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Hello reader who is also a reader, and welcome back to Booked For The Week – our regular Sunday chat with a selection of cool industry folks about books! I do not have a completely true fact to share about books with you this week, because I just read a book telling me that sharing facts about books is actually destroying the online book facts industry. Check back next week, by which time I may have finished another book debunking these claims. This week, it’s the developer behind Sluggish Morss, Dujanah, and the upcoming Judero, Jack King-Spooner! Cheers Jack! Mind if we have a nose at your bookshelf?
What are you currently reading?
I usually have a few books on the go at once and at the moment I have more than usual. I’m really into fairy tales and how they can be interpreted. I like when stories passed down for hundreds of years end up having familiar archetypes like the Good King or the third child being put upon. There’s a lot to glean from that. Lang’s Fairy Books, Ella Young’s Celtic Wonder Tales, Hughes’ How The Whale Became are all to hand with Post-Its marking out good bits. For something a bit more substantial, I’ve been reading my Dad’s book Peterkin which is a moody semi-fantasy tale about how the first dog got domesticated. I’ve been reading the Bible too.
What did you last read?
Alongside all the folk stories and fairy tales I last read Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (to the boy), Norm Macdonald’s Based On A True Story and The Woman In Me by Britney Spears. First two are brilliant.
What are you eyeing up next?
I’ve got Bob Mortimer’s book to read next, can’t wait. And Prince Harry’s Spare but I think I had the best bits ruined for me by GMTV. And this really curious book by Neil Grossman about how a post-materialist social order can solve the challenges of modern life all done through fictional conversations with Plato and Socrates.
What quote or scene from a book has stuck with you?
I don’t think I have a very good memory for much of anything, I don’t have a mind’s eye and have always been useless at remembering lines. Maybe Robert Burns poetry because where I grew up we were always reciting it and I’ve always liked it. As for a scene… maybe Aslan singing the dark away in Narnia (Magician’s Nephew) or the end of Winnie The Pooh where we leave them in an Enchanted Place… that absolutely devastates me even just thinking about it. I find both scenes so beautiful. Such delicate use of language, a word wrong and it wouldn’t “work”. I’ve grown to love Narnia more than Middle-Earth and Winnie the Pooh (not the Disney) means the world to me.
What book do you find yourself bothering friends to read?
Probably White Noise by Don Delillo. Or Limmy’s books. Or Crime And Punishment if they haven’t read it.
What book would you like to see someone adapt to a game?
There’s an un-filmed John Water’s script for a Pink Flamingoes sequel that I think should be a game but someone else has probably said that. Also David Lynch did a script for a kind of Eraserhead sequel called Ronnie Rocket that could be a game. What about Aesop’s Fables? I’m tempted to say something really unsavoury. So, the book needs to be kind of aphoristic and have a strong sense of place… Story doesn’t matter because you might as well just read the book… Doings, it would need goings on to gamify… it has got to be Wind in the Willows.
An eclectic collection for your pile of shame, although Jack joins this column’s pile of shame with all the other guests who’ve failed to name every book ever written. Will we somehow track down someone for next week who recognises this most secret of goals? The faithful shelf-heads among you may have noticed I’ve changed the fifth question, as is my want. Maybe I’ll change some other questions too, just to keep you guessing. Or maybe I won’t, but doesn’t the possibility I might fill you with a thrilling uncertainty about what the future might bring? Book for now!