Somebody posted a one-star review of my book on Amazon, and to be honest I was pretty annoyed for a while.
I took Peanut out for a walk while still grumpy. That helped a bit, because we happened to find a break in the grey November drizzle.
While walking I decided the best thing to do would be to go onto Amazon myself and write a positive, meaningful review of somebody else’s book.
I chose John Burningham (title of the book), a lavishly illustrated large-format hardback review of the career and books of one of my favourite illustrators. Written by Burningham himself.
Looking through the book again reminded me how much Burningham, among so many others, has influenced me and just generally given pleasure. A modest man, completely original, sadly missed.
(There are Burningham pics on the walls of a pub near here. I think he may have been a regular.)
I uploaded a photo with my review. For the moment, Amazon is holding it all for the robots to check I haven’t written something unspeakable. All being well, it will go live soon. It’s been approved.
***
PS. I’ve been experimenting with livestreams on Twitch, and used it to show the whole process of looking through the Burningham book and writing my review.
I can’t imagine that many people would want to watch the whole thing but, well, Twitch is a weird place where audiences watch somebody else play a video games for hours, so who knows.
***
Livestream 4. “Georges Perec, by David Bellos”
This is not the whole thing, just an edited highlight. It starts with a few seconds of context that are repeated later.
Over and out.