Tuesday, March 31, 2009  Read It  There are too many unnecessary
books in the world. The culture is saturated. Walking into chain
stores such as Borders or Waterstones is like entering a meat-
rack of hyped titles, the stacks on the tables waiting to be
thumbed before joining the list of publishers' returns. If the
author does not network or promote a book, it is as good as
dead. Unless they are in the know, how does anyone differentiate
the good from the bad? How do you find Anna Kavan? Jeremy Reed A
Stranger on Earth - The Life and Work of Anna Kavan.  How did I
find Anna Kavan? Those Picador titles, so popular for advancing
non-mainstream or cult novelists back in the 70s and 80s,
probably. That's when I first read "Ice", maybe 30 years ago.
Unclassifiable. Or Robbyn M., one of the girls at work with me
then, was a friend/acquaintance of novelists (who knew about
novels, duh) - rumour had it (she spread it, no doubt) that she
knew someone who was in the house that Helen Garner's "Monkey
Grip" (another heroi