When I was a teenager, I had a little notebook in which I’d write down bits of books and poems (and, let’s be frank, Doors lyrics) that I particularly liked or meant something to me. Thank goodness I no longer have this notebook as I’m sure it would make horrifying reading. But perhaps I have not advanced that far since. Because now, despite being about to embark upon a role as a digital publisher, and despite all the technology available to me, my means of recording bits of books I like is: taking photos of them with my iPhone and never storing them properly or labelling them in any way, and then just coming across them later and thinking ‘oh, that’s good’ and then trying to remember what they are.
But. What is accidentally brilliant about this non-method is that when I flick through my phone, I see something, and am reminded of why I took a photo of it just then and why it meant so much to me. So, I thought I would share a few iPhone highlights from recent months.
First, from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, which I read on my summer holiday this year:
Not bad hey? It speaks for itself really. It’s like a distilled version of everything that is brilliant about this book and Robinson’s writing, which I came to shamefully late. But its essential truth is always worth keeping in mind if you’ve just spent hours wrestling with a toddler car seat in Barcelona airport on the way to said summer holiday. Helps to keep things in perspective.
Next up! Belinda Bauer – one of my favourite crime writers. This is from her new novel, The Beautiful Dead. I think I was having an especially bad day when I read this back in September. Although I should clarify that even my worst, most stressful publishing days have thankfully never involved blood.
Fortunately both Eve Singer, the heroine of the book, and I lived to fight another day. But this is an excellent description of a terrible one.
Next, something more cheerful. This is from Johnny Marr’s autobiography, Set the Boy Free. With apologies for the bad light and for the poor formatting – I was reading a converted PDF on my kindle before the book came out.
I love this because a. I’m a sucker for these ‘pivotal moments that changed everything’, and this one describes Marr’s first encounter with Morrissey, which became the incredible songwriting partnership that those two were; and b. I read it when I was on my way to first meeting my new employers, and I thought ‘oh, I’m reading about a significant moment in someone’s life at what may be a significant moment in my own’. (And I say this with all due humility – I don’t believe I can ever achieve anything in any job I will hold that will come close to ‘What Difference Does it Make?’)
And finally this, from Stephenie Meyer’s The Chemist, which is basically my philosophy of life.
The way Meyer writes it suggests that perhaps it isn’t a fail-safe approach, which is alarming news because I’ve been relying on it for quite a while now.
Jenny Geras 