Finally!

After waiting 19 years, my long ago ordered copy of John Crowley's Little, Big arrived today. It's HUGE! And heavy, but beautiful. Goodness knows how I will manage it when reading it in bed, but I dare say I'll manage somehow with the judicious use of pillows. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to rereading Little, Big in this gorgeous illustrated edition. After such a long wait for its delivery it's marvellous to finally have the physical object in my hands.

The Waiting Game

Sophie – a recent photo

Here we are in a brand new year and I’ve been slack, feeling uninspired to write a blog post.

So far in 2023, nothing much has happened, life trundling along as normal as we grow older by the year.

Life without expectation of treats is not worth living, but I this year I am eagerly anticipating finally receiving my long ago ordered copy of the 25th anniversary edition of John Crowley’s wonderful novel Little, Big.

It was in February 2005 that I subscribed to obtain a Numbered Edition of the book, so I’m living in high hopes that it will be delivered before mid year. Already,  some subscribers to the standard Trade Edition have received their copies, but alas the Numbered Edition is delayed, due to  issues in the manufacture of the Slip Cases. Hopefully those issues will be resolved soon.

Even though I have been patiently waiting for 18 years, somehow it has now become excruciating the closer it gets to actual delivery.

Fortunately there are other distractions to ease the waiting, such as the Autumn Racing Carnival.

Caulfield racecourse is being renovated this  summer/autumn, so the Group races are being run at Sandown, not a track I have any intention of attending, so I’ll miss witnessing in person the Blue Diamond Stakes and other Group 1 races that are normally run at Caulfield. Luckily Flemington and Moonee Valley are sticking to the regular program of events, so I’ll attend a few in February and March, and have already purchased tickets to Lightning Stakes Day at Flemington and the All Star Mile at Moonee Valley.

Meanwhile on the domestic front, our cat Sophie rules the house.

She is almost a year old now, but still has Attitude with capital A, and is vengeful if thwarted, though not as violent as she was as a kitten.

My niece recently visited with her youngest daughter who is five years old, but surprisingly Sophie behaved quite civilly despite the daughter picking her up and carrying her around without being bitten or scratched.

She spends most of the day sleeping inside the house, but we try to keep her  in at night, even though she resents being confined and will turn into the cat from hell in the blink of an eye, before finally settling down for the night

Good News At Last

Little, Big – 25th Anniversary Edition Dust Jacket
Check out large version on the Little. Big  site

Way back in February 2005 I subscribed to acquire a numbered copy of the 25th Anniversary edition of Little, Big by John Crowley, from Incunabula, a boutique American publisher.

I wrote about it enthusiastically in September 2006 on this blog but to date have yet to receive the book.

Through all the years since I subscribed I have maintained my faith in the project, despite the set backs experienced by the publisher over the 16 years it has been in production.

The good news is that the book will finally be published by the end of this  year. I almost don’t believe it, but the recent revelation of the dust jacket, and latest update on the Little, Big site, convinced me.

It has certainly perked me up in this endless lockdown, while still missing Bingo the cat.

Judging by the dust jacket the final book will be an object of supreme beauty which I am longing to finally receive.

The illustrations throughout are by noted American artist Peter Milton and are astoundingly apposite to the book. Though John Crowley and Peter Milton did not know of each other whilst they were creating their works, it is almost as if unconsciously they were in collaboration all along.

So it has been a long wait, but I feel strangely privileged to have lived through this extensive period – sort of one of a chosen few who subscribed to Little, Big  25 way back when and have followed its progress ever since. And of course, when I finally  have  the book in my hands it will be a rare and precious edition like no other in my possession.

Bibliophiles Delight–The Chemical Wedding

The Chemical Wedding – Small Beer Press Numbered Edition

Back in May this year there was a Kickstarter campaign by Small Beer Press to publish various exclusive hard cover editions of the 400 year old romance The Chemical Wedding in a new version written by the marvellous John Crowley.

I couldn’t resist pledging for a Numbered Edition:

Kickstarter Exclusive Signed, Numbered, Limited Edition.

Limited to 200 numbered copies (not including presentation copies to author, illustrator, and designer).

Signed on a two-color tipped in page by the author John Crowley, the illustrator Theo Fadel, and the designer Jacob McMurray.

Presented in a black cloth slipcase stamped with gold foil and accompanied by an exclusive woodcut hand printed, signed, and numbered in her studio by Theo Fadel.

Smyth sewn in oatmeal linen with black and red foil stamped cover. Printed in black and red ink on a beautiful 70# Finch Opaque Vanilla paper with black endpapers and a black ribbon.

It arrived in the mail yesterday and is a beautiful book as special as promised in the Kickstarter, with an attractive variation of red endpapers and a red ribbon instead of black as described above.

Theo Fadel’s illustrations are playful and apt and the numbered edition includes a separate numbered and signed woodcut by the artist.

Theo Fadel special woodcut

I’m a sucker for slipcased editions and I love ribbon markers. The Chemical Wedding will look splendid  on my bookshelf next to the few precious slipcased editions that I already have in my personal library.

A paperback and ebook will be published on the 400th Anniversary date of the original, 8 November 2016.

There has been no recent news on the other John Crowley book, the 25th Anniversary Edition of Little, Big that I have been awaiting for close to 12 years. 

The last newsletter received in August indicated that the book may go to press by the end of the year, but I hold out little hope of that happening and live in expectation that it will be finally published in 2017.

The Chemical Wedding–Book Collectors Delight

Chemical Wedding cover image from Small Beer Press

I know, I know, I’m still waiting for the publication of John Crowley’s 25th Anniversary Edition (I wish she would wake up!) of his best loved work, Little, Big, but I couldn’t resist pledging to the Kickstarter for The Chemical Wedding, a four hundred year old romance by Christian Rosencruetz (Johann Valentin Andreae), re-imagined by  John Crowley, who dubs it the first Science Fiction novel ever written.

To mark the 400th Anniversary of the work, first published in 1616, Small Beer Press will be publishing this new version in November 2016 in diverse editions, paperback and eBook, and have launched a Kickstarter to fund the more exotic limited editions – an exclusive Hard Cover Edition, a Numbered Edition and a Lettered Edition.

Small Beer Press is an American independent publishing company founded and run by husband and wife team, Gavin J Grant and Kelly Link. They publish a range of fine speculative fiction and non fiction. They also established Weightless Books, a DRM free source of eBooks from independent publishers. 

Anyway, The Chemical Wedding looks as if it will be a splendid edition and a real collectable, destined to become a rare book classic. Illustrated throughout with whimsical woodcuts by Theo Fadel, John Crowley’s artist of choice for the book, makes it extra special.

The Kickstarter offers many reward levels, and there are some tempting goodies, such as (limited) signed and inscribed first editions of John Crowley novels, if you pledge for the Hard Cover. Every level from $10.00 upwards receives a DRM free eBook of The Chemical Wedding in the eBook format of your choice.

If you are a serious bibliophile and love fine editions, the Kickstarter for The Chemical Wedding gives you the opportunity to acquire an exceptionally beautiful first edition at a good price.

Fortunately we will not have to wait 11+ years for it to be published, as Small Beer Press expect the books to be available in October or November 2016.

It will be interesting for me to see which book will arrive first in my mailbox – Little, Big 25 or The Chemical Wedding. Let’s say, I’m not holding my breath for Little, Big as there has been no news on its publication since December last year.

Hello 2015 – Cats & Books

I meant to write a post before the New Year, but somehow time slipped away and I didn’t get around to it.

2014 was a pretty good year for me, only marred by the deaths of two friends, who are still mourned and will live on in my memories. I hope 2015 will not be as stressful in that way, and that my friends, family and pets continue to survive in good health and spirits.

Willy, pictured above, will turn 11 in January and this month will also mark the second year that Talya, the Russian Princess, has been part of the Cat Politics domicile.

The happy cat herbal medicine appears to be working and apart from a fracas yesterday morning the cats seem cool and calm in the main.

The fracas occurred when both cats were sprawled on the bed in close proximity and Willy misinterpreted Talya’s body language as a threat. She was actually sneezing or coughing, but he thought she was hissing at him so he advanced on her personal space and the inevitable happened with much sound and fury on Talya’s part.  She sprang off the bed with Willy in hot pursuit and hid under it, shrieking. I persuaded Willy to back off and eventually, as breakfast was in the offing, Talya emerged as if nothing had happened and the cats milled around my ankles as I dished out their food, all aggro forgotten.

Monty the cat next door has been hanging around in our back garden quite a bit, but both he and Willy appear reluctant to come to blows. If they’re facing off on the fence, Willy allows me to lift him down without any fuss and wanders inside without a backward glance. When I got up the other morning I discovered Monty lounging on the back door step. The resident cats were outside as well, looking on, but not game enough to dislodge him. When he saw me he slunk off, which gave Talya and Willy their chance to pester me for breakfast.

Monty lounging on the decking outside the back door

On other matters, this time last year I was anticipating new novels from two of my favourite writers, those being David Mitchell and William Gibson, and I’m pleased to say that neither novel  was a disappointment. In fact The Bone Clocks (David Mitchell ) and The Peripheral (William Gibson) are among the best books I read this year, both being wonderfully written and interesting throughout.

Another book that glows in my brain is Tigerman by Nick Harkaway, a book about fathers and sons with the most unusual super hero in literature. This was the last book I read in 2014, and it is up there with the best. Nick Harkaway is the son of John Le Carré and has written three novels so far – The Gone Away World, Angelmaker & Tigerman-  all of which I have read and enjoyed. He’s a writer I’ll certainly be following in the future.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, which won the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction and the 2014 Costa Prize for Biography, is a standout. It’s a beautifully written memoir wherein Helen Macdonald, in the wake of her beloved father’s death, describes in glittering prose how she tried to cope with her grief by acquiring and training a goshawk.  As well as detailing her life with Mabel her goshawk, she muses on the sad lonely life of T. H. White who also wrote a book on training a goshawk in the 1950s, but is famous for his series of Arthurian novels collected under the title of The Once And Future King.

I’m still waiting for the 25th Anniversary Edition of John Crowley’s Little, Big, despite being hopeful at the beginning of last year it would be published in 2014.  Dare I hope to see it in 2015? It is after all 10 years since I subscribed to it, but surely will be worth the wait.

Speaking of collectable books, I was able to get a signed first edition of William Gibson’s The Peripheral, being alerted on Twitter by a Gibson fan that Barnes &  Noble had them available for pre-order. I was delighted to finally have a long desired, signed edition of one of his books.

And I lashed out on a slip cased, limited, numbered and signed edition of The Bone Clocks, which arrived on Christmas Eve - a nice present to myself.

There are several books I’m looking forward to in 2015. The final book in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, will possibly be released this year and Kate Atkinson is mooted to have new novel as well, about one the characters in Life After Life.

And I’ll have to clear another largish space on my bookshelf for Neal Stephenson’s new novel titled Seveneves, another 1000+ page novel due in May 2015. I like collecting his books in hardcover editions, even though they take up a lot of space, but they look wonderful on the shelf and are highly collectable, Stephenson being a nerdish cult hero.

Current hard cover collection of Neal Stephenson novels

No doubt there will be more good reads in the offing, and who knows there may be a new author out there who will blow me away.

With 2015 being barely begun, who knows what is in store in the next 12 months. I’ll no doubt be spending some of it at the racetrack. The Magic Millions 2 and 3 year old (outrageously rich) Classic races are scheduled on the Gold Coast this Saturday. I haven’t a clue as to who the likely winners will be, but they’re always interesting to watch.

The first Group 1 of the 2015 Autumn racing carnival is only a little over a month away, so there’s lots to look forward to on the racing scene.

With that, I wish readers of this blog (if there are any) good fortune, good health and happiness in 2015.

Welcome 2014 – Looking To The Future

It’s not yet a week into the New Year, but I’m thinking that 2014 could be a good one.

One of the reasons why I am feeling particularly optimistic is that two of my all time favourite writers will release new books this year.  New novels from David Mitchell and William Gibson are occasions for rejoicing in my opinion and very much worth the wait for their publication whenever that may be.

David Mitchell’s new novel is called The Bone Clocks and is described thus:

 ‘This  “rich and strange” novel will follow the story of Holly Sykes, who runs away from home in 1984 and 60 years later can be found in the far west of Ireland, raising a granddaughter as the world’s climate collapses.”

In between, Holly is encountered as a barmaid in a Swiss resort by an undergraduate sociopath in 1991; has a child with a foreign correspondent covering the Iraq War in 2003; and, widowed, becomes the confidante of a self-obsessed author of fading powers and reputation during the present decade. Holly’s life is repeatedly intersected by a slow-motion war between a cult of predatory soul-decanters and a band of vigilantes. Holly begins as an unwitting pawn in this war – but may prove to be its decisive weapon.

The publisher (Sceptre) said: “The arc of a life, a social seismograph, a fantasy of shadows and an inquiry into aging, mortality and survival, The Bone Clocks could only have been written by David Mitchell.”

Sounds good doesn’t it? But you’ll have to wait until early September to read it.

Over the past two mornings I have been watching on my iPad a long interview with William Gibson that was recorded at the New York Public Library in April 2013. I hadn’t  known about this interview until I noticed a reference to it on The Guardian Books Blog recently, where readers of the blog were asked what books they were looking forward to in 2014. As soon as I saw the recommendation for William Gibson’s new book, apparently titled The Peripheral, I followed the link and watched an excerpt of the interview where Gibson reads a few pages from the first chapter entitled The Gone Haptics.  I was so riveted by the excerpt that I felt compelled to watch the whole video. It is 1 hour 41 minutes long, but a really fascinating and revealing glimpse into the mind and methods of the acclaimed writer.

Rather than me describing it, there’s a good review of the interview on The Awl . However, it doesn’t mention some bits of the interview that I found really interesting.

William Gibson is an original prose stylist, his style being smart, dry and crisp with apt analogies. During the course of the interview, part of a track from Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town is played. The ensuing conversation was a revelation for me and also one of those moments when you say to yourself “Of course!”  Gibson’s style is to literature what Springsteen’s lyrics are music.

PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: Speaking of music, let’s listen to something.

(Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”)

PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: So you’ve said of this album that it had quite an important influence in some way, that’s Springsteen, and this album of Springsteen in particular. How so?

WILLIAM GIBSON: Around the same time I was looking—looking for an arena that I could write science fiction in, I was looking for voices that resonated for me that I had never encountered in my reading of science fiction and in that album I found that really abundantly. I mean, I would listen to that I think what I thought was, “Wow, what if there was a kind of science fiction in which this is the voice of the protagonist?”

Gibson goes on to say that “when I started trying to put my own science fiction together, it wasn’t as though these characters were springing fully formed from my brow, I couldn’t even figure out how to do characters, but Springsteen, who is a superb writer of fiction, a superb writer of fiction as a lyricist, and an absolute master of terse but intense characterization gave me, gave me that and, you know, I studied him very carefully, and Lou Reed as well..”

The above conversation was about William Gibson’s first novel Neuromancer wherein he is credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and is hailed as the Godfather of Cyberpunk. Gibson explains in the interview how he came up with the word cyberspace...

Dataspace didn’t work, and infospace didn’t work. Cyberspace. It sounded like it meant something, or it might mean something, but as I stared at it in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad, my whole delight was that I knew that it meant absolutely nothing.

Anyway, if you’ve read William Gibson’s novels or not, I highly recommend watching the interview. William Gibson comes across as modest, humorous and quirky, and talks just like he writes.

Another book that I have been awaiting for over 8 years is a special edition of John Crowley’s wondrous novel Little, Big.

Yes, the Little, Big 25th Anniversary Edition, is by all accounts almost at the printing stage and will - cross fingers - be published this year.  I subscribed to this edition way back in February 2005 and have been waiting patiently over the ensuing time. I’m sure it will be worth it – a book of superlative beauty and highly collectable.

By a curious coincidence, I learned of this edition on the William Gibson message board back in 2003/04, where Ron Drummond who is the publisher Incunabula and also the editor of the new edition, mentioned it in passing on one of the active threads at the time.

So that’s three things I am anticipating in 2014. What other thrills await me?

For a start, I’m heading off with a friend to Bendigo this Wednesday on a day outing, ostensibly to see the Modern Love Exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery.  We’re utilising one of our Senior’s free travel vouchers, so it will be a bit of an adventure. I haven’t visited Bendigo for decades, if ever. And there is a Space Age Books connection. The Director of Bendigo Art Gallery is Karen Quinlan, whom my friend and I both knew when she and her sisters worked at Space Age in the 1970s/80s.

Gibson photo credit Michael O’Shea