One For The Books

I've been a fan of Joe Queenan's writing for quite some time now. If You're Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be In Trouble is one of a handful of books guaranteed to make me laugh out loud and his writing on films, film stars and the film industry generally has been mercilessly scathing and mostly right on the button. By his own admission his work "largely consists of ridiculing nincompoops and scoundrels", and he is refreshingly unapologetic in his refusal to suck up to the movie business or any other business that has an inflated sense of its own importance. Up until recently I'd assumed that film was his overriding passion as well as the target for his vituperative wit, but it seems that Mr.Queenan is first and foremost a bookman, a voracious reader and an incorrigible collector of books. I chanced upon a copy of One For The Books in The Last Bookshop, a well-stocked and imaginatively presented remainder book shop in Bristol, read it in a day and, in as much as my own deranged book-acquiring habits pale in comparison with those of Queenan's felt much better afterwards. I even went out a bought some books I felt so good. Queenan may be sarcastic and dismissive about certain books and authors but there is no doubting his passion for books and reading and libraries and bookshops and all things literary. One For The Books would appear to be a partially re-written, re-editied and re-configured collection of columns that Queenan has had published in various magazines and papers and it is perhaps a little drawn-out and repetitive in places but there are enough laugh-out-loud moments and passages of shrewd observation to make it well-worth the investment. And Queenan makes the best argument for printed books over e-books that I have read anywhere.

One For The Books by Joe Queenan (Viking U.S.) (£3 in The Last Bookshop).

Sandy Denny Saves Zigzag!

I spent a couple of weeks last month reading Mick Houghton's excellent new biography of Sandy Denny - I've Always Kept A Unicorn (Faber) and reviewed it for Caught By The River - http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2015/03/ive-always-kept-a-unicorn-the-biography-of-sandy-denny-mick-houghton/. Discerning music lovers of my generation whose tastes were broadened and developed in the mid-to-late sixties will hold a special place in their hearts for Denny and Fairport Convention from that era. Not to deride the current Fairport line-up but the Fairport Convention of the late sixties that made What We Did On Our Holidays and Unhalfbricking were a truly remarkable band and if tragedy hadn't struck and events conspired to change the course of their history then one can't help feeling that Sandy Denny might have achieved more acclaim and success than she ultimately did. Even today, almost thirty eight years later, her death and music's loss is still too harrowing for many to re-visit. Zigzag founder Pete Frame - one of the first writers to recognise Denny's talent, reminded me that we both owe a debt to Denny and Fairport that we'll never be able to repay. In its early days Zigzag, like almost every magazine that is independently funded, went through severe financial difficulties and it was a benefit concert, headlined by Fairport Convention and also featuring Mighty Baby, that raised the cash for the magazine to stay afloat and allowed Pete to continue to edit it. The photo at the top of this piece shows the cover of the very first issue of Zigzag with Sandy Denny on the cover alongside an ad for the benefit concert that appeared in issue number six. If Zigzag hadn't survived then my life might have been completely different as well. I wouldn't have succeeded Connor McKnight as editor and would have had to settle for a proper job. Perish the thought.