Tuesday 24 January 2012

Errata (2011)


You know, sometimes, when you buy a new book you open it and find a small slip of paper (usually white) with the word erratum at the top?

Does it happen anymore?

It doesn’t in the books I buy- maybe it does in more expensive ones?

The sort of book I’m buying …. well the last book I bought …. was A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

I bought it at about 9.15pm from a bookseller within St Pancras International railway station, London at the end of December last year.

I was the only person in the bookseller’s - I think I was the only person in the railway terminal; everyone else had left.

Least ways it felt very empty.

The book was also very empty; very empty of any erratum that is, the pages of the book itself are full of stuff, really good stuff – I heartily recommend it.

It says on the back that the book “captures the moments where lives interact”, which is probably true – but what I really like about it is that it isn’t a narrative with a before-next-after-that-timeline; the chapters dip into episodes from different, overlapping, lives - the WHAT is important, not the when and where.

Which brings us back, for no other reason than that I say so, to errata.

January is a time when, for no particular reason, I think a new reader might stumble onto this blog (the blog that can trip you up) so I think I should slip an erratum in.

Here it is.

Errata2011.

1. Un-credited photo published on the 25 November has been credited.
2. Uncredited artist displayed on the 2nd September now credited with a link to her website.
3. A bracket has been added to yesterday's post.

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