Book Trends

I'm not going to call them literary trends. That would add too much credibility to the lowest common denominator wank I am talking about here. I am talking about the shit you see in those Pumpkin places at train stations (who are alright by me, they sell lager and sometimes fags), and the very small WH Smiths (always fags, never lager in those). It goes in waves, almost as though (exactly as though) someone has had a hit book and the publishers have scrabbled around like, well, grasping cunts, to find stuff sort of like it but not to the point where lawyers get deployed. It's a bit like (exactly like) when the BBC have a popular idea and ITV try and rip it off, but being ITV they always forget to get anyone good involved and have it sponsored by an online bingo company. Bless 'em, the fucking simpletons.

Trends I have noticed in the last couple of years:

1) Books by whores. About whoring.

These were ubiquitous for a while. And you could see the appeal. I'm at an airport, I can buy this book that is going to contain all manner of filth and it looks normal in its WH Smith bag with just its drawing of a woman in a bra on the front. Excellent. It'll be like smuggling Razzle under a copy of the Guardian only without the embarrassment of buying the fucking Guardian.

But no. The original was Belle du Jour. She managed to get two of these out before people realised that actually there was minimal filth and most of it was her banging on about how fucking clever she is. I'm Belle du Jour! I have a degree and speak French! But people pay lots of money to fuck me instead so I do that! It's not like I couldn't get a proper job! I'm just so very sexy! I think this is where the appropriate line for most people would be "that's nice, now suck it, bitch.".

Belle du Jour cocked up in her mission to make us all believe she was a beautiful, intelligent whore cum goddess (no pun intended) of our age by firstly allowing ITV to make the TV series. ITV scrapped all that "I READ CAMUS IN FRENCH" nonsense and just made it about Billie Piper getting naked. It was what the public, especially their public, wanted. Plus they had to put Billie, freaky black Alistair Darling eyebrows and all, into something as the BBC had done it first.

Then, she revealed herself. And she has skin like Bryan Adams. Seriously, if you paid 500 of Her Majesty's pounds to fuck that she had your pants down in more ways than one. And she blogged about your weird penis. Are you proud?

Still, Belle du Jour (do we have to keep calling her that, it's a fucking stupid name, even for a whore name - I know because you know, I speak French and shit), successfully spawned a trend for books written by whores, about whoring. There was one about a New York call girl, she was a bit less annoying because although there was equally little sex in it, she did get addicted to crack halfway through which was fun. Then there was a more low rent one about a ginger student who worked in a massage parlour. Yeah, I did keep buying the fucking things...

Additionally, for those tired of the books by whores about whoring, there was the sub genre - books by total slags about being total slags. One of these was Girl With a One Track Mind by some slag. Catherine something. I'm sure I'm not the only person struggling to remember her name. Not a whore, but someone who in their own insane mind is the real life version of her with the moles out of Sex and the City. She's not though, she has just had an awful lot of dick and believes this makes her interesting enough to inflict her Rizla-thin (and I mean the blue ones) personality on us all. Like Tracy Emmin in that sense but probably more of a laugh. I imagine a conversation like this took place:
"Hey mum! I got my book published!"
"Congratulations dear."
"Trouble is, all the research I had to do, I now have a twat like a witch's cave and chlamydia."
"That's it sweetheart - you chase your dreams!"...

2) Books about really horrible things happening to children

Now this shit I have never understood. There's a picture of a crying child on the front. It's called something like "Please Mummy, No!". You can tell that it's not going to be a good time for that crying kid on the front. It's not going to be a hilarious sex comedy like Precious, which I hear is the new American Pie 4 (Band Camp). And if there's any drugs in it, it's going to be someone dying of a heroin overdose with a needle rammed in their foot and blood spewing out of their ears while the crying child, well, cries.

People these days, we are lead to understand, are very busy, and are struggling to find time for all the stuff they have to do (the amount of people I know who tell me what they're doing on fucking Farmville suggests otherwise, but hey). Plus, times are hard. Bastard hard. There's crisis and misery all around you. So who the fuck decides to spend any of their recreation time immersing themselves in even deeper misery reading this stuff? And buying it at airports? Oh, I might have too nice a time on my holiday, better buy this book about some kid getting his skull fractured by his alcoholic crack whore mother on an hourly basis to take with. Freaks.

Still, if the mother cleaned up her act and went on an adult literacy course, she could write a best seller, by a crack whore, about crack whoring...

3) Stuff about peoples' dogs or cats. Who die in the end. Always.

This one is pretty current. And like with the whore books, I can see the appeal. With all the recession/global crisis mess running its course I can see why people would just like to read a story about how an adorable kitten helped its owner love again and whatnot. This animal shit always comes out when there's a general feelbad vibe in the world, which is why last summer every single movie trailer you saw was for something about a dog (think about it, Bolt, that Jennifer Aniston thing, that other one that was in 3D). It's the kind of thing people like my mum like. But why does the animal always fucking die in the end? Why are these people intentionally upsetting my mum?

I would enjoy a convergence of the trends. It pretty much writes itself, just hash together bits of any choice example of the above genres. A whore gets addicted to crack and abuses her kid, until a tiny kitten teaches her to love again and whatnot. Then the kitten dies. Obviously.

If you know any publishers who are grasping cunts, feel free to steal this idea.


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