UK Book Tour: The Important Part, the Books Acquired!

I'll do a blog post about two weeks spent on the road in the UK doing book and book-like events. But for now, the important thing: The report on the books bought while over there! I think you'll find some intriguing titles here...--The new Murakami novel is written in a plain style probably reflecting the kind of everyman main character. I'm about seventy pages in and enjoying it for the unfolding story rather than any particular element of the prose.--Philippe Claudel's The Investigation I discovered at the very dangerous bookstore at the Edinburgh book festival, and the cover alone was enough to make me buy the novel. But the Kafkaesque situation of an Investigator sent to a provincial town to report on a series of mysterious deaths at The Firm certainly didn't hurt!--Antwerp by Robert Bolaño, discovered in a discount bookstore on the fringe of Dublin's Temple Bar. It's got the concision of prose poetry and that dreamy quality, too. The last Bolaño to be acquired.--David Vann's Caribou Island was pretty exceptional, so I didn't hesitate to pick up his Legend of a Suicide at Mr. B's Book Emporium in Bath. The novel's about a man still struggling with the death of his father, but as with all of Vann's work the unique qualities are in his characterization, situations, and prose more than the over-arching story being told.--Picked up at the Blackwell's in Edinburgh, Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and End of the World is one of two novels by this likely Nobel Prize winner I haven't yet read. Blackwell's in Edinburgh, btw, is a wonderful place to shop, with a collection of books in part curated by the awesome Ellie Wixon.--My wife Ann selected The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson, also at Blackwell's. A ruthless secret service. A woman run over by a drunken engineer. All of it apparently hilarious. (Speaking of novels with Girl in the title, Ann read The Girl With All the Gifts and liked it, although she said it started strong and got a bit weak by the end.)--Our friend Neil Williamson bought Kirsty Logan's short story collection The Rental Heart for us, and, man, am I glad he did. I'm about half-way through and I love the stories. Quirky, sometimes fantastical. Strong, strong stuff--definitely seek it out.--Since the Southern Reach trilogy started to come out, many readers have been recommending Jim Crace to me, so I finally picked up a couple of his early titles while on the road.--Pascal Garnier is a dark, dark writer of gritty pseudo-noir and creepy kind of Decadent but realistic tales of down-and-out and downright strange people. Reminds me a little bit of the work of Derek Raymond, although in a slightly different register. All of these were picked up at Mr. B's Book Emporium, recommended by the staff and by Peter Sutton and his wife Claire, who were our gracious hosts while in that part of the country. Mr B's is a rather remarkable bookstore that I highly recommend. Lovely people work there, too.--Off the Map by Alastair Bonnett, picked up by Ann at the Edinburgh Book Festival bookstore, is an astonishing book. I'm about half-way through this collection of essays about lost spaces, invisible cities, forgotten islands, and feral places. Just stunning. The author is incredibly compelling in the tales he tells, and his central thesis about how the human imagination needs places off the map. Even just the bit about the US Navy sending out military vessels to expunge an imaginary island is surreal and fascinating. Other books on this theme have been published, but this is my favorite thus far. A 2014 release.--It was my pleasure to blurb The Moon King, a first novel by Neil Williamson, and also a pleasure to receive a copy from him while in Glasgow. It's a lovely hardcover edition.--Owls by Mike Toms is one in a series of naturalist volumes by the imprint William Collins and it's a fascinating book. A guide to owls, very comprehensive and well-structured. I picked it up in a lovely Waterstones store near Covent Garden.--I've heard good things about Ali Smith and this collection, Shire, with images by Sarah Wood, just begged to be bought. Stylish, nicely designed. I bought it at Topping & Company in Bath, along with the other books in that row. Topping, like Mr. B's, is a rather amazing bookstore and I was delighted to be able to drop by and talk to their staff.--Robin Sloan has a prequel to his famous Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and it's rather smartly designed too, so I couldn't not pick it up.--I hadn't encountered Bloomsbury Classics before, in these miniature editions. A tiny collection of Will Self fiction? Sign me up! Now I'm in danger of wanting the entire series.--To my abiding shame, I had fallen behind on my Margaret Atwood reading and hadn't yet gotten around to reading her MaddAddam trilogy, although I've read most everything else. Then I encountered these amazing trade paperback versions in Blackwell's and I just had to have them. I read Oryx & Crake on the plane home and thought it was brilliant and sad and awful and tragic and wonderful and all of those things that a great novel should be.--I know absolutely nothing about Eduardo Belgrano Rawson or his book Washing Dishes in Hotel Paradise but when I saw the following quote on the back of the book I had to buy it: "Suddenly he spotted Borges waiting to cross the road..." Another Mr B's purchase.--Another Pascal Garnier, The Panda Theory, which I also read on the plane back. I loved the first three-fourths and then felt it fell apart. But I loved that three-fourths enough to recommend the novel. Some amazing turns of phrase and observations about the human condition.--The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya is just barking mad in the best possible way, a future dystopia that reads in part like fairy tale, full of towering feats of the imagination. An untamed whirlwind of a novel--and that's just the first ten pages! Can't wait to dive into more of it. Thanks again to Mr. B's for this recommendation.--The Murakami with the, ahem, stickers inside. (Yes, it is being sent to you, Mr. DB, very soon.)--Fat Years by Chan Koonchung was an impulse buy by Ann that looks very interesting. About a month that goes missing in the near future. Another Mr. B's rec.--Lee Rourke's Vulgar Things was gifted to me by The Fourth Estate while I was signing over at HarperCollins UK's central offices. The novel just looked fascinating. A quixotic week on an island after the death of a relative of the main character. With some linguistic trickeration, among other things.--I couldn't resist The Exploits of Moominpapa by Tove Jansson in a beautiful hardcover, found in the Moomin Shop in Covent Garden, London.--Technically, I received the Bolano Last Interview book from Melville right before I left, but I read it on the plane over to the UK. Really a great book about a brilliant writer's work. Well worth checking out.--Independence An Argument for Home Rule I bought not just because I support Scotland achieving home rule, but also because I cannot resist, ever, any book that has art from Alasdair Gray on the cover.--Ann finally picked up The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, a novel we've both wanted to read for a long time...but I think you all know what it's about, so I won't tarry here...--Two John Wyndham novels, Trouble with Lichen and The Day of the Triffids, bookend this photo. Again, readers have told me to check these out ever since the Southern Reach novels started being published in February. Ann picked them up in a cool used bookstore on the edge of the Trinity College area in Dublin.--In Bath, Tom Abba was kind enough to gift us with an amazing hand-made book with two chapbooks saddle-stapled to the interior of the amazingly supple single piece of worked wood that folds across both as a kind of hard dustjacket. It's difficult to describe the intricacies of this project, so I'll just guide you over here for more information. Just a stunning piece of conceptual art and also concrete book-making.--Having just been brutally disappointed by Edward St. Aubyn's lackluster Lost For Words (tip: if you're going to do book culture satire, go for the jugular vein unless you want to up in some lukewarm purgatory of not-interesting-enough), it's brave of me (yay me?) to dip back into another satire, but this title by Filippo Bologna looked very interesting. Another Blackwell's purchase, Bologna's The Parrots concerns three men preparing to do battle over a prestigious literary prize.--Finally, another Philippe Claudel title, Brodeck's Report. I'm a sucker for novels about reports, apparently. A stranger is murdered. The title character then files a report. Honestly, I think this will be great. Your mileage may vary depending on your love of reports in fiction....