Different Seasons

I recently got around to reading something that has been on my 'to do' list for a very long time.

I'm a huge fan of the film Stand By Me. Since I love the film so much, I've always wanted to read the original story - to find out where it came from.

I'm like that with a lot of things. Some people prefer to read the book first, whereas I tend to decide whether I want to read a book after I've watched the film, on the understanding that a film is simply an interpretation and, if I like it, I'll probably love the book even more because I'll get all the gritty details the film missed out.

Also, it's generally easier to be disappointed with a film adaptation of a book you love, than with the original book of a film you love.

As King himself once said: “Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They both are fruit, but taste completely different.”

So, it was with great relish that I Kindled a copy of Different Seasons, which is the collection in which The Body (the original Stand By Me) appears.

I didn't read anything about the collection before starting it, and my hart sank a little when I realised The Body came third, and I'd have to make my way through two other stories first - because that's me, I can't skip straight to the bit I want. It wouldn't be right unless it were a reference book.

Out of impatience, I dived right into the first story without actually bothering to pay much attention to the title. Something about Rita Hayworth. It wasn't until a few pages in that it clicked what I was reading - The Shawshank Redemption! Currently #1 in the IMDB top 250 film ratings and listed countless times in 'best film' polls.

I have seen the film, but truthfully don't remember much about it. The only lingering taste of oranges being that Red, despite being named for his hair, was firmly implanted in my mind as Morgan Freeman.

Enjoyed it.

Next came Apt Pupil. This stunned me. It came at a point where a close family member had asked where the 'darkness' in some of my stories comes from. It unnerved me, because I'd started to feel that what I write is a tamed version of what I could write. And if the tame version raises eyebrows...well.

This particular story holds back on nothing.

I found myself feverishly composing a letter to Stephen King at 4am, expressing my amazement that he'd 'gone there', and asking what his mother made of Carrie. Knew I'd never send it, but helped to rationalise a few things in my own mind. Maybe one day I will build up the courage to slues darkness forth upon the page. Growing up I loved King and Hutson, but even today I'm hard pressed to think of women who come out well in that genre. I think there's still a social 'something' going on there. Or perhaps it's just easier to imagine writing those things than to deal with the consequences of actually writing them. The sort of stories you might write and then hide.

Whatever the cause of my cowardice, it serves to boost my admiration for this particular story. A nauseatingly fine piece of narrative. Called to mind a recent news article announcing investment in a research study into genocide tourism and why people flock to places like Auschwitz, Murambi, Gisozi etc. I wonder whether the study will look deep enough.

I thought about that story for many days after I finished it. 

I like things that make you think.

Finally, I made it to The Body!

It didn't disappoint, though I had the same problem as Shawshank in that the kids will forever be Jerry O'Connell, Corey Feldman, Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix. And they will always be walking down the road to 'Lollipop, lollipop, oh loli-loli-loli lolipop' *pop* 'ba darr darr darr.'

After that came a very strange story: Breathing Lessons. It was almost two stories in one. An elderly gentleman joins an Old Boys' Club where they listen to stories - and the story is one of the stories told there. Although this is the only one which returns to King's trademark horror, it is actually the Boys' Club I remember best: the very strange butler and the slithering beyond the door that is never fully investigated. The horror story seems to wrap itself up neatly, but it's the unanswered questions raised in the club that kept me awake.

Just when I thought it was all over, perhaps the best bit at the very end, where King talks about when the stories were written and how the compilation came about:

Each one of these longish stories was written immediately after completing a novel - it's as if I've always finished the big job with just enough gas left in the tank to blow off one good-sized novella. The Body, the oldest story here, was written direct after 'Salem's Lot; Apt Pupil was written in a two-week period following the completion of The Shining (and following Apt Pupil I wrote nothing for three months - I was pooped); Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was written after finishing The Dead Zone; and The Breathing Method, the most recently written of these stories, immediately following Firestarter.

None of them has been published previous to this book; none has ever been submitted for publication. Why? Because each of them comes out to 25,000 to 35,000 words - not exactly, maybe, but that's close enough to be the ballpark. I've got to tell you: 25,000 to 35,000 words are numbers apt to make even the most stout-hearted writer of fiction shake and shiver in his boots. There is no hard-and-fast definition of what either a novel or a short story is - at least not in terms of word count - nor should there be. But when a writer approaches the 25,000-word mark, he knows he is edging out of the country of the short story. Likewise, when he passes the 40,000-word mark, he is edging into the country of the novel. The borders of the country between these two more orderly regions are ill-defined, but at some point the writer wakes up with alarm and realizes that he's come or is coming to a really terrible place, an anarchy-ridden literary banana republic called the 'novella' (or, rather too cutesy for my taste, the 'novelette').

Now, artistically speaking, there's nothing at all wrong with the novella. Of course, there's nothing wrong with circus freaks, either, except that you rarely see them outside of the circus. The point is that there are great novellas, but they traditionally only sell to the 'genre markets' (that's the polite term; the impolite but more accurate one is 'ghetto markets').....But for novellas which can, on measure, only be described with the word 'mainstream' (a word almost as depressing as 'genre')... boy, as far as marketability goes, you in a heap o' trouble. You look at your 25,000-to-35,000-word manuscript dismally, twist the cap off a beer, and in your head you seem to hear a heavily accented and rather greasy voice saying: 'Buenos dias, señor! How was your flight on Revolución Airways? You like to eeet pretty-good fine I theenk, si? Welcome to Novella, señor! You going to like heet here preety-good-fine, I theenk! Have a cheap cigar! Have some feelthy peectures! Put your feet up, señor, I theenk your story is going to be here a long, long time... qué pasa? Ah-ha-hah-hah-hah!'

I don't think there's a novelist anywhere who can't appreciate that sentiment.

He also goes into how he became typecast as a horror writer. Refreshing to read both his words as an author and the variety of stories he's written. I haven't settled on a genre yet, which is perhaps why I struggle to get very far. What was true in 1982 is true today - the industry isn't built for multi-genre authors, nobody knows what to do with them. 

It seems several authors have had to hide their versatility, only to bring it out as a party trick later down the line: Ta dah! - I could do this all along!  *Triple somersault, Arab spring*.

Aaaanyway, I cannot recommend this collection enough. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Just like the title suggests, it's a real mixed bag, but with a nod and a wink throughout; all taking place in the same town, you discover the old man in Apt Pupil did his banking with the jailed accountant in Shawshank. Little in-jokes that make you smile as you work your way through.

I don't feel so bad about my genre-drifting issues anymore.

Go read from a master.

Invisible Flowers

Flowers Blood by Yanxchan

In tribute to all of the beautiful gardens I've visited this year, here's a story from my short story collection, Splintered Door.

Each story is written in a very different style, this is by far the most florid. 

The Invisible Flowers 

 

Have you ever noticed how you can sow the seeds of discontent? That friendship blossoms whilst love blooms, and compassion falls on stony ground, even as everything comes up roses?

The world is full of flowers.

Tall poppies and shrinking violets.

A vast, invisible garden.

In time immemorial, my great ancestor was the goddess Flora, married to Favonius, the gentle summer wind. I have been charged with tending the garden of mankind. I walk among you, yet you never  see me. I live at the end of your street, work in the office above the shop where you buy your baguette. I go to the same school as your daughter, write the books your son loves to read, and bless the bottle of scotch that your grandmother hides at the bottom of her umbrella stand.

I was born from the white asphodel, seventeen hundred years ago. I have watched so many changes since. Ideas that have matured, tall and strong; others that have grown crooked. My pockets hold more seeds than there are numbers to count them. Seeds of delight, of strength, and of honour; seeds of destruction, chaos and cruelty.

I guard your nature, but it is not my job to weed it. How could I? Who decides whether a plant is desirable or not? Is it simply whether it falls on my land or yours that makes it a weed? All flowers are precious to the insects and the birds. Even Voodoo Lilies, which breed naught but bluebottles, are cherished by the robins who feast upon them.

Not everything is merely the value of its self. Each plant is rooted in a far-reaching ecosystem of ideas and understandings.

The scent of thought is subtle.

On occasion commeth a rare flower. A Witch of Atlas. One born into such loveliness that all the world is transfixed by her. And always, it is a her. 

There seems no reason to it. She can be born of stony ground, barefoot in the desert, or into privilege and position. No specific star announces her birth; no natural disaster follows her death. She simply is.

It is just such a new breed of flower that I saw in her. And in her, I saw my downfall. The end of days.

Seventeen hundred years is a very short time in the life of a god. Not as short as the lives of Man, which run to decades. Or those of trees, which run to centuries. Certainly not to the flowers of thought which spark and bloom and die all within a single second.

But to gods, it is short. To the Universe, it never even happened. And gods must reflect their purpose.

My purpose is to tend the flowers, so I myself must understand them – the intricacies of their life cycle – and reflect it within my own nature. I, too, must grow tall. Reach towards the sun. Pollinate, procreate and perish.

I am divine, but not immortal. She is mortal, yet also divine. She the stigma, I the anther. Fused, we are the sun. All other plants shall strain towards our light, and from it I shall be born again. Unremembering, yet knowing of my purpose. I shall rise once more, as a bulb in spring, to cultivate a further thousand years.

I said before that my job is not to weed. This is true of normal times. But think! Had you a garden of infinite acres, across which a wild meadow blooms, yet only one Jade Vine – well, would you not seek to protect it? Like the Middlemist Red, would you not house it in glass and lavish upon it your every waking thought and affection?

She is singular.

And so I am charged with her care, until such time as we are one.

From the day of her birth, I knew the world was somehow changed. Twice before this feeling came, but each time the promise of spring brought only dark clouds and decay. Those two shoots withered on the vine of their early years, never maturing.

Yet perfection lies dormant in the world. Its fine silk mycelium woven as a cloak of potential beneath humanity. Given the right conditions, unbelievable things may occur. Perfection cannot die, though its patience be infinite.

As is mine.

And neither is perfection pure; her germination a testament to cross-pollination. A dazzling Passion Flower strangled by Bindweed. He held her down, unleashing his seed in a burst of Morning Glory. What he left behind, even the birds would not peck nor scratch. A fertile field turned to wasteland. Barren in the soul; washed away by the flood and void of light.

Each of her petals fell, one by one, even as her daughter grew in height and strength. Eventually she closed in on herself. Those leaves she could no longer raise to protect her child from spring rains, browned and fractured.  Her flesh, like all flesh, returned to the earth from whence it was formed, and went on in its turn to form the shapes of many other plants – those hungry for life. And somewhere, deep at the core of her, that original seed which had germinated, that spark of brilliance that had been her love of classical music, of string instruments, that formed her philharmonia – that spark, released of its roots and branches, rose like a moth towards the moon. A susurration in the summer breeze. A memory of one who had lived and died amongst all this life and death.

Yet this rare Camellia remained. Never did she cry. Never did she taint the fresh waters of Heaven with bitter salt. The sun smiled upon her and she smiled back with equal brilliance. None who looked upon her could love her less than their own lives. For our ability to love ourselves is the measure of our capacity to love at all.

Not all attention is wanted. Creeping Vines that seek others to climb, oppressing them beneath tangled ideas. Stink Horns that spew nothing but foul thoughts and phallic iconography. Bittersweet, with its beauty and its charm masking deadly envy. Worse still, Mistletoe, all the time feeding off the lifeblood of others – drinking their sap dry to feed its own greedy promotion.

Thoroughly unpleasant growths.

At sixteen, my Dancing Plant had attracted the attention of a Venus Fly Trap. One who lures women in before closing its trap. Crushing them lifeless with its jaws. These plants spawn from marshy beginnings. Children of fleshy thirst, at home in the swamps of humanity, nurturing a killer instinct.

His name was Harrison. Her form tutor.

He would scatter seeds of knowledge, tend ideas to fruition, and harvest their fruits for posterity – all the time digesting the lost and imprudent.

Plants feed off decay, the carrion of creation.

Few hunt.

He was a hunter.

Like all others, he recognised the beauty in her, and was drawn.

I watched him setting his trap. Pulling his jaws so wide that all you could see was his smile. Mortal eyes could not focus on the fangs suspended above that second mouth. He crept around her interest in literature. Rooted himself in her bookish world. Provided her with papers and articles. Sunned her with praise and encouragement. Invited her home to his lair, to view his own collection.

She agreed.

She would see him Friday, on her way home from school.

I watched him in the kitchen, sharpening the pruning shears with which he would cut my precious blossom from the Tree of Life.

With meticulous care he laced his bed with brambles, their sharp thorns ready to bloom blood-red roses from her delicate skin. He prepared tea, succulent with Night Scented Stock, to soothe her to sleep. All around the room, his thoughts whirled like humming birds, never still for a second.

I feel no anger, and I feel no pain. Those are your dominions, not mine. The art of life and death requires neither – it is a simple construction, all being told. Fly Traps are ten a penny in this botanical bedlam. Of her, there is only one. No diligent gardener would pull up a Ghost Orchid to save a Nettle.

I reached deep within my pockets and pulled out sweet seeds of sorrow. Standing behind him, I breathed in his scent: citric and zesty, sharp like a razor’s edge. I scattered the seeds above his head and watched as each blossomed and faded. A firework display of endangered thoughts.

He paused, then reached forward to soap his hands. His grip slipped on the tap as he turned it and rinsed.

I waited and watched.

Did this man have no regrets in his life? To grow so twisted upon this rock of ages, had nothing caused his form to bend? Some abandonment, rejection or repulsive act?

None of my seeds took root.

With every moment that passed, I felt her Lady’s Slippers stepping closer. Soon, she would be at the door – standing in his yawning gape.

I could not allow it.

In desperation, I dusted the floor with every species of pepper plant: annuum Cayenne and Peperoncini, baccatum Lemon Drops, frutescens Tabasco and scorching Chinese Habaneros. The kitchen grew alight with heat and colour. Beads of sweat appeared on his brow as each burst into bloom.

Feel these flowers growing. Know that you stand within my private garden. Know that I will break your spine and use your composted remains to feed my own desires. For I am nature, truer than your own.

Fleetingly, it seemed to work. He stood in the centre of my spice field. The crotch of his trousers twitched, his own mind sprouted fragrant red lilies. He wanted to reach down and satisfy himself. The trap would spring too early, his dark seed spent. She would come and go from this valley of death like a lacewing, ignorant of just how close her end of days had come.

Go now, to your bed of thorns. Pierce yourself upon them and return cowed, like a Sensitive Plant, leaves closed across your heart. Fold yourself, oh narcissistic Narcissus.

The peppers withered and dried, and with them his urgency.

A knock at the door.

He readjusted himself and followed a trail of ivory Virgin's Bower to the entrance.

Peering through the peephole, I watched a bouquet of purple flourish above his head. The petals fell invisibly to the floor as he reached to turn the key.

There she stood, my Welwitschia in the desert.

“Come in,” he smiled.

She did.

I scattered a handful of fragile foreboding beneath her feet, but the seeds were crushed before they could flower.

“Tea?”

He offered.

She accepted.

Before my eyes, I saw his Nightshade thrive; intertwining tendrils of death taking possession of this delicate Dianthus.

I tried to plant revulsion in his soul, that he might change his mind and send her away. My propagations proved futile. His roots ran deep; his stem rose slippery and strong.

So little time left.

Imagine your entire rose garden lost to blight, with no hope of ever seeing another bud bloom.

I reached down beneath the earth for that cloak of perfection.

My nails bled with the effort of pulling it forth into the light.

The blood of a god, mingled with perfection, is magic beyond any power known.

The ground shook.

An insidious, insectual buzz began to rise.

Beyond the window, Lightning cracked her tongue and the Erinyes screamed in righteous indignation. 

His face froze. A chill, core-deep; the harshest frost of the human soul.

Feel winter and be afraid.

Not a single thought blossomed in his brain.

I clutched the fabric of perfection, enacting flawless justice.

His eyes glazed. His hand raised to his struggling heart.

He opened his mouth to scream, and a river of blackfly erupted. They swarmed across his face, forcing their way into his eyes, his hair, his nostrils.

As he fell, I released the cloth and the world shifted into its obvious form.

I had tended the garden. I had weeded. I had removed the troublesome plant from my spray.

Triumphant, I turned to Her.

She trembled in disbelief. A feathery chime sounded as from the bells of a Wild Hyacinth.

I held out my hand to her, but she stepped away, frightened.

A second more and her body separated into a thousand perfectly formed butterflies – every colour of the rainbow.

“No!” I cried. “No!”

But it was too late. A river of blackfly on the floor, and an ocean of butterflies in the sky.

All that remained of my rare Koki’o was a simple apple seed.

Of him – a gnarled, silver twig.

I plucked the seed from the floor and studied it in a beam of light from the emerging sun.

I should plant her in new soil; water with love and tender attention.

But where? Who could ever sow such a precious seed in this vast garden of wild imaginings?

In ancient times it was believed that if a woman swallowed a butterfly in a goblet of wine, she would bear a child. If I swallow this seed, would she grow within me? Would I give birth to myself reborn?

I placed her on my tongue, closed my eyes and consumed.

All of existence dissolved.

Within the infinity of everything that is and has ever been, I feel primordial stirrings. The beginning of ends. An energetic whoosh of air as Nataraja lifts his foot high above the cosmos. The wind of creation in motion. A breath before the final dance. The frenzy of a million Dervishic devils spinning uncontrollably through time and space, bringing into being that which has always been possible, yet never realised.

I feel myself soften. The hard edges of awareness fray.

In swallowing the seed, I have become its husk. Within me, something of immense proportions grows. As it expands, it sheds my brittle bindings. It overtakes me; consumes me. All that I have known is broken down to fertilise its unstoppable advance.

Saved by perfection, born of unspeakable beauty – she becomes me and, in doing so, she destroys me.

I could no more resist her than survive the molten Phlegethon. She flows forth to every extremity of the Universe.

As I fade to oblivion, I weep for my end of days. I see myself evolve into something greater than anything I could contain. Like all life, mortal and immortal, I craved this metamorphosis. Every caterpillar holds within its heart an unquenchable desire for flight. Yet, in taking flight, I ruin myself. All I can do is watch the entirety of my potential fulfil itself without me. Discarding me as debris, whilst setting sail for a land that I have always wished to see.

I sink beneath my own sorrow.

I drown. 

*

If you enjoyed that, you might like to check out Splintered Door, roughly described as 'dark fairytales for adults.' It is now available free online, or you can support me by purchasing the ebook on Amazon. 

The Luke Bitmead Bursary

Image courtesy of JKim1

I'd just like to slip in a mention for the annual Luke Bitmead Bursary for New Writers 2012, as they're currently open to submissions until 31st August.

This one's a little close to my heart as I was amongst the shortlist in 2009 for my first novel, Lucid. It really was a huge honour to be selected amongst the top ten. It provided a massive confidence boost which spurred me on to write my second, Angorichina, which was to become my debut.

The Bursary is born of real tragedy: a young author who succumbed to depression early in his career. His family have kept his aspirations alive by encouraging new talent and providing a platform for its recognition.

If you're an aspiring writer over the age of sixteen, writing in the genre of adult fiction, then this may well be for you. It really is a terrific boost for fledgling writers.

Good luck!

Fighting Fantasy

Well, well, well. 

Resurrection of a past era. 

When I was about ten or eleven, I was in WHSmith - book section (naturally) - choosing something to read on the train. I had recently gone to live with my mum, so Dad would come and collect me every fortnight for the train ride to London. 

The book that I chose was Vault of the Vampire.

My decision was based purely on cover art, I didn't bother to look inside. I was going through a vampire phase at the time. Anything with fangs had to be good.

I remember feeling bitterly disappointed when the joy of seeing how short the chapters were dissolved into the realisation that this wasn't actually a storybook at all. 

About to bin it, the sheer length of the journey forced me to take another look - thus spawning an adolescent love affair with Fighting Fantasy.

If you haven't seen them before, they're sort of a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Point Horror. Each chapter is about a paragraph long. At the end, you have to make a decision - do you go left or right at the end of the hallway? Do you talk to the slightly dodgy guy in the corner sucking his pipe? Do you open the trapdoor?

Occasionally you get into fights. Dice are required for this, and there's a set of rules and a game sheet at the beginning. If you lose, you have to start again (or cheat). Often the storylines throughout the book are fairly complex and several choices lead to dead ends. 

It can get ridiculously addictive. But then, I was brought up on text games. Before all these swanky graphics and VGA monitors, computer games were all like this. Glorified Fighting Fantasy novels. To me, these were just the portable version (long before laptops).

Sometimes I'd forget to bring a book and Dad and I would sit on the train making up stories in the same format. We'd take it in turns to come up with a paragraph and a decision to make. Passed many hours that way. In my late teens I eventually started coding MUDs (Multi User Dimensions) - which were (are?) like huge, international FF books with lots of players.

FF cover all the major bases in storytelling: there's always a beginning, middle and end to your adventure, there's a quest - something you have to achieve - there's adversity and conflict, there's dialogue and character interaction... you're soaking all of this stuff up as you're playing.

Anyway, the other day I was sitting watching my nephew trashing hell out of Transformers on his PlayStation. I felt a swell of pride that he'd opted for Decepticons (the baddies). 

Mum wandered in and I said something along the lines of 'he's really into that, isn't he?' To which she replied 'yes, but he loves his books too.'

It's true, my nephew is an avid reader. He's currently into Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Aha! thinks I. A kid who likes reading and gaming.

So, I've just spent the day rooting around in my old room, scouring the bookshelves of my (mostly mispent) youth. I've managed to find 17 volumes in total.

Plus my pride and joy:

Those last two are sort of like the fanatic's guide to all the animals and cities mentioned in the books. I remember sitting in Mum's office at probation service one Baker day, drawing ground plans for a seedy tavern in Port Blacksand. You can see they've been studied closely.

So, things come full-circle. My nephew is nine now. I've stacked them all up by his bed for the next time he visits. It just remains to be seen whether he'll take to them. I hope so. It would be nice to think they've gone to a good home.

[August 2014: the BBC have devoted an article to Fighting Fantasy.]

The Generation Game

The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy is one of the best books I have ever read.

Finished it last night, been up until 2/3am for the past few nights. Couldn't put it down. I loved it. Everything about it. Including the cover.

I cried solidly from page 106 to the end of the chapter, then from about 160 to the end of the book.

It takes skill to invent a concept like Lucas, stick it in like a knife, and then keep on twisting it all the way to the end. Exquisitely painful. You sort of enjoy the torture, because it drives home your humanity.

I know, I'm gushing. I really am. It came in the Complete Luke Bitmead collection I bought a while back. Won the 2010 bursary as well as the Yeovil Literary Prize. It's extremely easy to see why.

Blurb:

Philippa Smith is in her forties and has a beautiful newborn baby girl. She also has no husband, and nowhere to turn. So she turns to the only place she knows: the beginning.

Retracing her life, she confronts the daily obstacles that shaped her very existence. From the tragic events of her childhood abandonment, to the astonishing accomplishments of those close to her, Philippa learns of the sacrifices others chose to make, and the outcome of buried secrets.

Philippa discovers a celebration of life, love, and the Golden era of television. A reflection of everyday people, in not so everyday situations.

I may only have been born halfway through this book, but there was so much I recognised that made me smile. I, too, was of a generation with Smash Hits, Hubba Bubba, the cuddly toy, and psychedelic orange squash. My smile was even wider when she mentioned liquorish rizlas.

It spoke of, and therefore evoked, so many memories of my own childhood. An era. Events: where I was when I heard Diana was dead; strangers sobbing on my shoulder; a sea of flowers. It summoned first loves, losses, realisations - an incredible achievement to chronicle a life from beginning to middle with such astounding emotive accuracy.

As another review mentions:

The story speeds up quite a bit when Philippa is an adult. I suppose that reflects our way of remembering our lives – early childhood experiences can seem so visceral, whereas later events often merge together.

Absolutely. This didn't escape me either, and added to the reality of the piece. The whole construct was technically superb, from the chapter titles to the interim breaks, the hooks, teasers, retrospective aha!s and the progression of time. I aspire to write this well.

The only problem now is what to follow that with?

Biography Bashing

Fact: I spend far too much time on social media.

For a couple of days I've been trying to find statistics on what percentage of the market is celeb-biographies and what is non-celeb. I was curious to find out whether you have to be a celebrity to write a successful biography, as it's a common saying in writing circles that your biography won't sell if you're not a household name. 

 

You would have thought this would be an easy Ask Jeeves issue by now. But, after consulting Twitter, Wiki and  a 9k-strong writing forum, I was none the wiser.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and tried hard to remember the one post-graduate quantitative research lecture I managed to stay awake through.

I thought that if I blogged my progress it would: 

1. Push me to continue making progress and 
2. Add something to the online knowledge base

First problem - where to source data? Especially when I'm not about to fork out to access any large databases. They talk in silly money, and my bank account is only little.

Word association sometimes helps:

Think books -

- think Amazon.

So, off I trundled and, sure enough, they categorise their biography section:

(click to enlarge)

Each time you click on a category, it tells you how many books are listed with that label.

A quick break down of current stock works out like this:

(click to enlarge)

There's nothing in row 1 - that's just me being messy. The number at the very bottom right is the total number of labels: 845,062.

But it's really important to remember that this is the number of labels, not books - as a book might have more than one label. That's why 'general' has so many more than any other label, because books categorised as 'historical' or 'religious' biographies are often also given a 'general' rating. Books on the Holocaust would also come under War & Espionage.

This makes things a bit tricky, so I ignored the 'general' label and this brought the total labels down to: 471,204.

I then decided to go for a trusty visual aid. To try and tidy things up a bit, I cut out everything with a 0% share of the market: any label that's percent of the market is below 0.45% - thus rounded down to 0% rather than up to 1%.

If you're not so familiar with 'rounding', 5 > (five or more '>') is usually rounded up, whereas 4 < (four or less '<') is rounded down. So, with 0.45 you round five up, which rounds 4 up to 5, which rounds 5 up to 1.0 which is 1%. Whereas with 0.44 you round 4 down to 0, which also rounds the next 4 down to 0, which leaves you with 0.0, which is 0%

See how the wonders of maths can cause entire stock piles to magically disappear?

Yes, yes, *yawn*, I know. So, anyway, this means we sadly have to wave goodbye to 'reference' biographies (compilations and photo collections, that sort of thing), 'tragic life stories' (thank heavens for that!) and 'artists, architects and photographers'. British Royalty barely scrapes through with 0.47% of the bookshelf - I'm being generous.

(click to enlarge)

I'm working from .co.uk as I'm British, and I'm lazy. If anyone would like to throw me a US or EU comparison, that'd be great.

So, as of 30th June 2012, the biggest biography label by far in the UK is Historical (22%), followed a long way behind by Politics (11%) with Religion and Social & Health Issues battling it out for 3rd place (9%).

A few things surprised me. I expected Holocaust (1%) to rank a little higher, with all the interest in war memorabilia. Also with History having such a large share of the market. I also thought Sport (3%) would do better, given the number of sports fanatics and big names - but then I had to ask myself whether sports fans are also big readers...?

Multi-label data isn't the best to use, it's far from clean, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Still, that's the easy part. The hard part, and the question that started all this, is getting a sense of the celeb-biog proportion of the market verses the non-celeb - Joe on the Street - section. Are people mostly interested in reading about big names, or is there a market for everyday people with interesting life stories?

A quick glance at the biography bestseller list is quite encouraging (relatively speaking):

1. Slave Girl - Sarah Forsyth
2. Secret Diary of a Sex Addict - Amber Stephens
3. Against All Odds - Paul Connolly
4. I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron
5. Open - Aundre Agassi
6. Confessions of a GP - Benjamin Daniels
7. How to be a Woman - Caitlin Moran
8. Life...on a High - Nick Spalding
9. Diary of a Menopausal Woman - Cheryl Reid, Toby Williams, Lizzi Eastburn
10. The Sugar Girls - Duncan Barrett & Nuala Calvi

If you class a 'celeb-biog' as one written either by or about a celebrity, then it's not looking as bad as I thought it would. Roughly a 70/30 split in favour of the average Joe.

But it is difficult. Where do you draw the line on celebrity? How famous do you have to be? Well, for my calculations 'pretty famous'. Preferably a household name, living or dead. You certainly need a Wiki entry. But then, what if a celeb writes a book about the history of Norwich? Is it the content or the author that's important for celeb-rating? I say it's still a celeb-biog because sales will increase off the back of the name of the author.

Not easy, huh? The rules need to be clear.

Next question, though - does this statistic hold true through the categories?

Method: choose three random pages from the 'most popular' category in each listing, count the number of celeb/non-celeb titles. Total sample number each category: 36 (12 per page).

Good: Random sample groups

Bad: Not proportionately representative of size of category (why? I just haven't got the time)

I decided to knock out the Royalty section as it was a bit unfairly skewed (100% celebrity) for such a small slice of the market. Thought it would be more interesting to concentrate on the slightly ambiguous labels.  As I suspected, there were quite a few repeat titles between categories.

At first glance, the gap wasn't as big as I'd expected it to be. Though it was a lot smaller than the bestsellers list led us to believe: 45% celeb, 55% non-celeb.

I had this image of biographies, and the biographical market, as being swamped by celebrity culture with no room for anything that didn't take place in Hollywood or involve a dead bard. I wasn't expecting to see a higher average per category for non-celeb biogs.

Little bit of visual magic might assist:

(click to enlarge)

And on that helpful histogram, I can conclude that it's fairly evenly matched, except in the obvious categories you'd expect celebs to dominate: Theatre & Performance Arts and Film, Television & Music. Whereas non-celebs appear to be cornering the expert markets such as Medical, Legal & Social Sciences and the more ethereal realms of Religion.

It's only a small data set, and you'd need to clarify the definition of celebrity a bit - but it's an interesting indication.