[John Whitworth]

George continues his fine run and Bazza is also in form. This week's competition:

No 1688: Bookish

You are invited to submit a short story incorporating six book titles (150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 March.

[FOsen]

And don't forget the hon-mensh to Bill - congrats, fellows.

Frank

[John Whitworth]

Bill, forgive me! Meanwhile - SIX titles! Pshaw!


In bold are the titles of eight novels by Kingsley Amis

The Alteration

James and Stanley were twin souls. They loved historical research – for James the Wars of the Roses, for Stanley the life of Joseph Chamberlain – and they loved pretty women. But alas, James always had difficulties with girls whereas Stanley…. Stanley and the women was a saga of uninterrupted success. How did he do it? It was true he looked like a cross between Ronald Colman and, Clark Gable, but what exactly was it? James cogitated long and hard until he knew. When he took out a girl, twenty days later it was a different kettle of fish. ‘I want it now,’ she murmured, and just a little later, ‘I like it here… and here.’ Later still he was drinking tea, smoking a cigarette and fingering his upper lip. ‘Lucky Jim!’ she cooed. In a sense yes. Luck was part of it. But mostly it was the biographer’s moustache.

[Roger Slater]

Cheese is beloved of mice and men, but it was gone. I was dozing at my desk -- call it sleep -- when Emma walked in, spun me around in my chair and shouted, "Who moved the cheese?", then poured iced coffee over my head. It was the awakening from hell, but when I opened my eyes I felt as if an angel in heaven had painted the portrait of a lady for me alone to gaze upon. "Put that tongue back in your head," she said. "There's been a crime, and punishment must be administered."

I searched from here to eternity, but I never found the guilty mouse. It was my only unsolved case. Years later, the phone rang. It was Emma. "Just thought you'd like to know. No one moved the cheese. I completely forgot . . . I had it for lunch."

It only hurts when I laugh.

[John Whitworth]

You too scorn the rubric, Roger. Nice work. I wonder if you are supposed to identify al the novels, with authors, though surely not with publishers.

[basil ransome-davies]

Getting 6 novel titles into a story of 150 words isn't the hardest thing in the world. So the quality of the tale will count.

And congrats to Chris & John for their Staggers wins. Is there a Tesco in Canterbury?

[Roger Slater]

Let me point out that the titles are not restricted to novels, but any books (if I am understanding correctly).

Although it's not a requirement, I'm inclined to think that one ought to use fairly well known books, since there are millions of books and thousands of one-word titles if you search on Amazon. You could probably write your story without regard to titles, and then go back to Amazon and search on each word and probably find at least six of them in your story correspond to books that have been published. I don't imagine that would produce a winning entry, though.

[basil ransome-davies]

Latent partiality of a teacher & writer of fiction, I guess.

[George Simmers]

Basil's too modest to mention that he too is on the Staggers' roll of honour. Congrats to all.
Yes, this Bookish comp is so easy that it's difficult. "It", "They" and "We" are all book titles, as are "G", "Z" and "Q".
I think the trick will be to work really tricky titles into the prose. "Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son", maybe, or "An Introduction to the Semiotics of Cinema" or "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

[FOsen]

After the funeral, the big four—the vicar, the dowager, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot, convened at Bertram’s Hotel for tea and, in the inspector’s case, black coffee with a pocket full of rye. While the Dowager took notes, Poirot began to speak. “I am on the 4:50 from Paddington, so, let us set the cat among the pigeons, no? We have had a string of murders, each more absurd than the last, and every time we apprehend a culprit, another mishap occurs with similar false leads and preposterous red herrings."

"It is almost,” he said, drawing a slim volume from his coat, “as if these murders have a common author.” He examined the book before him. “And, my friends, they do.”

He gently slid the copy of Agatha Christie: an Autobiography in the direction of the ashen-faced dowager. “Your only mistake, my dear Agatha, was to write it all down.”


Editing in with a question - does "dowager" refer only to the widow of a peer, or is it used more generally in the UK - i.e., should I change it?
Frank