Review: 'Where would I be without you?' by Guillaume Musso

Another pre-publication book courtesy of those lovely folks at bookhugger!

I have to admit that my heart sank a little when I opened the packet, and this over-sentimental looking book emerged, complete with soppy title. It sank a bit more in the opening section which was as gushy as the book's cover and title!

But then - crash bang wallop - art thievery, crime and a decent plot! What more could I want? Not a lot really. The characters and locations are thoroughly well portrayed and Musso succeeds in bringing these fundamental aspects of his book to life. Can I imagine this as a film? Yes sir. It's quick and easy to read, and keeps the interest. Bravo.

The reader doesn't have to be a crime-solving old lady from St. Mary Mead to figure out the connections between leading man Martin, lost love Gabrielle and van Gogh-pinching Archie, but Musso doesn't set this side of the plot up to be a big twist. Instead, he draws on the parallels and points of intersection between the characters, and the relationships and connections involved are fundamental to the whole shape and make-up of the story. There are twists in the tale, but like black coffee at the end of a long déjeuner avec les amis, Guillaume Musso saves these for later. To flag up one particularly strong part of 'Where would I be without you?', the airport scene at the end of the story helps bring the book to a thorough and satisfying close.

In short, this is a story of romantic and familial love, and life's strange parallels and coincidences. There is no shame in reading a book simply because it's entertaining, so to this end I recommend you sit down and get comfy with Martin, Gabrielle and co. Even better, do so with a сafetière and a plate of madeleines.

#savelibraries

Today book lovers and internet users all over the UK are doing their bit to show support for our libraries, which are so very at risk in this difficult economic pressure cooker.

In an open letter to Oxfordshire library users, the county librarian opened with the following:

'Oxfordshire County Council is asking local communities to come up with innovative ideas to run their local libraries as it proposes to cease funding 20 of the 43 facilities that currently operate in the county, with possible further changes in future years.'

I knew libraries were at risk, and that all public services are being squeezed at the moment, but stopping funds to 20 out of 43 libraries is just ridiculous.

Please jump on the bandwagon and use your local library. It's a good bandwagon to be on (definitely more so than Pokemon, yoyos, t-shirts with slogans and rooibos tea).

Fitzgerald, 70 years later

Last year saw the 70th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's death. To mark this, Penguin issued some absolutely gorgeous hardbacks. The covers are outstandingly beautiful with clever bookmarks secreted on the inside back cover flap. A colleague of mine in the production and design department informs me that the books would have had each dust jacket wrapped around its book manually - so all in all a massively indulgent end product.


My response when I first saw these? Gawp. Want. Add to Christmas list.

Fortunately my wonderful mother treated me with all six on Christmas Day and I proceeded to run my fingers over each cover before taking way too many photos of what is, essentially, a whole load of paper and ink. But what lovely paper and ink!

Everyone I've shown them to thinks they are gorgeous, and they've made a substantial number of publishing bods coo enthusiastically. In fact I think I've even dreamed in shiny, repeating patterns.

However, there may be a flipside to this beauty. There are many people that know far more than I do about the expiry of copyright after 70 years, and while I was busy hankering after these volumes there were people delighting in the fact that they could get all Fitzgerald's work electronically and for no exchange of payment. While this may be absolutely fine in terms of law and, frankly, these people's knowledge about such matters, it did annoy me a little bit. There may well be people who saw the following puzzle flowing out of Penguin HQ:

Problem: 70th anniversary = copyright free text = reduced profits. How to reverse?
Solution: expensive new editions + appeal to Fitzgerald fans + appeal to human magpies.
Result: some degree of balance.

However I say PAH! to the above and instead prefer the following outlook:

Big anniversary + Fitzgerald is great + ooh, can we make it shiny? = happy customers.

Naive? Perhaps, but a happy owner of some damn fine books.