I resisted my intital temptation to go for the film-tie Stieg Larsson apparel (absorbent!) and went straight for the gold. "Poor Little Bitch Girl" is also one of the best titles in the world - as a summation of tone and intent, you really can't touch it. The fact that Ms Collins has touched my own copy with her manicured hand is also a fruity little thrill. I love a signed copy, although I know from experience she was probably in a windowless Simon & Schuster back office pounding these out rather than poolside. (Though in my mental picture she has a daiquiri either scenario.) Sue me, I'm a sucker for a fine-tuned aesthetic and when your end papers are pink and branded to your intitals, you're going to get nothing less than my total respect, regardless of literary output.

Speaking of which, I'm also letting Adam Thirlwell's 'Politics' out into the internet ether. This one is inscribed too, but this time it's from my own beloved mother, who lives rather more on the Maeve Binchy side of romance. She likes Old Hollywood movies and happy endings. 'Politics' is a whole lotta lit porn - full of threesomes and archly explicit descriptions of who bunged what where.

My mother is a saint. I have a committee of Catholics and they're all in line on this.

You see, Ma's a conservative woman in a lot of ways but she always pushes her cultural boat out for me: she took me to see 'Eyes Wide Shut' and 'Fight Club' at the cinema when I was 17. She's sat through more pretentious plays and nipple-flecked cinema for me then I can even remember. She drove two hours and sat through one of my performance pieces involving hardcore nudity ON MOTHER'S DAY. To this day, I wonder at her.

When writing a book dedication or a card, she always writes the date in the bottom right corner. It's a little thing that I've always loved - mum naturally records, instinctively categorizes for posterity. I find her writing very soothing - I should do, it's a tamped down version of the Tooth Fairy's. And Santa too, for that matter. I asked for "Politics" because the author was super young when he wrote it and my "Young British Writer" curiosity/jealousy radar went off the charts. Part of me still wants to be literary Britney Spears, although I'm trying to calm that shit down, whack a little more substance over my style. That's why I'm selling Politics - it was a little too arch for me - it didn't move me nearly as much as my mum's silly two and a half line dedication.

So there you have it: substance and substances; Jackie and Adam.
Go forth and purchase, make my mother proud.

Love,
Becky

Conumdrum: Dedicated to the one I sorta like

Hello slightly growing readership,

Welcome to all(!) the new readers. I heartily thank you choosing TMSIDN (that's my catchy acronym for the blog - try saying it, you'll spit like an ungodly camel). If you came from Fab Frocks, again, I salute your reading choices and thank you for your blog-based time.

Now, because I'm little else but a contrary bugger, the next wave of auctions to go up will be books, not fashion. I have a frightening amount of paper matter in my possession, not least because of my job in the publishing industry (not that I'm allowed to say any more then that on acount of their crazy big brother internet rules). Because of this job, I have an inordinate amount of proofs which I'm not allowed to sell, on pain of actual death. This death would be self-inflicted and excuted during a Loose Woman marathon because I would have lost my job and daytime TV would be my only recourse for human contact. If you get to a stage where Lynda Bellingham is all you've got, that's the point where oblivion is too good for you.

However, my personal and freely saleable book collection runs into the thousands. I want to talk about the psychology of compulsive book buying in another post but here's the thing, tiny readership and I'd really like your thoughts on this:

I have a lot of lovingly inscribed books which various friends and loved ones have given me. Is it ever okay to sell them on?

If the relationship with the person who gave you the book doesn't exist any more, does that give you right to profit from that book?

Or, to be succinct: there's letting go and there's being an arsehole. Column A? Column B?

Because of my appetite for micro narrative, I consider a second-hand book with a dedication to somebody else in it a huge boon. Throw in an enigmatic bookmark or old bus ticket and I'm in heaven. But there's the question of betrayal, as there is in the very existence of this blog. Is the physical manifestation of a memory more powerful than the telling of it? I have no idea, blogosphere. Zippo. Nada.

What do you think? Comments below...

Yours in much conflict,
Becky.