Hunters and Gatherers by Geoff Nicholson
Author:Geoff Nicholson [NICHOLSON, GEOFF]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC019000
ISBN: 9781468303605
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2012-06-09T00:00:00+00:00
I felt the book wasnât going very well, though since Iâd never written a book before I didnât know how a book felt when it was going well. Iâd completed a fair number of interviews with collectors. The interviews were on tape and Iâd then laboriously created typescripts from the recordings. I didnât mind that it was laborious, in fact that made me feel better because it seemed that at least I was working hard.
So I had a stack of tapes, a growing pile of unprocessed manuscript and a couple of big notebooks filled with jottings, scribbles, and a few attempts at flowing prose; a collection of sorts. I felt consoled that there was some concrete evidence of the work in progress. Material was being accumulated. Things were moving forward. It ought to have been easy to summon up a little optimism, but it wasnât.
Iâd get up every morning, have a big breakfast, watch some morning television, more than was good for me, skim the morning paper; putting off as long as possible the moment when I had to climb the stairs to the spare bedroom, sit at the typewriter and try to be a writer.
Occasionally I had Victoria to distract me, but not often. And when I did see her, I asked if sheâd ever heard of a Thornton McCain novel called The Bullet Leaves the Gun, but she hadnât. Sometimes the post brought a welcome interruption; some letter that demanded instant action or a reply. On a bad day even a gas bill would do. On a cripplingly bad day I would even hope that Rachel might ring.
Once in a while things would come through the letter box that could be construed as inspiring. In the junk mail thereâd be a leaflet urging me to buy âA Complete Self-Contained Classical Music Collectionâ available on six albums for under twenty-five pounds. I would agonise for half an hour or more about the meaning of the words âcompleteâ and âself-containedâ when applied to a collection. Then I would bash away at the typewriter, debating whether collecting was a process of inclusion or exclusion. Then Iâd read it through, decide that it was pretentious rubbish, throw it away and have lunch.
The free papers were sometimes great sources of material. They often filled an idle couple of column inches with details of somebodyâs unlikely collection. I started cutting them out and sticking them in a scrapbook.
âPhil and Lorraine Fouberts of the Druids Inn have thrown down a challenge to everyone in Sheffield.
âWith a total of 321 different miniatures they believe they have the largest collection in the area, but would like to hear from anyone who disputes that.â
Or:
âThe Castle Museum in Norwich has gone potty and snapped up the worldâs largest collection of teapots. After paying £120,000 for the 2,600 exhibits theyâll need a good strong cuppa.â
Or
âA Barnsley woman has collected more than 3,000 jelly moulds in the past decade, in every shape and size, made from pewter, copper, tin, glass, ceramic and plastic, according to Rowntrees Jelly which celebrates its 65th birthday this year.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
The Fine Print (Dreamland Billionaires Book 1) by Lauren Asher(2382)
Fury of Magnus by Graham McNeill(2357)
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward(2155)
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn(2048)
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid(1790)
Luster by Raven Leilani(1788)
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi(1755)
A Little Life: A Novel by Hanya Yanagihara(1707)
Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz(1701)
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore(1519)
The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses) by Cassandra Clare & Wesley Chu(1484)
This Changes Everything by Unknown(1413)
The Midwife Murders by James Patterson & Richard Dilallo(1370)
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante(1344)
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook(1324)
Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur(1313)
Wandering in Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins(1272)
Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte by Kate Williams(1267)
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante;(1220)
