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[wwidsith]

London seemed grey and tired all afternoon yesterday, the city was just in one of those winter moods. I think the capital suffers from Seaonal Affective Disorder. I mooched around the streets trying vaguely to look for Christmas presents, but ended up just going to various coffee shops and people-watching. In Starbucks I met a girl from Bulgaria

Comments

[antarcticlust]

1. I somehow missed that you were from the UK - I'm hoping to go to London in January with jackshoegazer.

2. Your comments on Anna Karenina have inspired me to read it soon.

3. Fremder seems to be unavailable in the US, but sounds very much like something I'd like to get for the aforementioned jackshoegazer. Perhaps I could try amazon.co.uk.

[antarcticlust]

And, oddly, I mistook the "big lush book" for Fremder, and then got confused when it became obvious that they weren't the same thing. What's the second book? Interestingly, Jeremy would like BOTH of them, I think.

[wwidsith]

Russell Hoban, although he's American, seems virtually unknown over there. But then he has been living in London for the past 30 years or something. I adore him, he feels like a discovery I made because almost no one really reads him, except for Riddley Walker which is not really representative of his stuff. They have this cumulative power - no one of his books is especially outstanding, but put them all together and it just seems like this essential body of writing.

The OTHER book is called Plants of the Gods. I could have done with fewer glossy pictures and a bit more science, but it's still a decent reference work, and makes a change from the usual subculture rubbish about hydroponics etc.

[antarcticlust]

Good to know on both counts. I requested Riddley Walker from the library to see if my book club is interested - what do you think?