I’m reading a book at the moment.

There is nothing unusual about that. I am always reading a book. Sometimes I will read 4 or 5 books in a week. Usually I have a couple of books on the go at the same time: one to read on the train and one to read at home. The book I am reading at home is A Year In The Merde by Stephen Clarke.

Its a strange book, not so much for its contents but for its marketing. First of all it says on the cover, and on large posters at railway stations “This is the season’s word-of-mouth must-have book’. Its a bit of a stretch of the imagination to call posters ‘word-of-mouth’. I suppose its quite a clever idea really; you see the book in the shop and pick it up because its the book everyone is talking about and yet you haven’t actually heard anyone talk about it – its just the publishers telling you that everyone is talking about it. This is the sort of technique that gets advertising people a reputation as sneaky, mendacious bastards.

The other strange thing about the book is that it sits on the travel shelf of the bookshops. The quotes on the back compare it to Bill Bryson and Peter Mayle, who have both written factual books about travel and its in the travel section, and yet it is really a work of fiction. Or at least semi-fiction. The dead giveaway is that it is written in the first person and the main character is called Peter West not Stephen Clarke.

Its not a bad book. Its amusing and slightly educational. For me its also quite nostalgic, as I used to spend quite a bit of time in Paris – one or two weekends a month for half a year – staying with someone in their apartment instead of hotels, so I can identify with some of the experiences of homes and workplaces that you would not get as a tourist. I just don’t see why the thing can’t be sold on its own merits rather than by trying to make it appear to be something it isn’t.