World Book Night: And Miles To Read Before I Sleep …

You may or may not know that tonight is World Book Night, in which tons of books are given away free to stimulate reading. A good idea, I think, no matter how you look at it.
  Naturally, being something of a contrarian, I decided that it’d be nice notion to look into the possibility of an Alternative World Book Night - i.e., to ask a number of writers, poets et al to nominate a recently published book that they consider to be unjustly overlooked by the critics and public alike. The result was published in the Irish Times on Saturday, with the most fascinating / totally bonkers answer coming from poet David Lordan. To wit:

CYCLONOPEDIA: COMPLICITY WITH ANONYMOUS MATERIALS
By Reza Negarestani (re.press, 2008)
“I’d like to plump for the Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani’s genre-bending ‘Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials’. It’s one for active readers and fans of “difficult work”. A continuously inventive and artistically ambitious work that, like many great literary refoundations, is simultaneously a reimagining of reality and a reorientating of literature against currently dominant trends. Negarestani draws on a polyglot engagement with contemporary theory and on a schizophrenic, inhumanist literary heritage including Lovecraft, Stein, Burroughs and Pynchon, to give us an astounding depiction of history as a minor subplot within a struggle of much older, more vast forces. Cyclonopedia refreshed my paranoia and left me more doubtful and contemptuous of things-as-they-are than ever before, something the most sustaining works of art have always done for me.” - David Lordan

  For the rest, which includes nominations from George Pelecanos, Aifric Campbell, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, China Miéville, Sara Paretsky, Mark Billingham and more, clickety-click here …

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?”: China Miéville

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
I never hanker to have written favourite books because I have too good a time reading them. In terms of the open-mouthed awe of realisation that the only appropriate attitude to what I’m reading is grateful humility, it would probably have to be Chandler, probably FAREWELL, MY LOVELY.

What fictional character would you most like to have been?
A superhero. As a kid it would have been Spiderman. Then for a while maybe Daredevil, minus the blindness. At the moment, probably Jack Hawksmoor from THE AUTHORITY, by Warren Ellis.

Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
Enid Blyton. Particularly the FAR-AWAY TREE books.

Most satisfying writing moment?
The last full stop. Are there any writers who don’t say that? I’m sure there are, but I can’t imagine ever giving any other answer.

The best Irish crime novel is …?
In an act of great impertinence I’m going to shove Flann O’Brien’s genre-bending THE THIRD POLICEMAN into the ‘Crime’ box, and award it this prize. Oh go on, let me – it has a murder, it has loquacious and philosophical police, it has a mystery, and it’s resoundingly excellent.

What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
I can think of a few that might make great movies, but ‘would’ is a bit hopeful, given the duds-to-decent ratio of adaptations. Le Fanu’s UNCLE SILAS – another bit of genre-tendentiousness, maybe, but it is a mystery – has been filmed a couple of times, and I confess I’ve not yet seen either version, but I’d think it could be done brilliantly.

Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best: getting paid to fantasise and blather. It’s an insanely lucky situation. Worst: the dynamic towards self-importance and/or solipsism.

The pitch for your next book is …?
A murder mystery set in a city at the edge of Europe that turns out to be a lot stranger than it first appears.

Who are you reading right now?
Christopher Caudwell’s ILLUSION AND REALITY, and Cormac McCarthy’s SUTTREE.

God appears and says you can only write OR read. Which would it be?
Read. But God and I are going to have serious words.

The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
… readers’ to decide.

China Miéville’s THE CITY AND THE CITY is published on May 15