andrew carne

It has been four years since The Cove Diary was published, well almost. Since the enclosed pages herein describe two years this rather means it has taken an entire two years to bring this monument of literature into being. Believe me, that is not a long time.

On the face of it this time, the book looks like an edifice, a mighty volume, an insurmountable peak, unclimbable by normal common folk. Ordinarily I would agree with you but let us face it, we are talking about The Cove Diary here, not some intellectual, academic or historical masterpiece - you know, proper books. This is a book so vacuous that I am sure it is but a featherweight in your hands and anyway it is also available through the miracle of modern electronics as an e-book which weighs nothing at all.

It would be unfair of me to suggest that this is a great work of note or that it is a work of note or even a work. Therefore I will not. It is however full of words, bigger than the last book, thus enabling higher shelves to be reached if you stand on it, and heavier, lending itself to greater impact if thrown.

You may well ask, why so big? Why indeed when so many of the world’s great works are slim volumes: Wuthering Heights, 260 pages; To the Lighthouse, 320 pages (Barrett, hard of hearing edition); Noddy goes to Toyland, 32 pages. What they lack in volume they make up with talent in spades; I had to compensate. Additionally many of the copies of the first book ended up in holiday lets in The Cove. Holiday makers told me that they read the book during their two week stays – for free. A book twice the size, then, should deter even the most avid reader from completing it inside an average holiday stay and therefore they would have to buy a copy to finish it. Up top for dancing, I say.

So, having established why size matters (in this case, at least) we should proceed to why you should buy it; why your life would be incomplete without a copy in your possession.

If you have never heard of The Cove Diary before nor have you been drawn to witness the grievous stain on the Internet that is the daily witterings-on of a dangerously unstable (fear not, I mean in literary terms only) shopkeeper plying his trade in the Far West of Cornwall, I heartily commend this volume to you as a toe in the water of light – very light - entertainment. After all you know no better, do you? If on the other hand you are a seasoned reader of the online issues and, perhaps, the previous book there is no more wool to be pulled over your eyes. Should you purchase a copy of this lump and are thereafter disappointed, you should surely have know better.