How to use the hyphen

It seems to me that an electronic text cannot emotionally engage its owner as can an actual book ‒ paper, papyrus or vellum, airport paperback or Daunt Books hardback or super-luxurious lavishly-illustrated limited-edition coffee-table tome.

- Josh Spero, Second-Hand Stories (imminent)

Found in books - 4

In a freshly-delivered dollop of Chicken Shit for the Soul, by David Fisher.*

--
* Which is sold in some candy-ass countries, I've subsequently discovered, under the title of Chicken Poop... Lame-os.

No. Just NO.

Just. No.

Amazon FAIL

Probably not

Since I'm sure you've always wondered...

[with thanks to Sandy Holmes]

Books sought and bold - UPDATE

It's still not there.

Mistake!

The other day, in order to facilitate a bit of Facebook banter, I had cause to look up Madeline [sic] Miller's Song of Achilles on Amazon... with the result - notwithstanding every other perfectly erudite volume I have ever purchased from the great book supermarket in the sky - that I am now being bombarded with offers for watery-looking paperbacks by authors called Georgina, Victoria, Cynthia and Ann.

G-damn.

Seen (in WH Smith's, apparently)

[With thanks to RDE, post al.]

We've all been there...

[Thanks to FM and unattributed others.]

Found in books - 3

In a discarded library copy [for shame!] of WG Sebald's On The Natural History of Destruction:

1) A stamp reading

LANGUAGES, LIT/FICTION DIVISION
HAMILTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
55 YORK BLVD.
HAMILTON, ONTARIO
L8R 3KI

which I think says everything you need to know about Sebald's writing; the confusions book-folks get themselves into by trying to classify things (too cleverly or too simply: what is translated work doing under 'LANGUAGES'?); and the unanswerable but nonetheless interesting question of where exactly the line falls between literature and (all other) fiction, and/or whether it falls there at all.

2) A yellow slip bearing an invitation from BetterWorldBooks to 'help improve delivery times'. With which I would have no problem (in principle, you understand: I still wouldn't actually fill it in), were it not signed off

My friends look forward to hearing from you

- Sincerely, Your Book

Gah!

Book of the year?

I am indebted to what appears to be a blooper in the Times Christmas Books round-up for pointing me in the direction of something I feel I ought to have read. Joe Dunthorne's 'book of the year' is Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist. Alas for quality journalism, this book - I now discover - did not come out this year, or even last - not in hardback, anyway. And there was not legitimate reason for the plug to be in the middle of the 'sports' section. Still, it looks, as Dunthorne avers, like a cracker.

[On a doubly-related note, time was if you looked up either of my articles on the Spectator website you got a note saying 'No further articles by Joe Dunthorne.' This unexplained mystery has since been rectified.]

No, thank you!

Amazon's checkout page now has a little button to Facebook [sic.] news of your recent purchases. Oy!

Don't get me wrong. I quite understand what's in it for them. Unfortunately, I also know what's in it for me if significant others were to find out what I really spend on books.

Not that it's much. Obviously. Or that I've bought anything very expensive. Not recently.

[UPDATE The significant other, shopping for shoes just now on Amazon, also declined the offer. Same shit, different product (higher price-tag).]

Slow books, slow irony

Only on the internet (and/or, indeed, on guardian.co.uk) could a panegyric to the Book Barge and the whole concept of independent bookshops come with adverts for ABE Books and The Book Depository as standard.

McSweeney's sale

Now on. But move fast.

Can they even, like, read in Amazonia?

Amazon have very kindly let me know that, as someone who bought Persepolis 2: the story of a return, I might like to buy Cold Land, Warm Hearts: More Memories of an Arctic Medical Outpost.

1) Persepolis is an (incredibly good) graphic novel about the politics of post-Shah Iran. Cold Land, Warm Hearts is, well, a memoir from an arctic medical outpost. Though they are both sequels, so I guess that's something.

2) The author of Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi. Not 'Satrapai Marjane'. I know this because a) I've actually read the book (unlike the people at Amazon, it seems), and b) the name is right there on the fucking cover.

Books sought (and bold)

There was, in Vijitha Yapa, until very recently (for years, in fact, to judge by its dusty condition), a paperback copy of William James' socio-anthropological doorstop, Varities of Religious Experience.

No offence or anything; but who the hell bought it?!

Reflections in Oxfam Bookshop, Marylebone

1) If you don't have a name like Isaac Bashevis Singer you're screwed. Don't even bother putting pen to paper.

2) Everyone Has a Good Story? Bollocks. Everyone has a story. What makes it good is how you write it.

3) No-one has read that green novel by Ethan Hawke.

At the Warnasuriya Lending Library

Two books in a pile, in a shop.

The Ribaldry of Greece, and
The Splendour of Greece.

The former on top.