Monday 24 March 2008

Sighted: the Lesser Spotted Bigwoo


Despite not being officially released into the wild until April 7th, eagle-eyed genius MG has spotted this rare bird in Oxford Waterstone's. Quick, someone call Bill Oddie!

The Lesser Spotted Bigwoo is by nature quite timid, but its magnificently shiny plumage should make it easy to locate. If in doubt, apparently look for it amidst books about cake. And geese. (Yep, I'm in the Cake & Geese section. Who knew?) And do please report any further early sightings of this fine fowl: it's quite exciting seeing it on a shelf like that...


Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris (adult, contemporary). Office workers at a failing ad agency trundle through their mundane lives, which are shared through a collective voice. I haven't come to the end yet, however, so I'm not in any position to pass judgement: so far file under 'interesting conceit, but actually quite uninvolving'.

Musicals! Everyone loves musicals, right? Right? *looks hopeful*

Finally getting round to watching Die Hard 4 (liked the way they didn't bother pretending it was in any way related to the other films: didn't like the startling chunk of misogyny and racism that was applied to one character); eating very fine tortilla (and salmon, and risotto, and cheese, and actually I'm quite full just thinking about it); wondering why The Great Escape isn't on.

8 comments:

Jess said...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! How exciting! Am suitably thrilled, and will expect Amazon to fulfil my order promptly. And get your book facing outwards without you even having to sneak in and do it...

Ooh!

rocrastinator said...

Good, innit? Amazon still have it listed as 'not yet available', but apparently T got an order from Windsor books on Weds! I'm quite flustered, wasn't really thinking about people being able to read the thing yet...

(And I suspect the sneaky out-facing was done by MG: I should start paying her.)

MG said...

It wasn't! I was looking on the teen reads shelves for something for my Josie to read and there you were! I chatted to the bookseller Kate (who you should go and meet, she'll have you sign stock and the graffiti wall) and she said that it was in the catalogue for April but obviously decision taken to bring forward. So yay!

MG said...

A guerrilla marketing method you could use for BigWoo...

Was just over at my daughter's blog where two bloggers have been inspired to start their own blogs from reading hers. And after a month or so they are gently prompting J to read and comment on THEIR blogs. I guess people really like the reciprocal interaction. But my daughter is like sera - it's all happening on her blog only as far as she's concerned...

There must be loads of real life serafinas. Why not pick a manageable number, start reading them for a bit and commenting, and then tell them about BigWoo?

Obviously you would have to put in a teeny bit of effort into the reading/commenting or else it's just blogspam...

I reckon it would be a good investment of say a week's time.

rocrastinator said...

Hurrah! No stealthy book-rearranging required, that's what we like to hear! Top work with the bookseller though: I will go and wave my authorial services at them.

Not sure I should go stalking people's blogs: [insert spoilery ref to BW here]. I have too many to keep up with already. Still, I am nosey enough to go have a poke about...:P

Maddie said...

Wahey! How brilliantly exciting!

Am interested, too, by comments on And Then We Came to The End. Which is something I still haven't managed to do with that book - it just sort of tailed off for me and I pottered off to read something else and haven't quite got round to finishing it.

rocrastinator said...

I am officially excited. Especially as people keep texting me to tell me they've just bought it. :)

I was all set to give up on the Ferris thing: I know the point is to be boring and plotless, but, um, that's not a very interesting point. And then suddenly I got to a completely fabulous gripping bit that I thought was beautifully written, which means I might well bother to finish it. Oddly, though, the gripping bit came when he broke away from the 'collective voice' thing, which suggests that while it's a nifty gimmick, it really does get in the way of you giving a toss...

Anonymous said...

Hurray! Sorry 'bout my stalkerness lately but I LOVED Big Woo and I was just checking the release date so that I can time my review right when I chanced upon this post... So, if it's out already, I'll try to put the review up ASAP.

Hurray on your book in the shops! Hurray on your book in general!

Luisa
http://www.chicklish.co.uk