Fiction Etc

There are books that know exactly what they are, and then there is Fiction etc (1999)—a title so gloriously vague it feels less like a promise and more like a shrug. “Fiction,” yes. “Etc,” absolutely. The literary equivalent of opening a drawer labelled miscellaneous and finding everything from a fountain pen to a theatre ticket from 1987, this curious volume gathers together a selection of writings by Various—those ever-reliable contributors who appear whenever no single name can quite contain the contents.

Published at the tail-end of the 20th century—when the world was nervously eyeing the millennium bug and still pretending dial-up internet was perfectly adequate—this book feels like a time capsule of voices that didn’t quite want to be pinned down. Some pieces may sparkle with insight, others may wander off halfway through a sentence (metaphorically speaking), and a few might leave you wondering if you’ve accidentally skipped a page. But that’s part of the charm. Or at least, that’s what we’re telling ourselves.

As a copy sold by Crappy Old Books in good condition, it carries that reassuring, slightly philosophical wear: the gentle creases of previous ownership, the faint suggestion that someone, somewhere, meant to finish it. It is not pristine, but then neither is life, nor indeed most collections of “etc.” What you get instead is authenticity—pages that have lived a little, perhaps been read on trains, in waiting rooms, or optimistically packed for holidays where they were never opened.

Perfect for the reader who enjoys literary pot-luck, or for anyone who has ever thought, “I’d like a book, but I don’t want to commit to knowing what’s in it.” Fiction etc is less a destination and more a meandering journey—one that may not always make sense, but will certainly give you something to talk about. Or at the very least, something to leave casually on a coffee table and let others puzzle over.

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