What I think of on the lavatory

Ah, the first week of September and the start of the party season! The launch of Adam Thirlwell's much-chatted of Politics (Cape) was held last week at The Polish Club in SW7—not because of any Eastern European family connection, but a tenuous link to one of the characters in the novel.

Guests flocked in, young Zadie Smith among them, and publisher (and CCV m.d.) Dan Franklin was full of bonhomie, since after much press hoo-ha, a reprint of Politics is under way—while Cape's other much-chatted of new title, Martin Amis' Yellow Dog, has sold out, with a 10,000-copy reprint ordered. Ya boo sucks to the reviewers.

Several Random authors graced the party, though Tibor Fischer (whose new book, Voyage to the End of the Room, is out with Chatto) was not among them. Mr Fischer's recent assault on his fellow RH author Amis has not won him favour at the offices of their mutual publisher. "He's dead meat," one partygoer was heard to mutter.



A rather heartwarming self-publication story reaches me from the Isle of Dogs, of all places. Alfred Gardner writes to advise me that he has so far donated £2,120 to St Joseph's Hospice in Hackney from the sales of his book, An East End Story (£5.95, 0954252101), which tells the story of his 40-year friendship with Burma-born Dave Upson, and days spent wandering the pubs and clubs of the East End together, meeting all sorts of characters along the way. Mr Upson passed away at St Joseph's in 1996.

"Most people who have read the book seem to believe that it's a good read. The only criticism that I have received is that some of the sentences are occasionally long," Mr Gardner tells me. He has shifted copies of An East End Story through Eastside Bookshop in Whitechapel, but still has 600 more to sell before he reaches his target donation of £3,000. Interested parties may telephone him on 020 7537 9523, or order by post from 2 Folly Wall, London E14 3YH (please enclose £1.05 to cover postage and packing).



Things I have received in the post recently. A lunchbox—or, as the press release described it, "luncbox"—to promote Annabel Karmel's title on that subject (Ebury). It contained chicken salad, a "pitta pocket", cookies, a muffin and a fruit skewer. And:

A walnut containing a thong: something to do with Kathy Lette's Dead Sexy (Simon & Schuster).

A Rubbadubbers towel.

A frisbee. (No one here can remember what it was promoting.)

A lovely bunch of exotic flowers, to make me kindly disposed towards The Divide (Chicken House) by Elizabeth Kay.

A spoon, which has something to do with Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's Muddle Earth (Macmillan).

A roll of lavatory paper, so that every time I wipe my bottom I can recall Vesuvius Poovius (Hodder) by Kes Gray and Chris Mould.

Thank you very much.



Persephone, the enterprising rediscoverer of women's classics, announces in its attractive new quarterly the reissue of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall, the novel filmed by Max Ophuls as "The Reckless Moment". You may remember that Joan Bennett played the mother who covered up the death of her daughter's boyfriend; James Mason was a blackmailer with a conscience. The quarterly includes a splendidly racy cover for a later Sanxay Holding novel, The Death Wish: a vampish woman, breasts slightly exposed, cowers as a pair of hands reaches for her neck. "So lovely, so evil, so dead", runs the cover line.

"Contrary to this cover," Persephone insists, "Sanxay Holding is a very subtle, understated writer." It reminds me of a story, possibly apocryphal, that my friend and former colleague Michael Geare was fond of telling. A US paperback house in the 1950s decided to "sex up" Oliver Twist, and produced a cover featuring a muscular-looking male waif staring wolfishly at a similarly well-endowed female waif. The legend: "'More,' he cried. 'More!' He was insatiable!" Do send me any cheesy shout lines you have come across.



Macmillan, having fended off competition from several interested parties, is spending a good deal of money on the Australian thriller writer Matthew Reilly. The publisher reckons that Mr Reilly is ready to break into the big time, and is planning a major advertising campaign for his new novel, Scarecrow (October). But until recently, Matt Richell at Macmillan tells me, it appeared that the company's every attempt to spend money was to be thwarted.

Mr Reilly's novel concerns attempts by industrialists to start a world war for their personal gain. It's a sensitive subject at the moment. Macmillan and its agency St Luke's first wanted to run ads with a terrorism theme. But the initial effort, suggesting a middle eastern connection, fell foul of advertising standards; it was not acceptable even to give the terrorists beards. Then the advertisers tried a White House setting, where a cowboy-booted President was reading a book, rather slowly; that was rejected too. Then Xfm radio got in touch to say that advertisements for such a novel were not, "in the current climate", appropriate.

Nevertheless, Mr Richell says he is delighted with the final version, in which a "homegrown-looking" terrorist is himself terrorised by reading Scarecrow. The ads will run on various cable and satellite channels from 10th October.



Walker Books took a very jolly party of booksellers and journalists to Elstree last week to celebrate publication of Jez Alborough's new illustrated story book, Some Dogs Do. Our trip had no connection with the town's famous television studios and everything to do with its light aircraft aerodrome. Mr Alborough's book, about a dog called Sid who one day discovers that he can fly, was apparently the perfect excuse for a helicopter ride 2,000 ft above the Thames from Barnes to the Docklands. There were nerves among those of us, including the author, for whom it was our first helicopter trip. But that did not prevent us from first tucking into a pudding of pavlova and brownies at a lunch hosted at Walker's office.

As an after lunch speech, Mr Alborough read his book aloud, finishing with a quip from a tabloid news report entitled "flying dog startles nudist bathers". I am relieved to report that there was no such drama during our flight.

Horace Bent

bent@bookseller.co.uk