The Wine Of Youth.

I had a couple of books by Toni Morrison in my shop. One was called A Mercy and the other was Song Of Solomon. They both sold in the last 24 hours. I wish I had read them when I had the chance, but I didn’t. It seems now that she has died everybody wants to read Toni Morrison. That is understandable I suppose. I have sold a few other books recently, by the likes of Graham Greene, Jane Austen, Caitlin Moran & John Le Carre. I have bought some nice ones as well.

Manana Means Heaven arrived the other day. That is the story of the Mexican girl in On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I also bought three books of poems by Charles Bukowski called Burning In Water Drowning In Flame, The People Look Like Flowers At Last and Come On In. I like his poetry because it often tells a story, I can understand what he is saying and also there is humour in his writing. I like the poetry of John Cooper Clarke for the same reasons. A lot of poets go over my head, I can’t understand what they are on about. I think that is because I haven’t been educated to appreciate it. I think poetry is like painting in that respect. I never appreciated Picasso at all, until one night I watched a television programme with David Hockney talking about Picasso’s genius and I started to realise how great he was. You need a teacher in order to understand art, well I do anyway. I like Robert Lowell because we studied his work at school for A Level English. I learned some of his poetry off by heart and can still recite it today almost 50 years later.

I also bought a collection of stories by John Fante called The Wine Of Youth. John Fante has become one of my favourite writers in recent years and I discovered him through Charles Bukowski. He himself found the work of Fante in Los Angeles public library when he picked up one of his books purely by chance. Bukowski said that Fante was his god. He used to visit him towards the end of Fante’s life and played a large part in getting his work which was long forgotten back into print. He was republished by the Black Sparrow Press which was founded by a man called John Martin who sold his collection of rare books in order to publish Bukowski. I think Black Sparrow and City Lights are my favourite American publishers. I even like the texture of the covers of Black Sparrow books and the feel of the paper. It has a nice quality to it.