Recommended by a Friend

Get the kink out!

Robber Writing

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Paul Whybrow

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Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
I get a real thrill from recommending books, films and music albums to friends, and love it when they reciprocate. You can tell a lot about a person by their tastes in the arts—when we visit their homes, who can resist looking at the book shelves, CD collections and stacked DVDs?

A couple of years ago, one friend recommended Stoner by John Williams, which I loved. This novel has undergone a resurgence in popularity.

Funnily enough, in emails that crossed over, another friend told me she'd been enjoying reading Kent Haruf's novels, which I'd just suggested she read! If you think that you may have a problem with being too wordy in your own writing, I recommend reading Haruf, as his prose is lean yet full of meaning.

A friend lost his mother to an aggressive form of cancer, that came on suddenly. Several members of my family died of cancer, and I recalled a book that a library colleague suggested that I read, which I passed on to him. I Heard The Owl Call My Name, written by Margaret Craven, tackles the life, declining health and eventual death of a priest, sent to minister to a remote community of Native Americans.

I recommended Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy to a friend, and she loved them, and got extremely annoyed at the cleaned-up film adaptation of Northern Lights, titled The Golden Compass. This didn't stop her from recommending the trilogy to her friends, which shows the power of word of mouth advertising.

I've given copies of Annie Dillard's The Maytrees to several friends, as it's such a touching and unusual story about love and loyalty.

Another friend turned me onto the writings of Buddhist philosopher Pema Chödrön whose very book title Start Where You Are serves as great advice for a writer.

A public way of kindly introducing books to strangers, is the BookCrossing scheme, which involves setting a book free, leaving it unattended in a public place for an interested reader to pick up:

BookCrossing - Wikipedia

Has a friend introduced you to an author, who went on to become a favourite?

Which books do you suggest that your friends and family would enjoy reading?

Has anyone recommended a book that you didn't like?

Thankfully, that's only happened once with me, when someone who was more of an acquaintance, insisted that I read James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy, literally pressing her copy on me as I left to catch a trans-Atlantic flight. Rather foolishly, I didn't take any other reading matter with me, and after wading through its poorly developed plot, pedestrian prose and hastily grabbed coincidences about spiritual beliefs, I felt like crawling out onto the wing to get away from it!

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When all is said and done… all the social media stuff, the viral marketing gurus, and all the other blowhards…

The way that books have been, and will be, sold is predominantly through word of mouth. It’s one person reading a book, enjoying it, and saying to their friends... you might like this!

Has ever been thus.
 
I’m fascinated. I wonder do they stitch symbolic messages to their underwear? Might be a bit scratchy.

They are not unlike the undergarments of yore; it was said that men in the west of Ireland would put on their long-johns in October and take them off in April, without removing them during that time… There must have been a particular pungency in the winter months…
 
A bell rings....not this case? A case where a woman was convicted of rape on a tied up man, sat on him? Said she loved him so much she'd have ski'd naked down a mountain with a flower stuck up her nose to please him....or something to that effect.
 
Has a friend introduced you to an author, who went on to become a favourite?

Actually, no. At least, not so far. I'm too fond of my own ways.


Which books do you suggest that your friends and family would enjoy reading?


Well. The same ones I suggest here. They ignore me. They either don't read or they are too fond of their own ways.


Has anyone recommended a book that you didn't like?


Oh my god yes. I used to belong to bookclubs. Every month... every single month... But there's something to be said for trying new things.
 
I’m fascinated. I wonder do they stitch symbolic messages to their underwear? Might be a bit scratchy.

They are not unlike the undergarments of yore; it was said that men in the west of Ireland would put on their long-johns in October and take them off in April, without removing them during that time… There must have been a particular pungency in the winter months…

Smelly long-johns aside, there used to be a practice called 'bundling' which was popular in Ireland, the UK and colonial America. It involved a young couple, who fancied one another, sharing a bed overnight, separated by a wooden board and with key parts of their anatomy rendered inoperable (!) by being placed in bags:

The Extinct Dating Practice Called Bundling is Not as Cozy as it Sounds
 
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Get the kink out!

Robber Writing

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