Happy Christmas, love Vole

On the abortive but fun Map Twats walk yesterday was the author of Days of Enlightenment - which is a brilliant read, nothing like mine. He told me that his father was reading the copy of David Peace's GB84 that I'd given Mr Enlightenment for his birthday. I was pleased that somebody I don't know was enjoying it, and it made me wonder about the afterlives of all the presents we give.

I usually give books, sometimes music, sometimes other things, but I always think carefully and try to suit the gift to the person - sometimes with a private joke shared only by us or me. This may not always be successful. So what happens to all these gifts? Is a book read, re-read and treasured? Is it read once and kept only because it was a present? Or is the gift considered to be the experience of receiving and the object and unimportant symptom? Perhaps the book is lent on, passed around on reccommendation, given away or lost, the inscriptions fading and becoming more puzzling the further it gets from the original giver and recipient.

I have several thousand books, many presents or second-hand, and many of these are dedicated to unknown people with names found only in the past: Mabel, Flo, Edwin and Gladys, all presumably dead, all of whom recieved books as tokens of love, respect, passion, commiseration, achievement, perhaps even spite or rejection - puzzles to be considered in conjunction with the texts. Why give someone a work of critical theory for their birthday? Why is a guide to the gravestones of famous people a cheery Christmas present? Why did Clinton give Walt Whitman, the rampantly homosexual poet of America, to Monica Lewinsky? (There's a PhD in that). Then there's the question of disposal. Have I acquired all the books that speak of passion between people of bygone generations because, symbolic exchange complete, the texts are mere husks to be discarded? Perhaps some illiterate or ashamed children threw them out, or the love dimmed and the books could no longer be tolerated.

In each of these short declarations, there's a story. I assume that you write in all the books you give away - I do. If I really don't like them, I buy them a whodunnit and copy the last line with the murderer's name onto the flyleaf: it's even more annoying than tip-exing the killer's identity on the last page. Another piece of one-upmanship is to give them a book in a language they don't know and affect surprise: 'Really? Of course my pronunciation's a little rusty these days, but I thought everybody had a smattering of Basque. I still have the receipt…'

Urge to kill… falling

My spirits are lifted by Rebecca's link to an automatic conference paper abstract generator - which actually works for poor quality papers. Try it out here.

Also, my hardback copy of Watchmen has arrived - I read it years ago and though I should probably get my own. With it came a book which may not be plugged into the popular zeitgeist so much but is going to be educational and fun: Chris Mullin's parliamentary/ministerial diaries, A View From the Foothills. Mullin is one of those quietly independent, witty backbench MPs who devote their lives to improving those of their constituents and others without seeking power or fame. When power is dangled in front of him, it's an illusion: ministerial office was largely a waste of time and energy for him.

Thanks, by the way, to the staff of Waterstone's in Wolverhampton and Birmingham (posh New Street branch). The young woman behind the till in Wolves bantered knowledgeably and wittily about David Peace's Yorkshire novels (I bought GB84 for Phil). The Birmingham branch exchanged my misprinted copy of Team of Rivals without a quibble after Penguin's refusal to take responsibility for their own texts. See - even corporate behemoths can do well. I hope the staff I talked to are well-paid and unionised.