Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain
Robin Ince
Atlantic, £16.99, pp320
You may think you have a book problem but, as likely as not, comedian Ince’s will dwarf it. Incapable of exiting a bookshop with just one volume, he ran out of shelf space long ago – and that’s after he donated 6,000 books to charity. In 2021, when Covid nixed a tour he’d planned with Prof Brian Cox, Ince hit on the idea of visiting 100 bookshops around the UK in just two months, notionally promoting his last book, The Importance of Being Interested. There’s some nice travel writing here as he wends his way from Wigtown to Penzance, along with cosy anecdotes about the folk he encounters and some madcap tangents, invariably prompted by his eclectic reading habits.
She and Her Cat
Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)
Doubleday, £10, pp160
This unabashedly whimsical quartet of interlinked stories unfolds on the outskirts of Tokyo, a place of office blocks, railway lines and talking cats. Each tale is a two-hander, its narration passed back and forth between a human and her pet. In Sea of Words, for instance, a stray named Chobi helps a young woman get over a disappointing relationship. Then, in First Blossoming, Chobi’s friend, Mimi, also a cat, is adopted by an art student who’s struggling to find her way. Though strictly for cat lovers, there’s a beguiling lightness to the way these stories handle themes of community and our bonds with animals.
The Babel Message: A Love Letter to Language
Keith Kahn-Harris
Icon Books, £10.99, pp336
(paperback)
For sociologist Kahn-Harris, the warning message inside Kinder Surprise eggs – that tiny slip of paper covered in 37 languages and eight different scripts – is nothing short of revelatory. “The Manuscript”, as he’s soon dubbing it, inspires a quest to repurpose the myth of Babel as a metaphor not for conflict and division but unity. A true languages buff, he delights in his own incomprehension, finding individuality and invention in geeky translations of the Kinder egg message into Cornish, Klingon and ancient Sumerian, and musing on topics from linguistic evolution to endangered tongues. It’s gloriously eccentric – enlightening, funny and full of the human yearning to connect with others.
To order Bibliomaniac, She and Her Cat or The Babel Message go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
