Book

Context

Uri Bram is an author who has lived in my head rent-free for over a decade.

This is despite him genuinely trying to pay me on a number of occasions before realising the undeniable truth - I possess no qualities worth exchanging for anything but the kind of unconditional love only a legal guardian can drum up.

Ours is the most unlikely of duos, not in the least because its dynamic consists of his barnstorming powerhouse of a heavyweight author allowing this toddler, tapping away on a type-writer fashioned out of tree-bark and stinging nettles to prod him with infinitely regressive "Why?" questions as he patiently tries to get on with his job.

Despite our protracted negotiations (mostly regarding the optimal size of tennis racket one could feasibly use to play at least half a cover of And Your Bird Can Sing), Wig-Wham-Bram and I have never met.

I suppose you could consider us the digital equivalent of pen-friends. To preserve this time honoured tradition, I often hold a pen when I'm talking to him. Well, 'talking to him' is probably a bit of a stretch; I hold a pen when I'm talking to the face I've painted on my wiggled index finger and thumb and then make it mime to the only archival voice recordings I have of him.

Let me explain.

In May 2012, he was unfortunate enough to be the central focus of one of my online ramblings (not unlike this one). Amid the mildewed haze of the Spring-time fantasia I clung to of, one day, being read by any individual other than my taxidermied shoe-friends, I heaped superlatives upon one of his tremendously well-groomed papier-sheaths: Thinking Statistically.

Upon reading my tract, so worried were his friends for the wellbeing of his readership, they must have encouraged Frolic-and-Brambol to reach out and offer whatever tentative and nervous support he could. He immediately and compassionately did the best he could for me, which was to forward me a pre-release copy of his next book to review, presumably so I could have another try without all the unforgivable nonsense.

For reasons I'm not sure even I understand, I never reviewed that book. Over the ensuing decade, Count Bramula has been more than generous with his time and expertise. Even when I thought I was enough of a big shot to have a podcast, Bram-balls was courteous enough to indulge me in this paranoid delusion and gave a handsomely well-crafted interview (on about 20-minutes' notice and absolutely no preparation whatsoever).

Despite my unceremonious cake-taking, over ten years later, I unfortunately haven't yet been courteous enough to stop dipping digestive biscuits into my Mocha and sending them to him in the post.

Get on with it

Book is, without question, absolutely one of the books ever written. And it has been written by the one-and-only Bram-ston Pickle himself.

"Why are you being so ambiguous?" I can't hear you ask, so I'll ask the right question for you (good writers can use devices to do this in such ways that you wouldn't notice, but you won't find one behind my keyboard, so you'll bloody-well have to make do with what you've got).

The reason is that, Book is so unlike any other tome that I've ever thumbed that I can't risk revealing much about it, other than the incontrovertible fact that you should immediately purchase it without hesitation and try it yourself.

The things you'll do with Book will render you bewildered, trepidatious, fiendishly ill-mannered and unspeakably perplexing to those who might witness you engaging in any of them.

I grossly encourage you to do Book in front of as broad and fine-grained an audience as possible and, upon observing their findings and doubtlessly questioning your seemingly insidious motives, tell them straight, "Get your own Book, or mind your own darned beeswax".

Book manages to uniquely cross every line you never even supposed the written medium could and, as you reach the end, you feel as if you've just consented to being shoved down a joyous rollercoaster, had a celestial puppet-master pull you into the entire Thriller dance routine, and then had a surgeon replace your beard with candyfloss.

I'll give you one and only hint to make it out of Book without severely compromising the jubilation you felt at the start: buy two (or more).