Bookcovers, Twilight and more.
Today I had a shitty and miserable day and decided to cheer myself up by doing two things:
1) Vent on Facebook, very effective because you know people will read it instantly but not feel compelled to respond, and it's great to forumulate all your troubled feelings in one sentence. Also, my friends who did respond are AWESOME. <3
2) Go into town to Buy Fiction.
My to favourite book shops for English fiction are The Book Exchange and Waterstones. They're both located in the city centre, 10 minutes from my house and in old, gorgeous buildings, especially the Book exchange with it's worn down little wooden stairs to the attic and top shelves you can only reach with extra stairs. The also both have friendly staff who love books, and little handwritten notes. Especially in Waterstones I love reading personal thoughts of the staff on why they recommend a book. They also organize reading evenings and Dutch language courses, which I don't follow of course but I love the initiative and community aspect.
In contrast with all that personal and intimate book love is cold hard Need To Sell, in the shape of an entire cabinet dedicated to the Twilight atrocities!!! No hand written recommendations there, but it sells like mad. They put a vampire themed collection of recommendations next to it (including the original Dracula among others) but to no avail. I'm also highly amused by the HUGE AMOUNT of imitation growing wild at the moment, not only similar in theme (vampire romance) and target audience (tweens) but even in covers! That black, sober cover with a closeup of an apple/flower/object in bright white with red is EVERYWHERE these days, I've seen at least 5 variations. The shameless opportunism!
LOL LOL LOL ' Bella and Edward 's favourite book!' and 'LOVE NEVER DIES'
Also I feel bad for Robert Pattinson, I believe there are now at least 4 unauthorized biographies out there.
Speaking of the Twilight bookcover: a friend of mine, who loves good graphic design and has awesome booktaste, told me the other day she was tempted to buy Twilight because she liked the cover so much. This made me very happy, because it was an invitation to introduce her to the World of Twilol, which I love almost as much as I like the cover, and hate the book. The craziness about the whole hype, in combination with the awefulness of the books, amuses me to no end. I succesfully convinced her to not buy the book and join me in my laughs at new Twifan developments, like Edward Lipbalm or the Twilight Dildo.
But back to Secondhand books.
I have a strong preference of worn down secondhand paperbacks. I like my books pre-read and supple, with thin yellow pages, and bonus points for a scribble on the first page from the prevous owner that predates my birth. But also the covers of days past are often way better than modern shiny 'movie editions'. I especially hate stuff that writes the names of the actors on the cover, just to gain attention. Like ' Now a major motion picture with ...!' . I guess it works, otherwise they wouldn't do it, but not my taste.
Modern paperbacks also are much bigger. They add excessive space inbetween the lines (resulting in a much thicker book that doesn't fit in your bag) for older readers I guess, and use thicker paper and marges. WHY. ugh. I like books I can read with one hand, in bed.
Finally I prefer secondhand because of the price. Not because I can't afford a new book (I think books are totally worth quite some money) but because of the idea that one of the riches, most precious things in life can be yours for 3 Euro. Basics of life you know; bread, drinking water, milk, worldclass literature.
Now about the two covers above.
Capricornia is an amazingly rich, funny and entertaining novel about a twisted version of the Australian north, which I bought in a secondhand shop in Townsville (Australia). I just asked the owner what's his own favourite Australian novel that a backpacker in Australia should read, and he recommended me this. I read it on the rest of my trip and will forever link those crazy characters to my first visit to that continent.
Now this book is written in 1938. Nineteen Frickin thirty eight! My copy is from 1975, and has printed on the back the price of $2,95. I bought it for $ 9.00 Australian dollars, which is about 5 euro. I thought this was a relic, one of so many forgotten pre-war bestsellers, and I picked it among hundreds of australian paperbacks.
So imagine my surprise when I found a brandnew sparkling edition in Waterstones recommended section, inspired by the succes of the movie Australia! I mean, it's not even this book that has been adapted, it's just the same topic!! How far can you stretch it in a desperate attempt to sell a forgotten masterpiece? But you won't hear me complaining, because I love this book and think it totally needs a revival. Just... feeling very lucky I got a nicer edition, because with a cover like that I wouldn't buy it in a million years, no matter how highly the Waterstones staff recommends it.
Today I ended up buying Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors (recommended by staff, nice cover) and Diana Wynne Jones' Howls moving Castle (has been on mustread-list forever, hidious cover, has sparkling letters AND the text 'Now an animated movie by Studio Ghibli' )
Oh how I wish they had an adult edition cover, like the His Dark materials series:
1st row: US kids, US adult?, and Movie edition. All feature the text Now a major motion picture! and the left one even has a poster inside??
2nd: old US version, UK kids version, US 10 year anniversary edition?
3rd: uhh I think US special edition, M.S. Corley fake cover, and UK adult edition.
The last one features an existing oil painting, a review quote, and relief title without sparkle. This edition is getting scarcer now that the hype's over, and I'm reaaaaaally happy to own a copy.
And now ... I'm going to read and forget about the world.