"Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination . . ."Channel 13 Community Access TV Presents: BOOK TALKERS
--Anthony Burgess
(Camera pans Double D's basement and settles on Stoner Bill and Double D sitting in comfortable chairs. The theremin heavy theme song of the original Star Trek plays in the background.)
Double D (In his best William Shatner imitation): Books. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Booker Prize. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new literature. To seek out new titles and new corporate sponsors. To go where no author has gone before . . . (laughs) Bill has this year's shortlisted nominees and their respective availability at Partners Books:
Stoner Bill: Hilary Martel is no stranger to the Booker Prize. She won in 2010 for Wolf Hall (9780312429980) 16.00 and this year she has been nominated for its sequel Bring Up The Bodies (9780805090031) 28.00. We have plenty of stock in the warehouse. Speaking of strange, no one is stranger than Will Self. He's been nominated for Umbrella (9780802120724) 25.00, which won't be published on this side of the pond early unless he wins. Lastly, we have a list of authors that I've never even heard of, including: Tan Twan Eng for Garden of Evening Mists (9781602861800) 15.99, which is in stock, Jeet Thayil for Narcopolis (9780143123033) 16.00, which has been moved to an October 16 release date, and Alison Moore for The Lighthouse (978190777174), which, again, won't be published over here unless it wins. Dudes and dudettes, I can sum this list up with one word: Booooooooring!
Double D: Dude, nobody is asking you for your opinion. Just stick to the script. Now, you've probably ticked off all these authors so that they'll never come on our show. None of these intellectual writers, well, excepting Will Self, has any semblance of a sense of humor. I mean we could have had Salman Rushdie on this week to promote his memoir Joseph Anton (9780812992786) 30.00, but there you were making stupid fish jokes about his name, and he cancelled.
Stoner Bill: Dude, this has really turned into a drag. I'd rather talk about Kij Johnson's At the Mouth of the River of Bees (9781931520805) 16.00. For the last three years, she's won the Nebula Award for short stories, and after reading this book I can see why. Instead, we do this literary bonehead stuff . . .
Double D: And don't even get me started on how many sponsors for our show that you've lost for us over the years. I'm not even sure what the Man company makes, but we're probably blacklisted from purchasing their widgets now. Whatever. We're out of time. We may or may not see you soon on Book Talkers.
Odds & Sods
You may remember Vic Eichler, Ph.D. as the author of such diverse titles as Morel Mushrooms in Michigan (9780970362056) 11.95 and Peter & His Pet Petoskey Stone (9780970362049) 5.95. Now he's back on the rocks again with Charlevoix Stones (9780970362063) 9.95. It's a smallish chapbook of about 30 pages with full colour photos. It's the perfect size to take on your next rock hunting expedition . . .
For beer connoisseurs, we are distributing Paul Bialas' new photography book, Pabst: An Excavation of Art (9780985672508) 60.00. If Ansel Adams had chosen to do black and white photos of abandoned breweries, it would have looked a lot like this title . . .
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