Tengo entre manos otro libro de los que me encuentro por casualidad. Se trata de una enciclopedia para la vida moderna (más para la inglesa pero aplicable al mundo en toda su extensión). Sus autores son Steve Lowe y Alan McArthur: “this is their first book (writing, not reading)“, se indica en la contraportada.
De todo lo que llevo leído, me quedo con tres entradas.
ADULT EDITIONS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS.
If you follow the adventures of a public school conjurator, even though you are a)notionally a grown adult, and b)have probably been to university or at least to “big school”, why attempt to conceal the fact behind a different cover, as if fellow passengers will assume after a casual glance that you’re actually reading Thomas Mann in the original German?
Just because the train on the front is black and white rather than bright red, it doesn’t suddenly become a harrowing Booker prize-winner called Harry Potter abd the Genocide in Rwanda.
How do the dinner party conversations go?
“What are you reading at the moment?
It is called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It’s about a caterpillar who gets very hungry-he just has to keep on eating stuff.
I’ve read it. Marvellous.
Oh, don’t tell me how it ends!
No, I wouldn’t. But it’s… well, it’s pretty moving. Oh look, I’m hogging all the Hula Hoops…”
BABY NAME BOOKS.
Nobody has ever found a good name in a baby name book because most of the entries are things like Hadrian, Dylis, Mortimer and Blinky. Oh yes, and Adolf.
The Collins Gem version genuinely points out under the entry Adolf/Adolph that “Adolph and the latinised form of the name Adolphus have never been common names in this country and received a futher setback with the rise of Adolph Hitler”
Setback? I’ll say.
BOOKS ON CD (except for the blind people… o el estudiante de idiomas)
I may not know much, but I do know this: books is for reading.
Being read is one of the key characteristics of your actualbook. If you don’t like reading, you’re just not the sort of person who wants to get involved with books. And this isn’t rocket science: I learnt it in infants’ school.
The second most insane example of the audio book is the complete Ulysses by James Joyce. Now, this is by no means an easy book. It is a very long book- with long words in it and, famously, a really, really fucking long sentence. Not being a book type, you may decide it’s not for you. Fair enough. But what sort of freak who doesn’t wish to read Ulysses buys the Naxos 22 CD set of someone else reading it for them? You can’t be arsed to read it, but you can be arsed to listen to 22 CDs? Freak.
But the first most insane example is Finnegan’s Wake (also by Naxos), a book that even people eho really like reading get frightened of. Indeed, people who really like reading so much they do precious little else, who like it so much the did Doueble English Literature With Extra Reading at university just so they could do a shitload of reading, have been known to run off down the street when someone produces a copy of Finnegan’s Wake, shouting “Stay back! That’s too much reading!” For this reason, I firmly believe that all the Finnegan’s Wake CDs are actually blank.
A mí me molestan también este tipo de libros cuando salen como churros y se convierten en un tópico más. ¿Alguien me puede engrosar la lista confesando sus fobias?