Load-bearing Books: The London Library interview

[The following originally featured in Structo seven, which you can find more about on our main site. It contains linked footnotes.]

This new feature is all about fascinating ‘book spaces’ – libraries and bookshops – viewed through the eyes of the people who work there. What’s so special about these stacks of books? What keeps them there? And is Amazon going to ruin everything?    

When pondering the shortlist for our first subject, there were some fairly obvious choices: the British Library for one, the legendary Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road, the Bodleian in Oxford… And yet, while they are all interesting – and hopefully we’ll get a chance to have a poke around them at some point in the not-too-distant future – there is one which has a bit more of an air of mystery about it. One which not too many people have even heard of – The London Library.    

Issue seven now available

As contributor copies hit doormats all over the world, issue seven becomes available for sale! The biggest issue yet features 14 short stories, five poems, an essay about the pleasures (and otherwise) of lounging about in bed and an interview with the people behind the wonderful world of The London Library.

You can buy a copy directly from us at the website, or pick one up from one of our various stockists (a list of which can be found at the previous link). Rough Trade East in London already has their bundle, and the others will be receiving theirs within the week, all being well. If you do happen to be based in London, a copy of the magazine will be on the shelves of the Poetry Library on the South Bank in a couple of days’ time.

We’re really proud of this issue. I hope you get a chance to read it.

— Euan

Sarah Hall competition

Thanks to the kind folks over at Faber and Faber, we have two signed copies of The Beautiful Indifference by Sarah Hall to give away. This is the first short story collection by the author of Haweswater and The Electric Michelangelo, and quite frankly it’s ace. In fact, the publisher gave us three copies, but an editor who will remain nameless nicked one after a quick glance through and refuses to give it back.

There are two ways to win one of the couple which remain!

The first will be given to a Structo subscriber chosen at random on the 20th of December, with the book heading out just in time for Christmas. So if you were thinking of taking out a subscription, now might be a good time!

The second draw is open to everyone, whether subscriber or not. To enter, simply email competitions@structomagazine.co.uk, with the phrase ‘Sarah Hall competition’ in the subject line and your address in the body text. We’ll choose somebody at random on the 20th and, all being well with the post office, the winner will have an extra book under the tree come Christmas morning.

Rules/notes: both draws close at midnight on December 19th; UK addresses only please; we won’t use your email address for anything else.

Update 20/12: Both books have now been won! Congratulations to the winners.

Flipping ‘eck

Well how about that. We’re now up-to-date on the flip-through front, for another month at least…

— Euan

Flipping through the pages

The first of these you may have seen before, as it was the first of these ‘flip through’ videos we made, almost a year ago now, for issue four. The second one though is a brand-new stop motion effort showing issue five (a paltry 11 months after release).

We’re aiming to break the release pattern for issue six…

— Euan

Stories and poems on Spotify

Like many people, here at Structo Towers, we listen to a lot of our music through the magic of Spotify. It wasn’t until one of the people we follow on Twitter mentioned that they were listening to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land using the service that we even considered that it could be used for anything else.

What follows is the result of an hour or so of searching, and so is by no means complete. If you spot any more good poem collections or stories, please either let us know in the comments, or on Twitter, and I’ll add them in.

The following links are all to Spotify album playlists.

Poetry, individual poets:

• Charles Bukowski — Hostage (read by Charles Bukowski)
• Charles Bukowski — Master Collection (read by Charles Bukowski)
• Lewis Carroll — The Poetry of Lewis Carroll (read by various)
• T.S Eliot — The Waste Land (read by T.S. Eliot)
• T.S. Eliot — The Poetry of T.S. Eliot (read by Robert Speaight and T.S. Eliot)
• Robert Frost — Robert Frost Reads His Poetry – The 1956 Caedmon Recordings (read by Robert Frost)
• Allen Ginsberg — Howl and Other Poems (read by Allen Ginsberg)
• Thomas Hardy — The Poetry of Thomas Hardy (read by various)
• John Keats — Poems by John Keats (read by Margaret Rawlings)
• Percy Bysshe Shelly — The Very Best of Percy Bysshe Shelly (read by various)
• Philip Larkin — Philip Larkin Reads The Less Deceived (read by Philip Larkin)
• Percy Bysshe Shelly — Vincent Price Reads Percy Bysshe Shelly (read by Vincent Price)
• Dylan Thomas — Reading Volume 1 (read by Dylan Thomas)
• Dylan Thomas — Reading Volume 2 (read by Dylan Thomas)

Poetry, collections:

• Words for You — a spectacular collection of poems read by actors including Samantha Morton, Brian Cox, Honor Blackman…
• Words for You – The Next Chapter — another amazing collection featuring Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter…
• The Romantic Poets (read by various)
• Hear Great Poets Read (read by various)
• Hear Great Poets Read , v.2 (read by various)

Stories, short and otherwise:

• William S. Burroughs — The Ultimate Collection (read by William S. Burroughs)
• Anton Chekhov — Anton Chekhov Short Story Collection 1 (read by Max Bollinger)
• Arthur Conan Doyle — The Hound of the Baskervilles (read by Peter Egan)
• Arthur Conan Doyle — The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1 (read by Ralph Richardson & John Geilgud)
• Rudyard Kipling — Just So Stories (read by Boris Karloff)
• Edgar Allan Poe — The Mask of the Red Death (read by William S. Burroughs)
• Oscar Wilde — The Picture of Dorian Grey (read by Daniel Massey)
• Oscar Wilde — The Importance of Being Earnest (read by various)

Other:

• Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake – Tuned by Allen Ginsberg
• Speaking Personally… Aldous Huxley
• A playlist of all the music mentioned in the works of Haruki Murakami

There are quite a few other classic works on literature there too, but a great deal of them are read by a computer, so I haven’t included them here.

— Euan

The Incidental: Kingdom Came

 Photo: Kim Aldis

A massive surge of adrenalin. War whoops. Class war whoops. ‘Whoops! Class War!’ A scramble for bricks. ‘I must have a brick. Where are the bricks?’ A hail of bricks. The cops are confused as they realise they are no longer in control. Puppets without a role. They look at us, at one another and around themselves. Them. Run. Away. Down Mayall Road, leaving their vehicles in our hands. In the twinkling of a rioting eye the vehicles are smashed up and turned over.

This is an eyewitness account of the London riots. Not the ones a month ago, but the Brixton riots of 1981. It appears in a report by the ‘We Want to Riot, Not To Work Collective’ in 1982. Despite that being nearly thirty years ago, we haven’t come very far. This isn’t a political piece, but in a fairly short period of time since the coalition came to power we’ve had the student protests, several strikes, a humungous trade union march and now… this. There are individual reasons for each of course, but five years ago, how many would have predicted such events?

Science fiction, with its many faceted sub-genres, is well-known for its attempts at clairvoyance – a position it occupied with some degree of success during the early days of the Space Age. The author as sage: sometimes predicting the bounties of technology, sometimes inventing that technology themselves. Arthur C. Clarke was at least partly responsible for coming up with the geostationary orbit for satellites, something which the world now relies on everyday for communication, but the world of intergalactic space battles and ray guns which was promised never materialised.

There was a small band of SF writers who came into their own just as these over the top space sagas were shown to be just that. J.G. Ballard was one of them and he distinguished himself as a prophet early on in the SF boom, albeit of a very different kind.

A second night at the Gallery

Along with the lovely folks at Monkey Kettle, we’re hosting a second ‘scratch night’ up at the Milton Keynes Gallery on this Thursday the 25th of August from 7pm. Monkey Kettle are providing the poets, we’re providing the short story writers, and the gallery are providing the lovely art-covered space and the wine. It’s a match made in spoken word heaven!

You can find the Facebook event page here.

—Euan

Review: Peddlers Pozine

At the International Alternative Press Fair last month a couple of rather dapper gents stopped by the Structo stall to have a chat. In the course of things one of the two produced a sheaf of type-written poems, a number of which, he said, were destined for the small press they were in the process of setting up. I told them to let me know when everything was up and running, and so here we are: the début of Peddlers Pozine.

According to the front matter, a pozine is “a periodical publication posing as a zine. containing poems, prose, illustrations and whatever we want. covering all subjects and areas of interest”. This proves to be the case, and it contains all that and more, with part one of a multi-part play rounding out this intriguing first issue.

I have no idea where you can get hold of a copy should you want one, as Peddlers Pozine Publishing are proudly not on-line, but will update if I find out.

Update 04/07: I am reliably informed that you can get your grubby mitts on a copy by sending a £3 postal order to: Peddlers Pozine Publishing, The Nags Head, 53 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London, SW1X 8ED.

A pub as their headquarters? Genius!

—Euan

The last few weeks

It’s been a busy few weeks here at Structo Towers. Here’s a run-down of what’s been going on.

First there’s this:

Issue six of the magazine hit the press in late May, and was officially released on the first of June. The issue features six short stories, 16 poems, a brand-new column and a huge interview with Richard Adams (Watership Down, The Plague Dogs). It’s available at all the usual places, as well as from the website, where you can now also subscribe. Subscribing saves a chunk off the cover price and includes free postage and packing. It’s a bit of a bargain.

The newsprint hadn’t even had time to cool by the time we rocked up to the International Alternative Press Fair, which ran from the 28th to the 29th of May. The two-day fair took over the beautiful main room at the Conway Hall in London, and was home to many lovely creative people and their magazines/books/prints. From there we headed off (via a ‘zine sleepover) to our own proper launch at The Albion Beatnik bookshop in Oxford.

The launch featured readings from Conan McMurtrie and Will Burns, both of whom have brilliant work in the new issue. We also had a couple of pieces from Oxford native Dan Holloway, who has since gone on to become a best-selling author on Amazon with his novel The Company of Fellows. Are the two things linked? Who knows? All we know is that we’re keeping our fingers crossed for 10%.

—Euan