Naked Book Pimpage

20/03/09

Ten Reasons To Read The Gone-Away World (Or Make Someone Else Read It):

1. It’s fun and you will emerge from the experience a happier person.

2. Your Crazy Aunt Boris would almost certainly forbid you to read it, because your mind is fragile and might be warped by my wickedness.

3. It’s a political parable about Otherness and a slantendicular examination of abstract systems and human evil. 

4. I totally just used the word ‘slantendicular’. That’s got to be worth something.

5. There are ninjas in the book. There are fights and battles and alarums and klaxons. You will not fall asleep. In fact, you may stay up all night and call in sick the following day. It has happened.

6. I am not, in fact, naked while I pimp this book. Be glad in your heart.

7. A bunch of newspapers and blogs say it’s kinda cool. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10...]

8. It has Frege for added thinky. Frege is the sexiest logician ever. No one will be able to resist your sexy brain.

9. Without really meaning to, I ended up writing a strange and haunting description of modern war, which apparently – despite the fact that I am not a soldier – is not bad.

10. Despite all this apparent seriousness, it will make you laugh, and that is never a bad thing.

One Comment to “Naked Book Pimpage”

  • Lynne Blundell said on March 20th, 2009:

    I have to say…the very fact that Nick has put the effort in to link to 10 different reputable reviews has to say something about his passion for his work. And indeed he should be passionate… this is a blinding discovery of new literature that I happened by chance to come upon…

    It is one of those books that I believe… found me. Only a handful of books have done this so far in my lifetime. I was perusing the shelves of Borders to seek a morsel of wonderment for my father’s Christmas present when I came across Harkaway’s lovely book. The signed copy sticker on the front squeaked…”I’m sitting here…signed and everything in all my glory…why is no-one paying me any attention????” So I picked the poor little soul up.. read the inside cover… captivated immediately and throwing caution to the wind (and the single mother’s budget out of the proverbial window) bought the little bugger.

    Now then. 3 months later and ready for a new read I pick it up and not wanting to bore anyone with inappropriate and hideous details,… it came at just the right time because I’ve been going through some serious shit recently… SO!

    Yes…it does make you laugh!
    Yes… Nick is a true genius!
    Yes… ‘slantendicular’ is just one such morsel of semantic hungboffledangery brilliance
    Yes…it’s politically, morally and ethically stimulating
    But more importantly
    I believe this guy challenges the very quiddity of literature today in the fact that every sentence has poise, humour, richness and colour even in the grey areas; words and images that will BLOW your mind…

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