Better off lost?

Book Notes felt that one of the major benefits of modern living was the proliferation of bookstores throughout the city and the fact that any book one wanted, within reason, should be within easy reach. However, the tools of Book Notes' trade are new releases to be found on all shelves.

Several forays to the aforementioned bookstores over Christmas disabused us of the notion that choice and availability were the new Gods of Eddie Hobbs' Ireland. If the book you're looking for is over three years old and not an accepted modern classic, you'll be searching for it for months. Like our record stores, you need to buy it on release or run the risk of never seeing it again. The advent of online book stores has eased this difficulty somewhat as long as you have no aversion to delivery delays or inordinate postage. Still, half the fun is in the thrill of the chase. Bookfinder.com run an annual chart of books which people have searched for without success, most of which can be categorised under 'Books you'd Never Read'. The top ten is headed by Madonna's high art and badly dressed Sex, surely confirmation to all parents who believed that the internet is full of middle aged men searching for porn. Other entries prove more comprehensible. Lynne Cheney's Sisters is at No 2 as people try to read the US Vice-President's wife's lesbian romance novel from 1982. At No 6 is John Kerry's The New Soldier, the 1971 experiences in the Vietnam War by the 2004 Democratic Presidential hopeful. Oddly, the fourth most searched for book last year was The Principles of Knitting, written in 1988 by June Hiatt. Does it contain the secrets of Fatima amid its plain and purl instructions? We're not sure why and think it might be better not to know.

Everything is great but this

Book Notes has divined a new Eddie Hobbs-type role for himself as he watches the ongoing Dublin book sales where our major vendors try and foist their 2005 stock upon us at a time when we should be concerned with books of the New Year like TC Boyle's Tooth and Claw or Fergal Keane's All of These People. He will be a Catcher in the Rye in the fields of spring sales, steering curious readers away from dubious offers. It has been a cut-throat Christmas season with the average selling price of some books (Jamie's Italy, Schott's Almanac, Talk to the Hand) available at 50 per cent or less of the cover price. Booksellers in the UK point out that sales at these discounted prices would once have been excluded from book charts as it would have been presumed that the books had been remaindered! Book Notes sees a benefit in post seasonal reviews of the leftover stock in a bid to stop you from buying bargain books just because they're cheap. Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit that can be found (at worst) for half price throughout town. It will get cheaper, make no mistake. The book proves itself, as expected, the type of work you and your friends could write after a wet Monday around the fire... When we saw the first entry, Children's Books with Adult Covers we thought we'd be equally charmed and amused but it's sadly the equivalent of a Sunday magazine feature taken to extreme lengths. The entries are predictable; Cash Machine Advice Slips, KFC, The Property Ladder. They hardly racked their brains in choosing Chick-Lit did they? Book Notes thinks It's a New Year and Everything's Great. Put the book back on the shelf…

Lost in translation

As a comedy routine, laughing at foreigners and their language difficulties is so last season; from Everything is Illuminated to Lost in Translation. What was once hilarious now seems childish. The Lenihan family have shown Book Notes that understanding and respecting other races and nations is the way to go. That said, one more translation gag isn't going to hurt. Thanks to Media Monkey for pointing us towards Rachel DeWoskins Foreign Babes in Beijing and her tale of Microsoft's initial, unsuccessful launch into the Chinese market. Some lazy translator spent a lazy afternoon with a US/ China dictionary and the Chinese name for the computer giant came up with an amalgam of tiny and flaccid. It doesn't show Bill Gates in the greatest of lights, does it?

New to your shelves

The big paperback of the month is Ian McEwan's Saturday, one day in the life of an English neurologist on the day of the 'Stop the War' march which has belied Man Booker rejection and a truly savage review from John Banville to alight at the top of the charts. It has been aided by very competitive price-discounting, making it cheap enough for even the mildly curious to risk giving it a whirl. It is published in paperback after a customary ten month delay, much shorter than the whopping 36 months Americans had to wait for the cheaper version of The Da Vinci Code as Brown's publishers held onto the $25 hardback price even longer than cynics thought possible. Speaking of cynics, the cost of previous good sales for Jordan's Being Jordan and Piers Morgan's The Insider becomes evident as the topless and shameless release another biography and a collection of celebrity interviews respectively. We'll omit the book names to spare them further publicity as we wonder what's happening to our world?