we love your book… it’s totally coooooool and we bought several copies for our friends, without being told to. ha.
i (being jaz) gave one to my friend, and she loved it to!!!
we like your mouse sculpture that
you gave to your friends that we know to!!!
it’s funny.
Lisa was especially happy to see the bees again on your very impressive executive interweb thingy, cuz she remembers them from real life and now she thinks she knows someone famous enough to have a website (jaz ses anyone can have a website, but you remember what a spoilsport she always was, we are now having an argument as we type….. she will be taller than me soon so this will have to stop then. oh well fun while it lasts)

HOW VERY DARE SHE…. i’m not a spoilsport….

i liked the flickbook in your book… it’s funny….
i think we have some of your old easton drawings somewhere, so keep it up will, so we can make our millions on ebay soon!! love to you and those you love xx

jAz again we /i would like to c u soon.. so get those people you and we know to contact us next time your visiting them….. lot’s of love… us

So, any plans for a sequel?

Becci never got back to me. I would have helped

Non Working Monkey- delighted, thank you. I was in Tate Modern this weekend and it is , alas, no longer there.
Or rather, they say at the desk they have one copy left, but I couldn’t find it. It may have been nicked. They won’t re-order until it gets sold, so I might sink to putting one back in the shop myself. Desperate? quite desperate.

Looking in the Wrong Place

Because of my interest in comedy and cartooning I always check out the Humour shelves in a bookstore, just to see what new gems might be lurking amongst the dozens of gimmick books. You know the kind—those throwaways designed to be purchased as gifts but never actually read. I’ve come up with a few ideas for them myself over the years, only to have them rejected by publishers and then appear in uncannily similar form in the shops a year or two later. But am I bitter? Nooooo. I’m just saving up these experiences for my Little Bitty Book of Bitter Rejections. (It’s been done, actually, and more than once. When it comes to gimmicky books there are few original ideas, which is the more likely reason my proposals never got anywhere.)

I’ve been looking closely at those shelves lately, because I’ve wanted to see how well the best humour book I’ve read in years is doing. After Jane gave it to me and I fell in love with it I expected to see dozens of copies in Waterstone’s, with a big display touting it as the funniest book ever (which it probably isn’t, but that’s what you have to say to sell books). But no, there was nada, zilch, bupkis. (©1983 The Crazy Book of American Slang.)

The book in question is Wrongboy’s History of Earth by William Bishop-Stephens, subtitled An Inaccurate History of Evolution—a brilliantly skew-wiff view of science and nature told through the medium of sloppily typewritten pages and goofy cartoons drawn in biro. Even as a physical object, the book is wonderful: it reminds me of the home-made books I used to create as a kid using Nan’s old typewriter and a biro of my own. The contents are even better, full of dinosaurs, tapirs, newts, elephants, mice, and a qualified scientist. The style is, I suppose, what some would call Pythonesque or Goonish, but belongs to a long tradition of English eccentricity in comedy prose. It struck me more as a cross between 1066 and All That and How to Be Topp, two of my favourite books as a kid.

Which might explain why I couldn’t find it in the Humour section. I should have remembered that Walker Books publish only children’s books, which is what this is. No doubt the extreme wrongness of Wrongboy’s history will scandalise some parents and educators, but Nigel Molesworth never did my speling any harm, and the half-right history in 1066 and All That probably did more to fuel my interest in real history than anything at school. Who knows how many great scientists Wrongboy will spawn? (Now there’s an interesting thesis: comic wrongness as a spur to learning. There’s a paper in that.)

Bishop-Stephens has a blog that doesn’t really indicate what the book is like (although it looks good in its own right), but if you’re keen to sample the book itself, the publisher’s site does have a sample chapter. It’s not the same as holding it in your hands, though, so get down to the Children’s Books section—n.b., not the Humour section—and drop a fiver on the real thing.

i will keep checking on your blog from time to time just in case you publish more.

thank you for inventing this great great thing. : )

k.

I went to Tate Modern today. I was early for lunch (which is why I was there), so went to the shop. I bought a book with mice in for my god-daughter (good drawings: The House That Jill Built), and I saw THOUSANDS of copies of your book PILED HIGH at the till. I picked it up, and saw a hamster, so I bought it. The man who took my money said something VERY strange: “for every one of those I sell, I give one away free”.

Anyway, I went up to the restaurant. My chum was late, so I read your book. I laughed openly and with no shame, and told the woman on the table next to me to go and buy it. She moved tables. David came, so I gave him my copy, and he sat and read it. I drank wine. He put the book in his pocket.

On the way out, I went back to the shop and bought two more copies of your book. I didn’t get the second one free, mind you, so I’m taking the man to court.

Please tell Walkers to make sure you make many more books. I will buy at least ten of them. I promise.

With love.

xx