Rob Auton: The Weight Of Books In My Rucksack

It depends on who is asking. If it’s a relative I start crying and say “I thought you knew me, what’s happened to us?” If it’s in an interview situation I say “I’m out of work, that’s why I’m here.” If it’s in a bar I say “I’m a writer and performer of what I write.”

These questions.

I think it has to be something by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Possibly Cops and Robbers. I just googled it and a whole host of memories came back to me from the cover. I remember my sister and I loving those books. The memory is accompanied by one of those plugs that you plug into the socket and it turns orange – the smallest lamp. It’s as if they were going to design a nightlight for children and they got as far as the plug and decided to just make the plug the light. “Ah that will do. Forget the light, just make the plug the light let’s go home.”

I would encourage them to read The Hodgeheg by Dick King-Smith probably. I loved that book as a child and the title alone can open up new doors in the brain of a child as to what you are allowed to do with language as an adult.

No, I don’t actually. I read a lot but I am so slow. I thought I would have sped up with age but it takes me an overly long time to read each word and then I have to put the words together to make a sentence. I truly thought I would be bezzing through books now but my comprehension really struggles if I go too fast. Practice has not made perfect when it comes to the speed of my reading.

I feel it is important to read the following books if you don’t know what your career path is or if it doesn’t already exist. If you are struggling through the jungle of your own future with a question mark for an out of shape machete then these books might be worth reading. Any book that involves direct quotes on creativity by Werner Herzog. Any book that involves direct quotes on creativity by Francis Bacon. Any book that involves direct quotes on creativity by Patti Smith. Tarantula by Bob Dylan. Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie. Roald Dahl short stories. Slowly Downward by Stanley Donwood. Renegade by Mark E. Smith. Complete works of Lewis Carroll. Complete works of Oscar Wilde. All of Margaret Attwood’s books. All of Richard Brautigan’s books.

I’ve read the book of scripts for the Office series 1 quite a lot of times. I go back to it to laugh.

I really like recommending Sum by David Eagleman. I’m running out of people to recommend it to though and a lot of people have already read it. Those short stories have resonated and kept me company for a long time now. It’s great to have stories like that in your head when you’re in a place you don’t want to be.

I enjoy books of poetry. Is that a genre? Poetry is more than a genre, isn’t it?

Overcrowded with trees and people who can’t read or write.

There’s a few yes. I have a massive pile of unread books that I am looking forward to finishing and half of them are Ernest Hemingway. I want to finish his books. More often than not when I go into central London I end up in Fopp buying some books. Two for a fiver. I absolutely love buying new books. I think I just like the weight of them in my rucksack. Getting home and putting them on the shelf. Such optimism. I have told myself now that I am not allowed to buy any more books until I have read the ones I’ve got.

I don’t know to be honest. It depends on what happens with the youth of the future, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine a time when books are only seen in museums behind glass.

‘How to live on planet Earth and not ruin it for every other living thing that was also lucky enough to be born there.’

I read a biography of Spike Milligan and that had a big impact on me. There’s a black and white photograph in it of him playing the trumpet with his eyes shut and underneath there’s a caption that reads ‘Very rare- truly happy.’ I was surprised at how those four words hit me and kept hitting me. Before that, I hadn’t realised that people could feel that way but it helped me come to terms with the fact that I was one of them. It made me wonder if a lot of other people feel the same way or if I was one of the unlucky ones.

Small Dreams of a Scorpion by Spike Milligan.

The next ones on my to read shelf are:

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones, Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway, Miles The Autobiography by Miles Davis, The First Forty-Nine Stories by Ernest Hemingway, and The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron.

Autonbiography.