Narcolept writes
That boring bookshop in Ipswich clearly does not know its business, or read its stock. The shop has been set up to special- ise in the tedious, and will offer insomniacs and masochists such suitable titles as — we are told — Out and About with Undertak- ers and How to Run a Bassoon Factory. But what the Undertakers collect is the melancholy humour of Maurice Lane Nor- cott: 'If you were on a desert island — and, let's face it, we're all on a desert island . . .'. As for the Bassoon Factory, by the pseudonymous Mark Spade, it is a classic. Spade explains business, not as the accoun- tants and consultants would like it to be, but as it is. It is Spade who defines the managing director as the one who knows where the factory is, and even goes there sometimes. Will the Ipswich booksellers kindly supply a copy of each, if they have been able to keep awake to the end of this column?
Christopher Fildes
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