BESTSELLERS 2011

1. The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club - Peter Hook (£7.99)
Peter Hook's talk at the Picture House as part of the Festival sent his book whizzing off the shelves! As co-owner of Manchester's Hacienda club, Hook propelled the rise of acid house in the late 1980s, then suffered through its violent fall in the 1990s.
2. A Trick of the Dark - Val McDermid (£7.99)
Val McDermid talked to a packed audience at the Little Theatre as part of the Festival. When Charlie Flint is sent a mysterious package of cuttings about a brutal murder, it instantly grabs her attention. The murder occurred in the grounds of her old Oxford college - a groom battered to death just hours after his wedding.
3. Fustianopolis: Hebden Bridge, the growth of a textile town - HBATC (£5.00)
4. The Mills of the Hebden Valley - HBATC (£5.00)
These two informative illustrated booklets about the history of our area remained buoyant.
5. Moods of Future Joys: Around the World by Bike 1 - Alastair Humphreys (£7.99)
Adventurer Alastair Humphreys talked to an enthusiastic audience at Hebden Bridge Library. This book follows him on the first leg of his epic journey around the world, starting in Yorkshire, then going down through Europe and travelling the whole length of Africa.
6. In Praise of Men and Other People - Ann Sansom (£7.95)
Ann Sansom spoke at two events for the Festival. "Her poetry overturns the reader's expectations. Her poems often present human dramas in which people are seen as acting out their versions of themselves in their own fictions."
7. Thunder and Sunshine: Around the World by Bike 2 - Alastair Humphreys (£7.99)
Alone on the road for four years, in countries few people visit, enduring an 85° C temperature range, Alastair survived on a total of just £7,000. The story of his journey from South Africa back to Yorkshire, via the whole of the Americas, South to North, then Siberia in winter, Japan, and back through China, Central Asia and Europe.
8. How to Paint a Dead Man - Sarah Hall (£7.99)
Novelist Sarah Hall was one of the earlier speakers at the Festival and her event was much enjoyed. In this novel a dying painter considers the sacrifices and losses that have made him an enigma, both to strangers and those closest to him.
9. Borrowers of the Night: the Clifton Wood Murder - Anna Best (£10)
On New Year's Eve, 1832, twenty-year-old Elizabeth Rayner was murdered at Clifton near Brighouse. The murder was never solved, and now Elizabeth's great-niecex4 has reexamined the records of the coroner's inquiry to try and solve the mystery of who killed her and why.
10. Foul Play - Tom Palmer (£5.99)
Todmorden-based Tom Palmer organised a football reading game at Central Street School as part of the Festival. This book is the first of his popular Foul Play series published by Puffin.

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JUNE

Well, The Book Case's customers do like local history! A book of local walks was also popular. A clever comic novel, a children's picture book and a non-fiction books about life on the edge made up the remainder.

Five books about our local history were joined by two books of verse by national locally-based poets amongst The Book Case’s hot sellers in April - plus a thoughtful and practical book from a local woman plumber & entrepreneur. The remaining two bestsellers comprised a Costa winner about a netsuke collection, and a heartrending children’s book.

1. The Mills of the Hebden Valley - HBATC (£5.00)
An informative illustrated booklet about the history of our area. Lots of old photographs, information and maps so you can see the history all around you!
2. Fustianopolis: Hebden Bridge, the growth of a textile town - HBTAC (£5.00)
Another well-researched illustrated pamphlet from HBTAC, on the local specialisation in hardwearing fustian with photos, information and memories.

3. A Look into the History of Warley - June Illingworth (£5.99)
Illustrated A4 booklet with a potted history of the area and a guided tour around the town and area.

4. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area from ancient times to the present day takes its accustomed place in our Top Ten.

5. The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal (£8.99)
The story of a netsuke collection which passed from hand to hand, and by a twist of fate, found its way back to Japan again. Costa Biography winner.

6. Full Blood - John Siddique (£9.99)
"Intelligent, sensual, highly erotic, manly and beautifully mortal - the result of a fifteen-year labour of love". John will be talking about the ideas and imagery in his new book of poems on 25 May at the Methodist Hall.

7. A Year in the Bull Box - Glyn Hughes (£7.99)
A book of poems following the course of a year's cancer from acceptance to joyous life again through closeness to nature. From the award-winning poet, artist and novelist.

8. The Joy of Plumbing - Hattie Hasan (£6.95)
From the Lumbutts-based founder of Stopcocks Women Plumbers, a thoughtful book to inspire women to break down employment stereotypes.

9. The Good Ship Calder High and other tales from the 1950s - Peter Thomas (£5.00)
This account of life at the experimental new school in Mytholmroyd - and other local goings on in the 1950s - continues popular.

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MARCH

World Book Day made its mark on The Book Case’s bestsellers in March, and our first Literary Lecture promoted Andrew Bibby’s interesting book still further. There were four other popular local titles, a little book of poems about mothers sold well (Mother’s Day is coming) and three very different novels were also in demand.

1. Dr Seuss on the Loose! (£1.00)
By far the most popular of the World Book Day Specials, this is a collection of rip-roaring rhymes from the master of verse. We keep most of his other books in stock too.

FEBRUARY

Local interest wins again, with four novels and a children’s book making up the remainder of bestsellers at The Book Case. And we’re delighted to see you agreed with our Fiction and Non-Fiction Book of Month selections for February!  JANUARY

Still at the top, different facets of local history with three other books of local interest also represented. The Book Case’s other bestsellers included two novels, a non-fiction book on why manual work feels better than knowledge work, a book of love poems (Valentine’s Day is coming!) and the true story of a wartime escape.

1. At the Foot of the Lud - Sheena Ellwood (£9.99). Still at the top, this well-researched history of Luddenden Foot by a local resident - reviewed in the Courier today!

2. The Good Ship Calder High and other tales from the 1950s - Peter Thomas (£5.00). The author, who is a well-known local historian, was a guinea pig at the experimental new school in Mytholmroyd and now spills the beans.

3. Trespass - Rose Tremain (£7.99). This novel about an unwitting visitor to a silent valley in southern France and its troubled inhabitants was our Fiction Book of the Month.

4. The Case for Working with Your Hands - Matthew Crawford (£8.99). Our Non-Fiction Book of the Month, it tells "Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good", which struck a chord with many of our customers.

5. West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley (£9.99). Back amongst the bestsellers, local historian John Billingsley's latest collection of West Yorkshire folklore, entertainingly told, with atmospheric line drawings by Heptonstall illustrator, Stan McCarthy.

6. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£6.95). Our reprint of Reach’s graphic journalistic accounts of what he found amongst the West Riding textile workers in 1849 had a bit of a surge in January.

7. Love Poems - Carol Ann Duffy (£4.99). Whether writing of longing or adultery, romance or seduction, Carol Ann Duffy captures the truth of what it means to love, to be in love, and to be loved in return - and, sometimes, of what it means when love ends.

8. One Day - David Nicholls (£7.99). Funny and moving novel which follows two people through twenty years. Galaxy Fiction Book of the Year.

9. Halifax Joint Committee 1995-2010 - Keith A Jenkinson (£11.99). The story of the orange, green and cream buses that operated around Halifax for the last fifteen years, ceasing on 23 October 2010, apart from school and supermarket duties. The company was set up by a bus enthusiast and this book has 150 colour photos, plus leaflets and timetables.

10. The Long Walk - Slavomir Rawicz (£7.99). "The true story of a trek to freedom": Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer, arrested by the Russians in 1939 and after brutal interrogation sentenced to 25 years in the Gulags. After a three month journey to Siberia in the depths of winter he escaped with six companions. Inspired the film "The Way Back".