Way to go, Warren!

"Georges Perec is the finest French writer of the twentieth century. There. I've wanted to stake that claim, in print, for the last twenty-five years." So says Warren Motte and I, for one, ain't going to disagree. An excellent introduction to the great man's work, I think this essay has been knocking around for a bit but I only just came across it.

Alma Dreams Come True...

Don't know much about new publisher Alma Books but what I've seen I liked. I recently read Tom McCarthy's "Remainder" which I thoroughly enjoyed, particularly its Bartleboothian opening half. Now I see that they've released the new book from the mighty Mr Vollman and still more intriguingly, the latest from Colson Whitehead. His first, "The Intuitionist" was superb and if "John Henry Days" never matched it, it was nevertheless an intriguing book. Anyway, if anyone at Alma comes across this post and wants to send me some books, that would be beautiful. Failing that, I'll carry on buying them...

Talking of serious and high-minded independent publishers, New Directions are planning to release seven (count 'em) books from sadly-deceased Chilean legend Roberto Bolano over the next couple of years. I guess Harvill will be releasing over here, but don't wait. "Last Evenings On Earth," a collection of short stories, was definitely the pick of my summer reading, though I find it hard to explain why...

Google A.I.

"We are not scanning all those books to be read by people. We are scanning them to be read by an AI."
Interesting piece about just why Google is planning to scan as many books as it possibly can and add them to the web. And it's nothing to do with breaking copyright or becoming an e-publisher...

Offsite Quote Business

I've stuck all the quotes over here for ease of access, in the hope that I'll find something interesting to write about...

You can get to 'em from the sidebar, too...

Database Nation...

Interesting article in The Guardian on Monday about the databases of information held on us:
"Amazon is hoping to patent ways of interrogating a database that would record not just what its 59 million customers have bought - which it already knows - or what they would like to buy (which, with their wish lists, they tell the world) but their income, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity. The company, of course, already knows who we are and where we live."

If You Only Read One Review...

...read this one. Very encouraging words in the Independent on Sunday from Matt Thorne.

Moving To Rhyl

New quotes:
"A brave and ambitious treatise on modern England.. a weird and wonderful trip" - i-D

"A black and baroque talent" - Tribune

"Few debut novelists display the ambition shown by Will Ashon in Clear Water... a unique and spell-binding tale that heralds the arrival of a major new talent" - Rhyl & Prestatyn Journal

When I was a kid I went on a school trip to North Wales and, one wet and grey day, we ended up at the Rhyl leisure centre. And it had a wave machine and slides and a giant octopus, which was bascially sci-fi stuff 25 years ago. So, I like to believe that Rhyl was and remains ahead of its time...