Bookkake

In the first of a series of notices of books we wished we’d published, our favourite book of last year: Ulrich Haarburste’s Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm.

One of the few books to make the leap successfully from cult website to physical book without sacrificing either its genius or its supreme strangeness, I first came across Ulrich… in the Broadway Bookshop in London, where the proprietors had posted up a small but highly favourable review the book had received from Nicholas Clee in the Guardian, who advises that “This self-published novel may appear to cater to specialised tastes. But it is highly recommended to non-fetishists, who will find it inventively hilarious.”

Ulrich… concerns the ongoing travails of Mr Haarburste who, through a series of unfortunate events – capture by pirates, attack by gas, “health reasons” and so on – is required to wrap The Big O in clingfilm. What is extraordinary about the novel is its inventiveness and its use of repetition to bring to Ulrich’s desires a sense of order and even sympathy. It is also damn funny.

We applaud the novel’s author for his decision to self-publish too, and advise you to check out some extracts here, and buy the novel here. We await Mr Haarburste’s next publication with much interest.