‘Book Bites’ for Monday 21st September 2009

Fifty-Two Stories serve up exclusive Jess Walter short – It’s Monday so another serving of short story from my favourite short story ‘vending machine’, Fifty-Two Stories. This week it’s an exclusive short from Jess Walter called Beneath All that Bone, and if Cal Morgan’s glowing introduction is anything to go by then this story, and more importantly this author, is one not to be missed.

If I’m being perfectly honest Jess Walter has, until now, managed to slip beneath my reading radar. In fact I’ve never heard of the man before. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have because Jess has so far written five novels, with his sixth – The Financial Lives of the Poets, being published this week (22nd September). With half a dozen novels under his belt I’m sure Mr. Walter isn’t an unknown entity to many readers, but if he is, then aside from reading this generous story offering from Fifty-Two Stories, you have the luxury of Mr. Walter’s excellent website to enlighten you a bit more.

Spare a thought for the postman – the unsung hero – As a big book fan you’ve most probably always got a trickle of books coming at you through the mail service, and every day you keep an ear out for the creak of the garden gate, and the most important visitor to come through it – the postman (or if you’re an American cousin – the mailman). The bearer of bookish goodness, the postman (or postwoman because I don’t want to come across as sexist ) is the true hero of the avid reader, yet all too often his or her efforts tend to go unnoticed.

Perhaps most people think the postman’s lot is a happy one. Delivering letters and parcels surely can’t be that difficult can it? And let’s face it, Postman Pat always has a smile on his face. Maybe this misconception that the postman has an easy life is also why most of us choose to grump and groan in the UK every time Royal Mail staff have another round of industrial action?

Well thanks to an article published in the latest edition of the London Review of Books, which has kindly also been posted on the LRB website, we get to see a snapshot of life on the other side, as Roy Mayall (an obvious yet clever pseudonym) paints a picture of what life is like for him. It isn’t a particularly pretty picture either, and after reading the article myself, I can confirm that my postman is in for an extra specially big hug tomorrow morning. He’s going to love that *grins*

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.