A new online bookshop has launched today, in support of the UK’s independent bookshops. Do bear it mind when Christmas shopping.
I’ve created a page on the site, featuring my own titles plus a list of ten novels which make me laugh, and some of the favourite books Ive come across since following the excellent books podcast, Backlisted.
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/brianbilston
Some news. I’m delighted to have a new poetry collection publishing next year with Picador Books: ‘Alexa, what is there to know about love?’
It’s coming in January to coincide with the seventh wave of the virus, and can be preordered now.
You can find out more at the link below:
My bank manager has told me that I need to promote my book some more now that I’ve given up my proper job – or I’ll soon find myself on the breadline.
So, here’s a photo of it. It can be found in shops, some of which are mentioned in the link below:
Click here to find some of the places where you can buy my book
It publishes in paperback in the US tomorrow.
Thanks very much,
Brian
*End of shameless promotional message*
I’m pleased to say that my poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home has now published and is available through bookshops and online stores in both print and ebook formats.
If you’re interested in buying a copy, do seek out your local bookshop – or Hive is an excellent online alternative, as it allows independent bookshops to benefit, thus enabling the book industry as a whole to continue to thrive.
It will publish in the US in January.
If you’d like to read more about how I went from posting poems in tweets and blog postings to publishing a book, you can read about it here in a piece I’ve recently written for The Irish Times.
Brian Bilston
Yesterday I was very excited to take delivery of advance copies of my book, You Took the Last Bus Home. It is an objet d’art; a beautiful jacket, colourful endpapers, French flaps. Shame about the words inside but you can’t have everything, I suppose.
It publishes on 6th October and is available for pre-order from all those usual bookshop places.
You can find out more about it here: https://unbound.com/books/brian-bilston
WARNING: may contain poetry.
Brian
The year his father made him go
as The World According to Clarkson
became imprinted in his memory,
like the silent skid of tyre marks on
wet tarmac. Brown Jacket. Blue Jeans.
White Shirt: top buttons left undone,
the hairy chest wig that spilled out,
curled upwards to a pale March sun.
And then the air of blokey bonhomie
he felt compelled to assume
the banter about funny foreigners
at the back of the classroom,
his arguing in Geography
against the need to go green,
and, of course, the punching
of the dinner lady in the canteen.
Here’s an update on progress with my forthcoming poetry collection with Unbound.
https://unbound.co.uk/books/brian-bilston/updates/easier-shed-than-done
He thought
it was her phone number
that she had written
on the beer mat
but later found
it was the ISBN
of a book called
How Not To Be A Twat.
I am a book.
But one of those books
With an aspiration beyond its station,
A pale imitation of Nabakovian narration.
Characterisation never the strongest,
I’m forever on the longlist,
Always the prize-maid, but never the prize
(And do mind that plot-hole).
You are a book.
The Turko-Polish Technical Dictionary
Of Hydraulic Engineering, to be precise.
You are far from concise
And run into three volumes
With online supplementary material,
(Including downloadable PowerPoint slides).
I have very little idea how to read you
Or whether I should even try.
But still we sit side-by-side,
On the shelf,
Our companionable silence
Speaking volumes.
