TOP 100 BOOK SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Letters: Discount prices are killing bookshops Tim Hely Hutchinson asks why it is not a wonderful opportunity to buy Wolf Hall at £8.99, less than half its retail price – and less than an independent bookseller can buy it for – and get another book free (Letters, 14 November). One answer would be because Waterstone's is a capitalist enterprise and not in the business of making a loss; if it gives books away, it is going to demand a higher discount from the publisher to compensate. Ditto, the publisher which, to provide cheap stock for three-for-two offers, must increase prices on less-popular titles.The ending of the net book agreement meant many small publishers and independent bookshops folded – out of 60-odd radical bookshops in the 80s, only half a dozen of us survive – and book prices as a whole rose. But this was a hard argument to put to the public, who were encouraged to equate discounting with cheaper books. Those who argued that books were different (as their zero-rate of VAT recognises), and needed retail price maintenance to avoid them becoming just another commodity to pile high and sell cheap, have been sadly proved right, with the book trade currently eating itself in an effort to compete on price with the supermarkets. Meanwhile, full-price books are perceived as expensive, despite them being cheaper than most nights out (and you still have the book the next morning instead of a hangover).Waterstone's recently trumpeted "personal shoppers" in their new store in Liverpool. Surely these used to be called booksellers? And how many book-buyers realise that publishers pay to have their books promoted in a chain bookshop? At an independent you know if a book is visible, it's because we have chosen to recommend it to you. Many of our young customers have never encountered the individuality of a real bookshop and, having come in for a student text, are delighted with the treasure trove they discover. "Adapting" can be done in other ways than discounting, eg providing excellent customer service and, like ourselves, diversifying. We stock world music CDs and fair-trade crafts; and in contrast to an online bookseller, whose employment practices are pitiful, we are run by a women's co-operative and have our own ordering website – so now you can shop with the real Amazons.Mandy VereNews From Nowhere, Liverpool• I am flattered that my views about Waterstone's have been reported (10 November). I suggested the company's designers should look back to Edwardian times for inspiration. We have become used to bland Autumn or pastel shades in almost all retail premises. Waterstone's is nothing if it is not an expression of fine art and wild thinking, both in writing and in illustration. I'd love to see a shop decorated like a raw video game. Deep, dark and dirty. It is the method used by Camden and Chalk Farm landlords – and works very well.Tim Coates Former managing director, Waterstone's BooksellersPublishingWaterstone'sguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Holiday Books: Comics Graphic novels and comics from Kyle Baker, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carré, Seth, Michael Kupperman and others. feeds.nytimes.com |
My other life: Don Paterson reveals his fantasy career The poet reveals his boyhood dream: to be a preacherI was a small, fat boy in a kilt with, as I saw it, limited career options. Something in show business seemed about right. Half-human, half-traybake I may have been, but I was still keen to impress. My opportunities were few and my models fewer, but I had Sunday school, and my grandfather. He was a minister in the United Free Church of Scotland. Standing up and telling everyone how to behave seemed like a grand job. And – how cool is this – they had to call you Reverend. So I taught myself to recite the names of all the books of the Bible. The old dears who read us boring stories in the windy North Halls found this trick devastatingly precocious and declared me a shoo-in for the ministry.Figuring that the speed of my delivery would be directly proportional to its impact, I got faster and faster, and trained with a stopwatch. I could see myself as the dog-collared focus of a vast, rapt stadium, where I'd rattle the books off so fast the big ladies would swoon at the miracle of it.Alas, this turned out to be much less impressive than I'd hoped, especially to women, though it took me several years to accept the fact. I should say that, blissfully, God figured nowhere in this, even as an afterthought.Don Paterson's latest collection, Rain, winner of the 2009 Forward prize for poetry, is published by Faberguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Children's Book by AS Byatt | Book review AS Byatt's The Children's Book is an impressive critique of Edwardian society, writes Vanessa Thorpe This byzantine study of the home life and milieu of a fictional Edwardian children's author, Olive Wellwood, is a beguiling offshoot from the growing popular interest in the personal lives of the creators of 20th-century children's literature, from JM Barrie and Lewis Carroll to Enid Blyton. Curiosity about such types has perhaps been fuelled by the amazing grip on modern culture still held by fantasy-jocks such as JRR Tolkien and JK Rowling. Like Charles Elton, whose 2009 debut novel, Mr Toppit, explored a similar theme, Byatt has set herself the task of persuading readers to jump into the world of a make-believe writer, with no existing body of work to draw us in.But The Children's Book is more than the anatomy of a bohemian writer and her family; it's a critique of a whole era. Introduced to Wellwood's unconventional set through the eyes of a poor runaway, Philip, we see how liberal philosophy and Fabian politics can be equated with the fairy tales she weaves. Phyllis, her favoured daughter, shows young Philip a tree in the Wellwood garden that bears silver pears and golden apples. But "you have to believe" to spot them. In the same way, through a thicket of plot, the idealistic social theories current in the run-up to the first world war are revealed as dubious, dangling articles of faith. A sense of encroaching disaster gives the story pace, and at points it has the raw appeal of good children's literature, with dirty Philip washed and put to bed like Oliver Twist at the Brownlows. (Though, unlike Oliver, Phillip proceeds to masturbate carefully inside the pristine sheets.)Byatt's first book for seven years takes on the artistic themes of the day in exhilarating detail. She takes us to a premiere of Barrie's Peter Pan and to Paris to see the astonishing art in the Exposition Universelle. Sometimes, sadly, there is so much historical interplay that there is no space left for purchase on the modern age. The Children's Book has been called "ambitious" not just for its scope, but because it is "a novel of ideas". The trouble is, as a period piece its philosophical forays sometimes have the flavour of parody and so are less involving than they might be standing on their own feet.AS ByattVanessa Thorpeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor ColeridgePart IV'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!I fear thy skinny hand!And thou art long, and lank, and brown,As is the ribbed sea-sand.I fear thee and thy glittering eye,And thy skinny hand, so brown.'—Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!This body dropt not down.Alone, alone, all, all alone,Alone on a wide wide sea!And never a saint took pity onMy soul in agony.The many men, so beautiful!And they all dead did lie:And a thousand thousand slimy thingsLived on; and so did I.I looked upon the rotting sea,And drew my eyes away;I looked upon the rotting deck,And there the dead men lay.I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;But or ever a prayer had gusht,A wicked whisper came, and madeMy heart as dry as dust.I closed my lids, and kept them close,And the balls like pulses beat;For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the skyLay like a load on my weary eye,And the dead were at my feet.The cold sweat melted from their limbs,Nor rot nor reek did they:The look with which they looked on meHad never passed away.An orphan's curse would drag to hellA spirit from on high;But oh! more horrible than thatIs the curse in a dead man's eye!Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,And yet I could not die.The moving Moon went up the sky,And no where did abide:Softly she was going up,And a star or two beside—Her beams bemocked the sultry main,Like April hoar-frost spread;But where the ship's huge shadow lay,The charméd water burnt alwayA still and awful red.Beyond the shadow of the ship,I watched the water-snakes:They moved in tracks of shining white,And when they reared, the elfish lightFell off in hoary flakes.Within the shadow of the shipI watched their rich attire:Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,They coiled and swam; and every trackWas a flash of golden fire.O happy living things! no tongueTheir beauty might declare:A spring of love gushed from my heart,And I blessed them unaware:Sure my kind saint took pity on me,And I blessed them unaware.The self-same moment I could pray;And from my neck so freeThe Albatross fell off, and sankLike lead into the sea.Samuel Taylor ColeridgePoetryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |