Book Purge Three — June 26th 2016
I’m into week three of the book purge. If I’m honest, I’m finding it hard to spot the effect yet on the shelves but that is only to be expected when only seven books are leaving each week. Slowly but surely.
My wife is simply happy that things are moving. I have noticed, however, that the one in one out rule has suddenly put a dampener on my book purchasing. Watch this space.
Here are this week’s books heading to a local charity shop:
1. A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away — Christopher Brookmyre
I loved the first of Brookmyre’s books I read — Quite Ugly One Morning — and, as I tend to do, I subsequently picked up a number of his others. None have quite matched the thrill of that first one. Enjoyable but nothing I will read again.
2. Boiling A Frog — Christopher Brookmyre
See above. This book involves the protagonist from Quite Ugly but again is not on a par with the first in the series. I feel sorry to be rejecting a Scottish author but I look on it as giving someone else a chance to discover him in the charity shop.
3. Be Cool — Elmore Leonard
This is a sequel of sorts to Get Shorty, which was excellent both as book and film. Unfortunately, this time I couldn’t get past page 50. Perhaps I will find time to try again but I doubt it. Out she goes.
4. Secrets Of A Freelance Writer — Robert Bly
When I first switched to freelance copywriting in the late 90s Bly was one of the only writers around writing about freelance writing. That I could find, anyway. His main book was The Copywriter’s Handbook and this was a less useful follow-up. I still have the former but I feel I can safely let this one go.
5. Change Your Life In 7 Days — Paul McKenna
This was the first of the books McKenna wrote as he transformed himself from stage hypnotist to self-help NLP guru. I read it, it made sense, and nothing happened. My fault, not the book’s, I’m sure. It can leave home now.
6. Meatball Sundae — Set Godin
I love Seth Godin’s blog and his books. I have a signed paperback copy of this that I picked up at a talk Seth did a few years back. This hardback version — that I bought as soon as it came out — can go. I may love Seth but I don’t need duplicate copies of his books.
7. How To Write With The Skill Of A Master And The Genius Of A Child — Marshall Cook
I bought this in Singapore at the MPH bookstore in the mid 1990s. They had a section of writing books and quite a few of these Writer’s Digest Books. It may have been one of the first writing books I ever bought. I read it once, I think and enjoyed some of the stuff about treating life with the enthusiasm of a child. Much beyond that, I don’t remember. That may be a reason to read it again. However, time is short, shelving is scarce, and I have to pass it on now to a better home.
I see that I have changed the format of book titles this week, putting the title before the author. Crazy, huh? That’s the sort of thing I would once have worried about. Instead, tonight I’m worrying about my youngest daughter, who headed out from Gatwick about an hour ago for six weeks in Sri Lanka. And as I was leaving the airport car park, I managed to scrape the rear wing of the car on a pillar. So, do I care about title/author order when it comes to talking book? No.
