Vade Mecum brings together Richard Skinner’s best essays, reviews and interviews from 1992-2014. There are close critical engagements with writers (Kazuo Ishiguro, Italo Calvino, Shakespeare’s The Tempest) and composers (Erik Satie, Iannis Xenakis, Luc Ferrari), meditations on films and filmmakers (Antonioni, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Chinatown) and idiosyncratic reflections on Werner Herzog’s Of Walking in Ice and Steely Dan.
On his 11th birthday, Ben Baxter receives The Junior Detective Manual, sparking his ambition to become a detective. With his friend Johnny by his side, they embark on a playful adventure to become store detectives, believing it will be an easy task. The story captures their excitement and the challenges they face as they dive into the world of sleuthing, showcasing themes of friendship and the thrill of discovery.
The narrative follows Ben Baxter as he documents his experiences with intriguing crimes and mysteries, aided by his friends Johnny, Katie, and Chippy. Reinstated as store detectives by the manager eager to showcase crime prevention strategies, they soon encounter unexpected challenges that bring danger and excitement into their lives. This adventure highlights their teamwork and problem-solving skills amidst the unfolding chaos.
Featuring a collection of the world's worst jokes, this book offers a humorous take on various joke styles. From puns to one-liners, it embraces the art of bad humor, inviting readers to enjoy the cringe-worthy and laugh at the absurdity. Perfect for those who appreciate light-hearted comedy, it promises to deliver groans and giggles alike, making it an entertaining read for anyone looking to lighten the mood.
Following Viktor Shklovsky's instruction to make everyday objects seem unfamiliar, Richard Skinner's fourth collection sets out to release 'the potential of inanimate objects'. A marbled egg, white balloons, unopened boxes, a Greek island, numbers, a yellow yo-yo - nothing in this book is quite what it seems. Unsettling, precise and enigmatic, Invisible Sun confirms Skinner's reputation as a poet of playful misplacement and misdirection. It is a book about windows, light, clouds, the 'upside down world' glimpsed through shadows and mists, and always the invisible sun - bright source of all life but also our daily measure of time and loss - illuminating 'the distant glitter of other people's lives'.
The Busby Babes is a tale of spirit, courage and the eternal bonds of friendship. It is about a group of men whose passion for football led them to unparalleled success and unprecedented glory. But it also cost many of them their lives.
Mixing fiction and nonfiction, Skinner breathes new imaginative life into the story of a twentieth century icon. Bewitched by the beauty of a troupe of native dancers and the strange music of the gamelan, Margaretha changes her name to Mata Hari and goes to Paris, where she is drawn into a web of espionage resulting in her death by firing squad.
In language that is both precise and strange, Skinner's poems tip certainties on their heads, making familiar objects in the world a mountain is not what it seems, a skull contains a universe. Alongside this process of `making-strange' lies a deep connection with sound, color, temperature, and scent that brings the poems fully to life. These poems engage with form - the cento, the cinquain, the unrhymed sonnet, cut-ups and free verse - in enigmatic, other-worldy ways that constantly surprise and please.
Pulling together his years of experience as a novelist and a teacher, Richard Skinner covers the basics of writing great fiction - narrators, characters, settings - with charm and rigour.
