Book of Numbers

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If you’re reading this on a screen, fuck off. I’ll only talk if I’m gripped with both hands.

Paper of pulp, covers of board and cloth, the thread from threadstuff or — what are bindings made of? hair and plant fibers, glue from boiled horsehooves?

The paperback was compromise enough. And that’s what I’ve become: paper spine, paper limbs, brain of cheapo crumpled paper, the final type that publishers used before surrendering to the touch displays, that bad thin four-times-deinked recycled crap, 100 % acidfree postconsumer waste.

I have very few books with me here—Hitler’s Secretary: A Firsthand Account, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, whatever was on the sales table at Foyles on Charing Cross Road, and in the langues anglais section of the FNAC on the Rue de Rennes — books I’m using as models, paragons of what to avoid.

I’m writing a memoir, of course — half bio, half autobio, it feels — I’m writing the memoir of a man not me.

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