This week I have been mostly reading

Charles Bukowski (b1920: d 1994) was an alcoholic, an inveterate gambler on dogs and horses, a womaniser, a hell-raiser, a waster and a foul-mouthed slob. I like him His books are about all of the above and more – hence the title of this collection of stories – in this case, ‘Tales of Ordinary Madness’ does exactly what it says on the tin. Bukowski was primarily a poet who also wrote a great deal of excellent prose. It is very close to the bone, and those of a sensitive disposition, or who are easily offended, should steer clear. A brief (but very sanitised) extract of his poetry should give the flavour Sleep she was a short one getting fat and she had once been beautiful and she drank the wine she drank the wine in bed and talked and screamed and cursed at me and I told her please, I need some sleep sleep? sleep? you son of a bitch, you never sleep, you don’t need any sleep! I buried her one morning early I carried her down the sides of the Hollywood Hills brambles and rabbits and rocks running in front of me and by the time I’d dug the ditch and stuck her in belly down and put the dirt back on the sun was up and it was warm and the flies were lazy and I could hardly see anything out of my eyes everything was so warm and yellow. I managed to drive home and I got into bed and I slept for 5 days and 4 nights.