It turns out A is a writer, and a prolific one at that! Listening to the talk about his work, it's almost enough to make me want to write again. But I find nowadays that there isn't all that much to write about, in part because I feel like I have read so little that my style is stagnant in the ways of old, never able to progress beyond those ruminations I made in high school. In fact, going to a bookstore these days has become a somewhat sad experience, and in many ways it reminds me of the days when I used to go to a music store and look under G (for the 'Dead), and then...that was it. Rows and rows of music, yet I would focus on six or seven CDs! I knew back then that it couldn't go on like that, and that at some point I was bound to find something new, but I didn't shake that off for a while*. What happens in a bookshop these days? Not all that much, really. Look under C (though I've only read The Stranger...in truth, I wonder myself why I am so fixated on Camus), F (Faulkner), maybe H (to look knowingly at Hesse, think carefully about Hemmingway, and for that odd Huxley book that has missed my eye thus far) and S (for a cheap Sarte find, and to wonder "What if" at Steinback). Egads man, 'tis shameful!

One very obvious thing that I will mention is that there isn't half the online book community as there is the online music community. For starters, there ain't no GS-like encyclopaedia of reviews! I suppose that makes the process of discovery a little more difficult, if only because I've gotten so used to finding music through purel online channels; the word of mouth is, sadly, turning into a relic of the past for me! P sometimes gives his recommendations, which are great almost uniformly, but I don't feel I've done him enough justice with the paltry amount of reading I've done. I remember a selection he made last year especially for me which to this day has gone unread. It's enough to make a man sad.

A RateYourBooks would not be an entirely foolish proposition, methinks. The lists that are generated from such sites are not entirely worthless if they allow one to come across new and interesting things. When one starts to take such lists too seriously, of course, things are bound to get ugly, but I find that intelligent lists can always be enjoyed if viewed from the right perspective.

I suspect that what I need to be reminded of is this - Camus may be no Cave, but Cave sure ain't no Camus. Yes, there are some wonderfully erudite gems I've come across over the years through song, but I would do well not to forget the magic and wonder of the book.

* The metamorphosis was slow, but I think I can pin it down to the end of '02, where old faithful S presented a selection of some albums that he particularly liked. That lead onto several avenues of exploration (like those darling Moodies), and the rest is history.