It's official. Hardbacks take me a lot longer to read than paperbacks. Especially hardbacks with big, obvious swastikas on the cover. You probably don't know this, but I'm a white guy with a shaved head, and toting this tome around to snatch a few chapters here and there makes me the target of some very irate misconceptions. The book itself, Fatherland by Robert Harris, is proving to be a pretty entertaining story. I just wish I could take it along when I, for example, go out for a solo dinner. As I am apt to do. The next one I read will fit in my back pocket, I tell you what.
7 comments:
I once read that the way to sell a book is to put Nazis, cats or Princess Di on the cover. A cover including all three of these sales magnets would sadly be somewhat contrived. Harris turns out entertaining commercial stuff and what is interesting about 'Fatherland' is that it is a dystopia set in the past if that makes sense. I think the actual expression is 'alternative timeline'. Be careful when you work your way round to my little novel - it has a dirty great swastika on the cover too!
I don't think Di sells a lot of books around these parts. Nazis, Jesus, or any variation on the phrase "How the ______ are ruining America" sell pretty damn well. I'm looking forward to getting to yours, though I think I'll have to order it to get my hands on it.
You should have seen the dirty looks I got when I was reading The Turner Diaries. Heck, even I was giving myself dirty looks over that one.
'Fatherland' is great--off the top of my head, the best Nazis win books are this, 'Resistance' by Owen Sheers, 'Collaborator' by Murray Davies, and the best of the bunch, P K Dick's 'The Man in the High Castle'.
After I moved to NYC and was riding the subway to school every day I got on a Joseph Conrad kick and read his third novel. You may know of it by its other title, "The Nigger of the Narcissus." I opted for a brown bag cover.
Good call.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Thanks for that laugh. I needed it.
Hey, just statin' the obvious.
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