NL2007

Our last year's bestseller, Rebel Girls, about Northern suffragettes, by local historian Jill Liddington, gets an airing on Christmas Eve, 8pm on Radio 4, as part of Michael Portillo's "Things We Forgot to Remember" series - with a particular focus on suffragettes appearing in the dock before judge and jury in the Leeds courtroom. We have the book in stock of course!

Hot off the press is a new book of nonsense verse from historian Chris Aspin. The poems deal with, among other things, a ban on comic socks, a boy arrested for throwing a sausage, post-smoking-ban ashtrays, palindromes, anagrams and much more, including a short story about the Devil's visit to Rochdale. There's also a specially written poem about Liszt's breakfast at Hebden Bridge's White Lion pub on December 15th, 1840.

The story of how Franz Liszt, the greatest pianist of all time, had breakfast (ham and eggs) in Hebden Bridge, was told in the Summer 2003 issue of Milltown Memories: Liszt was on a concert tour of Britain and arrived by train one December morning in 1840. The line to Littleborough was not then open, so the pianist, while waiting for a coach, broke his fast at the White Lion, the White Horse having refused him. There is a move to commemorate the event with a plaque on the White Lion ...

The title of the collection is The Jingle Book and the price is £4.99. It's published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

We're busy here at The Book Case, and current favourites include Gold Pieces, Linda Smith, Pies and Prejudice, Ted Hughes, Northern Lights, the Eagle Annual, Rebel Girls, We'Moon and local Folk Tales. Our remaining calendars are selling fast too!

Best wishes and a Happy Christmas from your local bookshop.

You only have till closing time on Monday 3rd December to take advantage of our 20% reduction offer! Any books ordered from any of our Christmas catalogues catalogues will be charged at 20% off retail price and will be available for collection from 5th December. Leaflets are available in the shop for listing your orders. The discount is not available on purchases of the selected titles from stock.

Until Christmas, we are opening on Tuesdays, from 10am to 5pm.

New in are intellectual stocking-fillers from the Unemployed Philosophers’ Guild. On display are cuddly dolls and finger puppets-cum-fridge magnets of great literary, historical and other figures including Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Buddha, Darwin, Einstein, Elizabeth I, Che Guevara, Frida Kahlo, Nietzsche, Munch’s Scream (it does), Napoleon Buonaparte, Charles Dickens, Freud, Ganesha, James Joyce, Lao Tzu, Karl Marx, Mozart, Sir Isaac Newton, George Orwell, Pavlov’s Dog, Pablo Picasso, Plato, Schrodinger’s Cat, Shiva, Tolstoy and Leon Trotsky, while stocks last. We've sold out of Virginia Woolf ... The dolls are £10.95 and the finger puppets £3.50.

And of course lots of books, diaries, calendars and Christmas cards. Have you seen Kate's selection of Wynstone Press's colourful and unusual Advent Calendars?

The winter issue of The Oldie Review of Books has just come in, with comments on and reviews of a wide range of books - collect your free copy from The Book Case.

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book, plus a CD.

Adult fiction: Man in the Picture by Susan Hill (£9.99). Atmospheric ghost story about a picture of masked Venetian revellers, in the style of M R James.

Adult non-fiction: A Pig with Six Legs and other clouds - ed. Gavin Pretor Pinney (£10). From the Cloud Appreciation Society, a delightful little book of colour photos of cloud formations that look like something (with captions).

Children's book: Moby Dick - pop-up version (£14.99). Melville's epic saga of Captain Ahab's obsessive quest for the white whale comes vividly to life in this three-dimensional graphic novel, the first of its kind. This phenomenal work is the creation of multi-talented artist Sam Ita, apprentice to Robert Sabuda--one of the worlds master paper engineers. Full colour.

CD: Family Christmas: Read by Philip Madoc, Jenny Agutter, Benjamin Zephaniah and others. (2 CDs, £10.99). The tree, the fireside, the candles, the presents and the festive food may be the main features of the traditional Christmas, but so were the stories, the poems, and the traditional tales. Includes A Child’s Christmas in Wales, The Nutcracker (with Tchaikovsky's music), The Little Match Girl, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, ’Twas The Night Before Christmas, The Three Kings, King Frost, A Kidnapped Santa Claus, The Thieves Who Couldn’t Stop Sneezing and Talking Turkeys.

Price Promotions

We do have quite a lot of good books at silly prices around the shop, but we've no room to display them separately. You'll find them on the general shelves.

NEWS

Local Interest

Todmorden Hippodrome : 100 Years of Theatre, 1908-2008 - Freda and Malcolm Heywood, £19.95 hb, £14.95 pb
Celebrating the first hundred years of this popular Edwardian theatre! The book is packed with narrative, information, pictures, production photos and reproduced advertisements and programme covers telling the theatre’s story from the glory days of music hall to the present day. More than 200 pictures, many of them in colour.

The Best of John Hartley: an account of his life and "The Clock Almanack" - John Waddington-Feather, £6.99

Born in Halifax in 1839, John Hartley was well-known for his Yorkshire dialect poetry and prose, published in his "Clock Almanack". This book includes some of the best as well as a biography and a glossary of Yorkshire words.

The Yorkshire Church Notes of Sir Stephen Glynne, ed. L.A.S. Butler, £30
Architectural descriptions of 400 Yorkshire churches and abbeys compiled during the many visits of Sir Stephen Glynne (1807-1874). Interesting in their own right, they also provide an extremely accurate and valuable record of the fabric and fittings before their removal in restoration or the total demolition of churches. From the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.

Calder Valley OffcutsNo. 10: Agitation against the New Poor Law Act 1834 and the Todmorden Riots, 1838 (£2.50)

The last in the present series based on Leslie Goldthorp's historical lectures in the 1970s and transcribed by Mrs Irene Mallinson.

And a play by Phyllis Bentley, "Yellow Pieces" about the Cragg Coiners, is being performed at St John's Centre, Cragg Vale, on Friday 7th December at 7.30pm and Saturday 8th December at 2pm, 4pm and 7.30pm. Tickets are £3 adult, £1.50 children, with pie and peas available at evening performances. Phone Doris Hurst on 882509 or Ann Kilbey on 882858.

Well-known local author Glyn Hughes's new book of poems, Two Marriages, will be launched on Saturday 8th December, 2.00 - 4.00 pm at Artsmill.

John Siddique has several poems in a forthcoming book, Pendulum, the Poetry of Dreams (£10.99).

Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon (£12.99)
This popular and well-illustrated book from the well-known local journalist has a three-page illustrated review in the current issue of Yorkshire Life!

National (and international) Book Events

The Daily Mail Book Club

I'm sorry, we were misinformed. November's Book of the Month was Clever Girl by Brian Thompson (£7.99)

December's choice is: No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside (£7.99). Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is all the same getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

An Abu Dhabi-based project, Kalima ("word" in Arabic) is undertaking the translation into Arabic of a range of international literature, with 100 books in its first year and 500 per year by 2010. Books to be translated include those by Stephen Hawking, Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, Nadine Gordimer, Khaled Hosseini, Albert Camus, George Eliot, Albert Einstein, Jacques Lacan and Spinoza. A report four years ago noted that that the number of books translated into Arabic over the last 1000 years was the same as Spain translates in one year, so this is a welcome move. (Source: Guardian)

NEW TITLES

There are never very many new books coming out in December, but we should mention Susan Hill (see above), the late Norman Mailer (winner of this year's Bad Sex in Fiction award) and a reissue of Barbara Pym in Fiction - as well as a new translation of stories written during WWII by the Head of the BBC's Turkish Section.

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm#Forthcoming
E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.

LITERARY QUIZ: I'm taking a break from quiz-setting and going out with a roar - this month it's on Lions in literature. To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

For the full answers to last month's quiz, on Spiders in literature, click here.

If anyone would like to send in a quiz with quotations from reasonably well-known books on specific topics, I'll be delighted to host it. The books should be in print, and please send the answers; if you could explain the context of the quotation as well, that would be much appreciated.

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What you've been buying: NOVEMBER 2007 BESTSELLERS at The Book Case

Another good month at The Book Case for items with local connections - seven again if we include a book of poems by a local author! With two hardback novels, unusually, and the ever-popular We’moon Diary.

1. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. Selling fast, our reprint of the exciting 1968 children’s classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners from the well-loved Halifax novelist.

2. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95. An eyewitness description, with interviews, of the conditions of textile workers around West Yorkshire in 1849. Our first publication

3. We’Moon Diary 2008: Gaia Rhythms for Womyn, £15.99. The theme of next year’s edition of this popular and colourful astrological moon calendar and datebook is "Mending the Web".

4. Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon, £12.99. Well-known local journalist’s colourful collection of remarkable women with Yorkshire connections - ranging from Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to Mary Newall of the Cragg Vale Coiners. Got three pages in Yorkshire Life!

5. A Village Childhood - Gertrude M. Attwood, nee Ogden, £12. A personal recollection of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in the 1920s and '30s. Gertrude looks back at those early years and describes how they influenced her life. Lots of fascinating detail about everyday life and contemporary illustrations.

6. Hebden Bridge Calendar - Geoff Boswell, £4.50. The colourful collection of well-chosen local scenes is as always selling well.

7. The Gathering - Anne Enright, £10.99 at The Book Case. The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house. Booker Prize winner and still selling well.

8. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan, £10.99 at The Book Case. A honeymoon couple at a seaside hotel in 1962. A story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

9. Over the Land - John Killick, illustrations by Alison McGill, £10. Hebden Bridge-based John Killick is best known for his work on communication with people with dementia. This collection contains 23 poems inspired by the Scottish landscape with images from pastel drawings and oil paintings by a young Edinburgh artist, Alison McGill.

10. Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid, £30 (now £25 at The Book Case). This selection begins when Ted Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of his resolutely private life. Recently read on Radio 4.

Festive seasonal greetings and Happy Christmas in advance from your local independent bookshop,

The Christmas season is rumbling into gear and our centre table is now directed hopefully at the purchaser of Christmas gifts. Seasonal cards are now in from the Bodleian Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Sierra Club (ecological), and back in stock are Amber Lotus's and Brush Dance's benevolent and inspirational calendars. Other calendars and diaries include We'Moon, John Muir Trust, Redstone, New Internationalist and Greenpeace, as well as our usual wide selection of artistic, photographic and humorous calendars from Pomegranate, Editions du Desastre, Catch and many others.

We have a range of Christmas catalogues for you to take away and browse through, and we are offering an astonishing 20% off retail price for any books ordered and prepaid from any of the catalogues before 3rd December, to be available for collection from 5th December. Leaflets are available in the shop for listing your orders. The discount is not available on purchases of the selected titles from stock.

The latest edition of The Book Magazine is now in, featuring interviews with Ian Rankin, Alan Titchmarsh, Mike Rosen - the new Children's Laureate - and Kathy Reichs, and with articles on Alan Bennett's Uncommon Reader (about the Queen getting involved with a travelling library), Jeanette Winterson, Alasdair Gray, Jonathan Coe, natural history books including Collins New Natural series, WWI - WWII books, John Mortimer, John Stuart Mill, Graham Greene, Shakespeare and his wife, historical bestsellers, rock, British weather, apples, cookery, writing your own Jane Austen (?), this Christmas's humour books, potted plants, children's picture books, sporting biographies and "best of the year" from reading groups. Free to Book Case customers!

Being enjoyed in October, according to our comments board, have been Tove Jansson's Moomin series, Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, C J Sansom's Tudor novels Dark Fire, Dissolution and Sovereign, Harry Potter, John Irvine, Diana Gabaldon, Celia Lyttelton's Scent Trail, Bill the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison, Machinery's Screw Thread Book (1957 and sadly out of print, but we could get you A Guide to World Screw Threads if that is your enthusiasm), Halldor Laxness's Independent People, Malcolm Bradbury's Soldier's Return and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. NOT being enjoyed were Martin Amis and Terry Goodkind, who is chided for his obsession with leather-clad women.

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book, plus a CD.

Adult fiction: The Railway - Hamid Ismailov (£7.99). 'In the steppe near Tashkent they came upon a never-ending ladder with wooden rungs and iron rails and that stretched across the earth from horizon to horizon. Whistling and thundering, a snake-like wonder hurtled past them, packed both on the inside and on top with infidels shouting and waving their hands. "The End of the World!" thought both Mahmud-Hodja the Sunni and Djebral the Shiite.' Set mainly in Uzbekistan between 1900 and 1980, "The Railway" introduces to us the inhabitants of the small town of Gilas on the ancient Silk Route.

Adult non-fiction: Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid (£30, but £20 at The Book Case while stocks last)
At the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter writing as 'excellent training for conversation with the world', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of a life at once resolutely private but intensely attuned to other lives (including both adults and children): a life pared down to essentials and yet eventful, peripatetic, at times publicly controversial.

Children's book: Snakehead - Anthony Horowitz (£12.99) The teenage spy Alex Rider enters the violent criminal underworld of the Snakeheads. A new breathtaking adventure from this most popular children’s writer Age: 10+

CD: Handel's Messiah (1751 Version) (£10.99 for two CDs). From Naxos. Handel’s most popular and joyous oratorio, a work of unfailing melodic invention and dramatic expressiveness, has become almost a British national institution.

Price Promotions

See above for our Christmas catalogue promotion, and our £10-off Ted Hughes offer!

We still have a few of the following Bloomsbury 21 Great Reads for the 21st Century at £2 off.

Cat's Eye - Atwood; Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - Biskind; English Patient - Ondaatje; Frankie & Stankie - Trapido, Fugitive Pieces - Michaels; Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone - Rowlings; Holes - Sachar; If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things - McGregor; Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Clarke; Kite Runner - Hosseini; Little Friend - Tartt; Map Of Love - Soueif; Marrying The Mistress - Trollope; Middlesex - Eugenides; Prayer For Owen Meany - Irving; Snow Falling On Cedars - Guterson

NEWS

Local Interest

Looping the Loop DVD and video - Peter Thornton and Ray Riches, £12.99
A journey on the Mary Towneley Loop in the South Pennines, a 48-mile circular spur off the Pennine Bridleway. Using ancient packhorse trails and bridleways, it visits hidden villages and hamlets, taking you through spectacular scenery, across wild moorland and into green wooded valleys. 78 mins.

Lost Railways of South and West Yorkshire - Gordon Suggitt (£10.99)
The story of the railway age in South and West Yorkshire, beginning in 1755. Includes Bradford and Oxenhope.

Calder Valley Offcuts

These pamphlets are based on Leslie Goldthorp's historical lectures in the 1970s, transcribed by Mrs Irene Mallinson, and are £2.50 each unless otherwise stated. The following titles are now available, £2.50 unless otherwise stated, with one to come.

1. The Normans and Medieval Times in the Calder Valley
2. Law & Order: Constables, Punishments and Prison

3. Overseers of the Poor - Paupers, Doctoring, Apprentices, Bastards and Workhouses; & Churchwardens

4. Overseers of Highways - Roads and Turnpikes

5. John Wesley's visits to the area (£1.50)

6. The Cragg Vale Coiners

7. The Rochdale Canal and the Coming of the Railway

8. Conditions in the Textile Factories in 1833, Part 1

9. "Tyrants and Hypocrites" - the local fight against child labour (Conditions in the Textile Factories Part 2); Interview with a Handloom Weaver; the Typhus Epidemic in Heptonstall Slack 1843-4.

Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid (£20 at The Book Case while stocks last)
Ted Hughes's letters from the age of 17, being read on Radio 4 throughout this week.

Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual - ed. Kathleen Connors; Sally Bayley (£25)

A side of Sylvia Plath that is scarcely known: her serious involvement in the visual arts from a very early age. She moved between art-making and writing constantly, integrating their elements with ease and pleasure. It was only at the age of 20 that she decided to leave fine art behind her as her chosen career, and opt for the written word. Eye Rhymes presents a magnificent range of Plath's art, most of it seen in print for the first time: childhood sketches, illustrated diaries, portraits, rich modernist and expressionist paintings, fashion images, photographs, and more.

National Book Events

The Daily Mail Book Club

November's Book of the Month is No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside (£7.99). Too young to get whisked away by a Stannah Stairlift, or to enjoy the luxury of a walk-in bath (but not so much that she doesn't enjoy comfortable shoes), Marie is all the same getting on in years - and she's thrilled about it. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

December: Clever Girl by Brian Thompson (£7.99)

Booker Prize Winner

The Gathering by Anne Enright (£10.99 at The Book Case). The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968.

NEW TITLES

Hardback fiction in October includes Jane Gardam, Nadine Gordimer, Ali Smith, Elina Hirvonen and Maria Tatar's new annotated version of Hans Christian Anderson. Things are quiet in paperback fiction this month but we have Setterfield, Carvalho, Baldacci, McCaffrey, Steel and Francome, with reissues including Dickens and Dumas.

Non-fiction:

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm#Forthcoming
E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.

LITERARY QUIZ: this month (for Hallowe'en) it's on Spiders in literature To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

For the full answers to last month's quiz, on Eyes in Mirrors in literature, click here.

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The community has been sorry to hear of the death of Hebden Bridge writer and teacher Elaine Connell on 1st October after a long illness which she met with her characteristic humour and obstinacy. Elaine was a co-founder of the Hebden Bridge web and probably the UK's leading authority on Sylvia Plath. Testimonies and details of her funeral can be found on the Hebweb at http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/

This month our local publishing highlight is Gertrude Attwood's fascinating memoir of of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in the 1920s and '30s: A Village Childhood, published by Milltown Memories. See below for details.

As its contribution to the town anti-plastic-bags campaign, The Book Case is offering its splendid, capacious, long-handled cotton eco-bag free with purchases over £20 as an alternative to the usual £1 book voucher throughout October. Thereafter we will charge £1.50, which is a bit less than cost. Like other shops, we also have corn-starch biobags available at 5p.

On our comments board, customers have recorded ENJOYING Diana Wynne Jones's Year of the Griffin, Elizabeth Gaskell's Sylvia's Lovers, Arthur Ransome's Great Northern?, Christopher Priest's Prestige, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, James Robertson's Gideon Mack, Ruth Padel's Tigers in Red Weather, all Lee Child's books, Tove Jansson's Fair Play, Mavis Cheek's Sex Life of My Aunt and Jane Tomalin's Time-torn Man (about Hardy). NOT being enjoyed were Drowned World (Ballard) and Tobias Hill's Cryptographer - but someone else had really liked it!

As well as lots of wonderful calendars, and some very high-class Christmas cards (unobtrusively as yet) on display, we now have the colourful We'Moon Diary 2008 on the theme of Mending the Web - and a posh Bodleian Library Advent Calendar featuring old-fashioned gold-encrusted book covers at £6.00. We don't know what is behind the "doors" ...

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book.

Adult fiction: The Good Companions - J B Priestley (£14.99 at The Book Case). A new hardback edition of this 1929 classic, including biographical details, images and information on the music hall scene of the 1920s. Three unhappy characters flee from their old lives to seek adventure on the open road and find themselves in a broken-down theatrical touring company.

Adult non-fiction: I Think the Nurses are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith - ed. Warren Lakin (£8.99) A collection of her material from her early stand-up to her radio days.

Children's book: Stuff of Nightmares - Malorie Blackman (£12.99) A fantastic spine-tingling read for older readers from the outstanding Malorie Blackman. Kyle has always been afraid of things, especially dying. But when he gets on the train that is taking him and his class on a school trip, he has no idea how close to death he is going to come. Age: 12+ yrs

CD: The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett (£12.99) It was the corgis' fault. When they strayed through the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the Queen discovered the City of Westminster travelling library. Double CD, 2h30m.

Price Promotion

The 3-for-2 Summer Reads are being phased out - you'll still find a few on the shelves - and have been replaced with a while-stocks-last £2-off on the following Bloomsbury Great Reads:

Cats Eye - Atwood
Easy Riders Raging Bulls - Biskind
English Patient - Ondaatje
Frankie & Stankie - Trapido
Fugitive Pieces - Michaels
Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone - Rowlings
Holes - Sachar
If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things - McGregor
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Clarke
Kite Runner - Hosseini
Little Friend - Tartt
Map Of Love - Soueif
Marrying The Mistress - Trollope
Middlesex - Eugenides
Prayer For Owen Meany - Irving
Snow Falling On Cedars - Guterson

We ALSO have another great selection of books - including the likes of Kate Adie and Philippa Gregory - and a wide range of Mind-Body-Spirit books - at silly prices, while stocks last!

In the children's section, we have a Ladybird promotion with 3 for 2, including fairytales, phonics and non-fiction titles.

NEWS

Local Interest

A Village Childhood - Gertrude M. Attwood, nee Ogden (£12)
A personal recollection of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in the 1920s and '30s. Gertrude looks back at those early years and describes how they influenced her life. Well illustrated, with lots of fascinating detail about everyday life.

Local Authors

Hebden Bridge author Mark Hodkinson has been shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year with his book Believe in the Sign, about his devotion to Rochdale FC. In stock, £9.99.

The Deafening Sound of Silent Tears: the Story of Caring for Life - Juliet Barker, £8.99

From the renowned local historian and biographer, a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Leeds-based charity Caring for Life, who help vulnerable young adults make a new start.

Over the Land - John Killick (£10)
Hebden Bridge-based John Killick is best known for his work on communication with people with dementia and has broadcast on BBC Radio. This collection contains 23 poems inspired by the Scottish landscape with images from pastel drawings and oil paintings by a young Edinburgh artist, Alison McGill. Exclusively available in Hebden Bridge from The Book Case, and post free.

I Did a Bad Thing - Linda Green
From a local author and featured at Hebden Bridge Arts Festival. Sarah Roberts used to be good. Then she did something very bad. Now, years later, she's living a good life, until Nick reappears. And suddenly, what's good and bad aren't so clear to Sarah any more. (£6.99)

Local Publishers

Gardening with Tortoises - P D Aspy (£9.99)

From Hebden Bridge publishers Bluemoose, nature, naturism and naturalism in Europe - a selection of letters from Pippa to her sister, as she moves from Devon to France to Spain with an entourage of husband, tortoises, parrots and plants!

National Book Events

The Daily Mail Book Club

October's Book of the Month is Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (£7.99). An idyll of the English countryside: a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days? The Ukrainians. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

Booker Prize Shortlist

Darkmans by Nicola Barker (£17.99)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (£12.99),
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (£14.99),
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (£10.99 at The Book Case)
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (£10.99 at The Book Case) and
Animal's People by Indra Sinha (£11.99).

We're keeping Chesil Beach and Mr Pip (the two favourites) in stock and can order the others overnight usually. Winner to be announced 16 October.

NEW TITLES

Hardback fiction in October includes Alexander McCall Smith, Nick Hornby (teenage actually), John Mortimer and The Tain in a new version; and amongst paperback fiction we have Sebastian Faulks, Martin Amis, Irene Nemirovsky, Marina Lewycka, Charles Frazier, Douglas Coupland and Sarah Maitland amongst others, with reissues including J B Priestley, Bulgakov, Barbara Trapido and Susan Hill.

Non-fiction:

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm#Forthcoming
E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.

LITERARY QUIZ: this month it's on Eyes in Mirrors in literature To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

For the full answers to last month's quiz, on Monkeys in literature, click here.

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What you've been buying: SEPTEMBER 2007 BESTSELLERS at The Book Case

Yorkshire and the Calder Valley are flavour of the month again! Sales of local history titles and guides to walks have been high with six titles in the top ten at The Book Case. Two novels and two 2008 diaries made up the remainder.

1. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. A reprint of the exciting 1968 children’s classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners from the well-loved Halifax novelist. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

2. Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon, £12.99. From the well-known local journalist, a collection of remarkable women with Yorkshire connections - ranging from Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to Mary Newall of the Cragg Vale Coiners. Nicely presented and well illustrated.

3. A Village Childhood - Gertrude M. Attwood, nee Ogden, £12. A personal recollection of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in the 1920s and '30s. Gertrude looks back at those early years and describes how they influenced her life. Sumptuously illustrated, with lots of fascinating detail about everyday life.

4. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95. A pungent account of the conditions of textile workers around West Yorkshire in 1849, published by Royd Press at The Book Case - still selling briskly.

5. Atonement - Ian McEwan, £7.99. Multi-layered novel stretching from a 1935 country house to Dunkirk and beyond; an exploration of shame and forgiveness, of atonement and the difficulty of absolution. Now a film.

6. Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon, £7.99. Again! A disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. From the author of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'.

7. Walking Country: Calderdale - Paul Hannon, £5.99. 25 local walks, compact format, full details, maps and line drawings.

8. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.00. Popular locally-published collection of 24 walks in the Upper Calder Valley.

9. Moleskine Pocket Diary, 2008, £10.99. All this high-quality range of diaries, notebooks and sketchbooks sell well - this is the current leader.

10. We’Moon Diary 2008: Gaia Rhythms for Womyn, £15.99. The new edition of this popular and colourful astrological moon calendar and datebook is on the theme of "Mending the Web".

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop,

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Just into stock is a new book of poetry from John Killick - Over the Land, with illustrations by Alison McGill.

John Killick is perhaps best known for his work on communication with people with dementia – work which has resulted in presentations in a number of countries, broadcasts on the BBC’s Radio Three and Four and the World Service, and numerous articles and books. Amongst the latter are the two high-selling poetry collections You are Words and Openings.

His latest publication, however, returns to his first love, poetry, which comes from his own imagination and word-store. Over the Land contains 23 poems inspired by the Scottish landscape with images from pastel drawings and oil paintings by a young Edinburgh artist, Alison McGill. Alison is only 31 but she has already had three one-woman exhibitions at Edinburgh’s prestigious Scottish Gallery. John first saw her work there and was deeply impressed, so much so that he proposed writing a sequence of poems in parallel with some of her landscapes. This has proved a genuine partnership, and this volume is a first collaboration.

John comments on Alison’s work "She paints the skin of the land, and in her best pictures gets beneath the skin and shows us the bones too. Many of her paintings look as if she has been up in a plane to sketch and photograph what she sees. The first thing that strikes you when you look at one of Alison’s works is the colour: they are vibrant, and draw you in to confront the geology and the vegetation that clothes the contours. I’ve tried to match these qualities in my verses, as in the lines:

The spirit is launched on thermals,
surrenders to the swirl
of pigment, the birl of space."

‘Over the Land’ is published by Fisherrow, a new imprint launched with this publication. The book is exclusively available in Hebden Bridge from The Book Case, price £10. The book is available post free. Telephone 01422-845353 for details.

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NEW MAGAZINES

Also new into stock is the independent peace journal, Peace News, now relaunched as a newspaper with colour illustrations, monthly, price £1.00. Launched in 1936 but right up to date with coverage of Iraq, Palestine, global warming, Jordan, Islamic environmentalism and non-violent action, it's full of interesting news items, interviews and articles.

AND on a customer's recommendation, we are trying the magazine The Mother, bi-monthly, £3.50. Birth and bonding -"uncompromisingly holistic"! This issue covers breastfeeding, waterbirth, TV-free living, living in community, and much more.

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The Book Case is rather chuffed to be the subject of a full-page article in the Bookseller of 7th September. It covers our publishing initiative and the Harry Potter midnight party, and concludes, "The community is at the heart of the Book Case, and the shop is at the heart of its community." We're always grateful for your support! The article is on display in the shop.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop

SEPTEMBER 2007

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

It's been a busy month because of the amazing reaction from Huddersfield to our first published book - Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - a reprint of pungent 1849 newspaper reports on local textile workers' conditions. The Huddersfield Examiner gave it a very nice full-page review and the phone hasn't stopped ringing since. Our first reprint is now in. The Batley News also reported with enthusiasm on the ghastly appearance of female Batley shoddy workers under the heading "A Filthy Story". We are waiting hopefully for reviews from Halifax, Bradford and Leeds - Reach is just as graphic about their textile workers!

We're also very excited about our first Phyllis Bentley title, now in stock - an exciting and well-written story about a boy who unwittingly gets involved with the Cragg Vale Coiners. The book's called Gold Pieces and costs £5.95. We only have the rights for five years so grab it while you can; it's well worth a read and although written for children, goes down equally well with adults - Phyllis Bentley of course knows her local history (she makes the development of the textile industry real and fascinating) and her local geography - spot all the local places as you read! It was first published in 1968 and was later reprinted by Puffin. There are two more "Tales from the Tops" in the pipeline - one about the Luddites and one about an 18-century weaver's apprentice who solves a crime.

On our comments board, people report enjoying Peter Rex's English Resistance (to the Normans), Diana Wynne Jones's Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin, Nicholas Evans' Horse Whisperers, Markus Zusak's Book Thief, Fanny Trollope's Jessie Phillips (good on the effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act), Philippa Gregory's Boleyn Inheritance, anything by Jasper Fforde ("great fun!"), Que es la globalizacion (no author given) and Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More than You. The only complaint is about Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans.

A reminder that we have many of our great selection of 2008 calendars now in stock and they're selling. A lot of them will not be restockable when gone. You have been warned!

8th September marks International Literacy Day and a good way to help is to join the Reverse Book Club where you pay £5 a month for four books to be sent to readers of all ages in Africa and beyond.

If you do not wish to receive this monthly mailing, please click on Reply and type CANCEL in the Subject box.)

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book.

Adult fiction: The Ruby in Her Navel - Barry Unsworth (7.99). The Court of King Roger in 12th-century Sicily simmers with the volatile passions of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Latins and Greeks. Among them, a young Norman finds employment under Yusuf, a Muslim who holds the Christian king's purse strings. Barry Unsworth is known for the depth and realism of his historical fiction.

Adult non-fiction: Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon (£12.99). From the well-known local journalist, a collection of remarkable women with Yorkshire connections - ranging from Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to Mary Newall of the Cragg Vale Coiners. Nicely presented and well illustrated.

Children's book: Outcast - Michelle Paver. Eagerly awaited fourth book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. Torak now faces his fourth adventure in his quest to vanquish the terrifying Soul-Eaters and finds himself cut off from his clan and even from Wolf and Renn. The combination of Paver's meticulous research into prehistory and her storytelling skill have made this series an undoubted hit with readers Ages: 10+yrs. (£9.99)

And also of course, Phyllis Bentley's "Gold Pieces" about the Cragg Vale Coiners! A must for every local child. Hilltop handloom weaver's son Dick Wade is pleased to find a boy of his own age to play with, but is he a true friend? Whose is the injured dog found on the moors? And who is flooding the area with clipped and forged coins, bringing the London authorities in with their questions and house searches? (£5.99)

CD: An Introduction to Ralph Vaughan Williams (£6.99). From Chandos - Overture to "The Wasps", Fantasia on "Greensleeves", "The Lark Ascending" and "A London Symphony". Total time 78 mins.

See below also for a new venture, antiquarian Yorkshire Books on CD-rom.

Price Promotion

You all seem to like our 3-for-2 Summer Reads selection so much, we're keeping it running for the moment. It's a choice of our previous bestsellers, fiction and non-fiction, and can be found on our centre table.

In the children's section, we have six Malory Towers titles by Enid Blyton with strange Manga covers (why?) for £2.99 each, and a range of Tony Ross's Little Princess not wanting to do things at £1.99 each. Hurry if you want to take advantage of the 2-for-1 Lemony Snicket promotion - there aren't many left!

NEWS

Local Interest

Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley (£5)

Colour-illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alternative Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area. 48pp, colour and b-&-w illustrations, nicely produced.

plus CD-Rom (£3) and DVD (£4) to accompany the above - 17 mins of a well-presented visual journey through the Colden Valley tracing the existence of water-powered mills as seen through past and present-day photographs, which merge into each other. Produced by Jim Strom and narrated by Ursula Holden-Gill. 50p off the price when combined with a book.

Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents: the Yorkshire textile districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£6.95)
An eyewitness account of textile workers' conditions in Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds in 1849 by a Scottish investigative journalist.

Antiquarian Yorkshire Books on CD-rom

A new venture - a selection of Colin Hinson's CD-roms which contain rare and expensive antiquarian books of local interest. He says you must be sure to press the button in the middle to get them out of the case! We have the following in stock and can order others:

"The History and Antiquities of Halifax", "Ancient Halls in and Around Halifax" and "Halifax Courier's Almanack 1937" - 3 books on one CDrom - Rev. John Watson, Arthur Comfort and Halifax Courier - £15
"Todmorden" 4 books on one CDrom - John Travis - £12
"The Yorkshire Coiners & Old and Pre Historic Halifax" - H. Ling Roth - £12
"The Northowram Nonconformist register", "Oliver Heywood's Diaries" (4 Volumes) and "Northowram, its History and Antiquities" - 6 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner and Mark Pearson - £20
"The History of Brighouse, Rastrick and Hipperholme" and "Independency at Brighouse" - 2 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner - £15
"Halifax, Families and Worthies", "History of Halifax" and "Halifax Guardian Almanack, 1908" - 3 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner, John Crabtree and Halifax Guardian - £15

Local Authors

Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon (£12.99) - now in stock!
Our Non-fiction Book of the Month - see above.

National Book Events

Richard and Judy Summer Reads

Now finished, and they're not the draw they used to be. Is this to do with the phone-in scandals? The bestseller amongst them was the first one, Kim Edwards' Memory Keeper's Daughter.

The Daily Mail Book Club

September's Book of the Month is Over by Margaret Forster (£7.99). The summer of 1911 was one of the high sunlit meadows of English history, but on the horizon lurked a gathering storm. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

Future titles:

October – Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (Penguin)

Booker Prize Longlist

This was announced in early August and can be found here. Ian McEwan's Chesil Beach is selling well and we can order the others on request but are remaining cautious as sales in hardback of little-known authors are not encouraging. The shortlist is due on 6th September and we'll keep an eye open for signs of interest.

NEW TITLES

Autumn is nearly upon us and the seasonal lists are walloping in. In hardback fiction in September we have Alan Bennett, Jeanette Winterson and a Jack Kerouac, and paperback fiction includes Margaret Atwood, Barry Unsworth, Alice Munro, Thomas Pynchon, Conn Iggulden, Howard Jacobson, Jodi Picoult, Paul Auster, Susanna Clarke and Terry Pratchett amongst others, with reissues of Biggles and Janet and John.

Non-fiction:

Martin Parr, woodwork, bags, tea-cosies and toilet-rollholders (sorry) in Art and Craft
Thomas Bewick, E. Nesbit, Kipling, MacNeice, Betjeman, Hunter S Thompson, David Blunkett, truckers, Doris Stokes, V S Naipaul, Blake Morrison and a runaway Asian girl in Biography
ethnic cleansing in Palestine, royalty, the occupation in Iraq and global slums in Current affairs and politics
being green, especially with babies in Environment
head gardeners and poultry in Gardening and husbandry
migration, world history, British blood, Xenophon, Ann Hathaway, steam, railways, dancing before Waterloo and WWII reprints for British troops in Germany, German invaders of England and American troops in Iraq in History
exit strategies, Giles, aunts, dangerous boys, Beadle's brainteasers, Pam Ayres, Ladies of Letters and an early Dr Seuss in Humour, Games and Quizzes
feeding well on limited time and resources in Lifestyle
the creative spirit, the enneagram, angels, water, John Humphrys being agnostic, Freud, postmodernism, feminism, psychology, personality and women spiritual teachers in MBS
the Royal Exchange, Penguin covers and banned books in Media
birds, mountains and mushrooms in Nature
ecopoems, Anne Stevenson, Stephen Fry and cats in Poetry
lots of new guides, including the Good Food Guide, and Michael Palin, Howard Marks, Wainwright and online eco-tourism in Travel
and a tiger, a rabbit, elephants, the 4th Chronicle of Ancient Darkness and the 2nd in the Noble Warriors trilogy in Children's books

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm#Forthcoming
E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.

LITERARY QUIZ: this month it's on Monkeys in literature To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

For the full answers to last month's quiz, on Fire in literature, click here.

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What you've been buying: AUGUST 2007 BESTSELLERS at The Book Case

The five "local interest" books in The Book Case’s bestsellers in August included two from our own stable, with folktales, watermills and walks making up the rest. Three of our promoted novels were especially popular, one classic children’s book sold well, and customers were still intrigued by the little 1913 marital harmony books.

1. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95. A pungent account of the conditions of textile workers around West Yorkshire in 1849. Our first publication as Royd Press has been racing off the shelves!

2. Folktales from Calderdale Vol. 1 - John Billingsley, £7.50. Another month near the top for local folktales. The Witches of Eagle Crag, the Cliviger Boggart, the Bride Stones, the Eve Stone, Stoodley Pike, Great Rock, Tom Bell's Cave, the Miller's Grave and Churn Milk Joan are included.

3. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, £7.99. Holding third position. In the context of the 1960s Nigerian civil war, a young houseboy, a university lecturer and her professor lover, a shy Englishman and the lecturer’s sister are pulled apart and thrown together. This year’s Orange Prize winner and a 3/2 choice.

4. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley, £5. Colour-illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alternative Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area. 48pp, colour and b-&-w illustrations, nicely produced. Now accompanied by a DVD and CD-rom.

5. Don’ts for Wives, £2.99. An entertaining little book from 1913 full of good advice for a harmonious relationship. There’s another one for husbands!

6. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.00. Popular collection of 24 walks in the Upper Calder Valley, holding sixth position.

7. Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon, £7.99. Another 3/2 choice holding the same position as last month. A disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. From the author of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'.

8. Silver Sword - Ian Serrailier, £4.99. Alone and fending for themselves in a Poland devastated by World War Two, Jan and his three homeless friends cling to the silver sword as a symbol of hope. As they travel through Europe towards Switzerland, where they believe they will be reunited with their parents, they encounter many hardships and dangers.

9. Calder Valley Offcuts Series, £2.50. This series of pamphlets produced by Royd Press on various aspects of local history since Norman times has been selling well.

10. Black Swan Green - David Mitchell, £7.99. Charts thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and adolescence, set against the sunset of an agrarian England still overshadowed by the Cold War. A 3/2 choice.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop,

The Book Case
29 Market Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 6EU
Telephone 01422-845353
Fax 01422-844295
email: bookcase@btinternet.com
url: www.bookcase.co.uk

"Please do not read whilst waiting for a train. Thank you for your cooperation."

- sign in Halifax station waiting room. (An explanation is close by, but you'll have to go to Halifax to find it.)

AUGUST 2007

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We're delighted to announce that our first book, Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents: the Yorkshire textile districts in 1849 is now available and on sale at The Book Case, at a price of £6.95.

The book is an eyewitness account of textile workers' conditions in Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds in 1849 by Scottish investigative journalist Angus Bethune Reach who toured the textile areas of the West Riding to report for the Morning Chronicle (which also published Mayhew’s famous London reports). He praised some employers (Holdsworth’s in Halifax - still in operation and making fabrics for road, rail and sea transport; Marshall’s in Leeds whose glass cupolas are the "fairy tents" of the title) but also found filth, squalor, extreme poverty, lethal working conditions and official apathy. His reports and the words of the people he spoke to bring to life how the glory days of the textile industry felt from the underside. A sample of his style: “The streets of Halifax are disgracefully neglected …reeking with stench and the worst sort of abomination."

The editor, historian Chris Aspin, is the author of the popular Shire Albums on The Wool Industry and The Cotton Industry, as well as a large illustrated work on the early cotton trade (The Water Spinners), histories of Helmshore and several collections of light-hearted poetry and prose which are now on sale in the shop. He also edited a companion piece by Reach on conditions in the textile districts around Manchester, which we'll be publishing soon.

The book's striking cover was designed by our Children's Buyer Kate Claughan.

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Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Well, the final Harry Potter was given a rousing welcome at the shop at one minute past midnight of 20th July when around 140 people packed the shop, some in fancy dress, with more out on the street! A fiendish quiz on the minutiae of the books kept people busy until the countdown. Thanks to Kate for her hard work in organising it and Peter (in a topper) for supplying the nibbles and drink. You can see photos in our window. We're now selling the book at £12.99, and you also get the usual 50p voucher. Congratulations to Hannah Hope-Collins for winning the Countdown to Harry Quiz! She gets a £10.00 Book Case voucher.

If you've already finished Deathly Hallows and are having withdrawal symptoms, may we recommend the excellent and highly original Diana Wynne-Jones?

Our comments board has been rather squeezed out recently, but it's now back and people say they are enjoying Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger, Robert Westall's Machine Gunners, Made in Bradford edited by M Y Alam, Married by Anne Roiphe, Iris Murdoch's Good Apprentice, J G Ballard's short stories, A Twist in the Coyote's Tale by Celia M Gunn, Michael Morpurgo's Escape from Shangri-La - and of course, J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Not being enjoyed are Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Bash the Rich by Ian Bone and the Harry Potter books (didn't know we'd had Will Self in).

Sorry about the scaffolding all over the building - has to be done, and should be over in a couple of weeks.

If you do not wish to receive this monthly mailing, please click on Reply and type CANCEL in the Subject box.)

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book.

Adult fiction: The Road - Cormac McCarthy (7.99). A father and his son walk alone through burned America, heading through the ravaged landscape to the coast. "An exquisitely bleak incantation - pure poetic brimstone ... illuminated by extraordinary tenderness" - New York Times.

Adult non-fiction: Forgotten Household Crafts - John Seymour (£12.99). Rediscover the lost world of traditional household crafts with 'the grand master of self-sufficiency'. Master tried and trusted methods that have been honed over the centuries and learn to make butter and cheese, embroider, keep bees, decorate your home, and more.

Children's book: Woodenface - Gus Grenfell (£5.99). The author is aka ex-Hebden Bridge resident Gus Smith. Meg is a Maker, pouring life into the wooden dolls she carves. Accused of witchcraft, she flees to Halifax, only to find her father in jail, facing death by the gibbet. Desperate to save him, she must first learn what being a Maker really means. Local history and folklore combine in a compelling debut novel full of magic and suspense. Ages: 9-12 yrs

CD: The Kraken Wakes - John Wyndham (£12.99) A 90-minute full-cast radio dramatisation of the classic sci-fi novel. Widespread flooding and social and political collapse follow an alien invasion. Also available is The Day of the Triffids in a 1968 recording (£15.99)

Price Promotion

Our Summer 3-for-2 promotion will continue through the season and has proved very successful. This is your chance to catch up those books you've been meaning to read all year!

In the children's section, we are offering 2-for-1 on the first six of the gloomy Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events - read them at your peril!

Special bargains continue to be offered on selected MBS titles and assorted fiction and biography - have a look at our shelf above History and Biography!

NEWS

Local Interest

Curiosities of West Yorkshire - Robert Woodhouse (£12.99)
A guide to the remarkable and curious sites to be seen in West Yorkshire, including a few around our way.

Chelp and Chunter: how to talk Tyke - Ian McMillan (£5.99)

From the Brontes and James Herriot to the Arctic Monkeys, Yorkshire has a rich culture reflected in its dialect. Discover the origins of many well-known phrases and learn a few more!

Local Authors

Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon (£12.99)
From the well-known local journalist, a collection of remarkable women with Yorkshire connections - ranging from Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to Mary Newall of the Cragg Vale Coiners. Nicely presented and well illustrated - due in August.

The Scent Trail - Celia Lyttelton (£15)

“A Journey of the Senses.” A travel memoir and vividly-drawn portrait of today's exotic world of perfume. Entering the heady, exotic world of oils and essences at a bespoke perfumer’s, the author (who lives in Hebden Bridge) was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences and felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume.

Woodenface - Gus Grenfell (£5.99)
See our Children's Book of the Month, above.

National Book Events

Richard and Judy Summer Reads

We're continuing to display and sell these popular titles, and the promotion continues through most of August.

Wednesday 25th July 2007 - Salmon Fishing In The Yemen by Paul Torday
Follows fishery scientist Dr Alfred Jones's journey as he attempts to realise the dreams of a Yemeni Sheikh to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen.
Wednesday 1st August 2007 - Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon
After four years Helen’s boyfriend, Matthew leaves his wife, only to find she no longer wants him and is going to ridiculous lengths to get him back with his wife.
Wednesday 8th August 2007 - The Savage Garden by Mark Mills
Set in 1958, it follows a brilliant but lazy Cambridge student, Adam Strickland as he uncovers the mysteries of an Italian garden and the murderous secrets it hides.
Wednesday 15th August 2007 - How to talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper
30-something Doug Parker reclaims his life after the death of his wife. Moving and laugh-out-loud funny.
Wednesday 22nd August 2007 - The Other Side of The Bridge by Mary Lawson
A story set in rural Canada, dealing with war, families, love and dark secrets.

The Daily Mail Book Club

August's Book of the Month is The Perfect Summer by Juliet Nicholson (£7.99). The summer of 1911 was one of the high sunlit meadows of English history, but on the horizon lurked a gathering storm. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

Future titles:

September – Over by Margaret Forster

October – Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (Penguin)

NEW TITLES

There's a dearth of hardback fiction in August, but paperback fiction includes Margaret Drabble, John le Carre, Ben Okri, Peter Ackroyd, Alexander McCall Smith, Julie Walters, Ismail Kadare, Charles Frazier, Ruth Rendell and Frederick Forsyth amongst others, with Cormac McCarthy's Road already in stock. Reissued are a Marquez and a Margaret Irwin.

Non-fiction:

Monty Don, Leslie Phillips, Judy Marks and a sheep farmer in Biography
Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Al Qaeda, world-changing facts and sisterhood in Current affairs
the Spartans, Louis XIV and industrial revolutionaries in History
Pam Ayres, life's smaller challenges, pretentious postulations, strange inventions, and crazy crimes in Humour
the new Writers' Handbook, Children's Writers & Artists' Yearbook, Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature and infuriating phrases in Language and Literature
forgotten household crafts, organic homes, flatmates and how to survive them, ditto universities, helping children do well at school, children's parties, babies' names, 101 things to do in wartime (1940), a new Driving Manual and Highway Code and how to waste office supplies in Lifestyle
lunchbox letters, planting by the moon and astrological and cosmic wish diaries in MBS
a celebration of Radio 4 and a Rough Guide to Film in Media
children birdwatching in Nature
multicultural Britain and bats in Poetry
classical mythology, Deepak Chopra on the Buddha, the Koran and uncommon prayer in Religion and Mythology
outdoor girls (1915) and the Playfair football annual in Sport and Outdoor Activities
weird signs, dumb American laws, Daniel O’Donnell’s Ireland, seasons on Harris, Palestinian walks, new Lonely Planet and Rough Guides and the attractive new Michelin road atlases in Travel
Pomegranate 2008 calendars
and meerkats, goblins, accusations of witchcraft in Halifax and another scary Garth Nix in Children's books

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm#Forthcoming
E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.

LITERARY QUIZ: this month it's on Fire in literature To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

For the full answers to last month's quiz, on Breakfasts in literature, click here.

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What you've been buying: JULY 2007 BESTSELLERS at The Book Case

Harry Potter went through the roof at The Book Case in July, but local titles and "3 for 2" novels and biographies were still strong. Other popular books included advice for husbands in 1913 and prayers for peace.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J K Rowling, £12.99. No prizes for guessing what was top of the charts in July! Will there be anyone left to buy the paperback?

2. Folktales from Calderdale Vol. 1 - John Billingsley, £7.50. Nudged off top spot by the mighty Harry, but local folktales are still high. The Witches of Eagle Crag, the Cliviger Boggart, the Bride Stones, the Eve Stone, Stoodley Pike, Great Rock, Tom Bell's Cave, the Miller's Grave and Churn Milk Joan are included.

3. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, £7.99. Again a front runner. In the context of the 1960s Nigerian civil war, a young houseboy, a university lecturer and her professor lover, a shy Englishman and the lecturer’s sister are pulled apart and thrown together. This year’s Orange Prize winner and a 3/2 choice.

4. Pennine Perspectives - Midgley History Group, £18.00. Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated history of this ancient township.

5. Don’ts for Husbands, £2.99. An entertaining little book from 1913 full of good advice for a harmonious relationship. There’s another one for wives!

6. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.00. Popular collection of 24 walks in the Upper Calder Valley.

7. Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon, £7.99. A disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. From the author of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'. A 3/2 choice.

8. Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai, £7.99. In the north-eastern Himalayas, the life of an embittered old judge is complicated by the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook. A 3/2 choice and Booker Prize winner.

9. Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson, £7.99. Bill Bryson travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. A 3/2 choice.

10. Peace Prayers, £2.99. One of our bargain MBS titles - a collection of meditations, affirmations, invocations, poems and prayers for peace.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop,

The Book Case
29 Market Street, Hebden Bridge HX7 6EU
Telephone 01422-845353
Fax 01422-844295
email: bookcase@btinternet.com
url: www.bookcase.co.uk

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

JULY 2007

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

It's an eventful month coming up, with not only the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, but also the new and final Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - on 21st July.

So as not to keep you in suspense a moment more than necessary, there will be the opportunity of finding out at "What Happens to Harry" at midnight! - the Book Case will open at 11.30pm on Friday 20th July for the countdown to midnight when the first box of the new Harry Potter can be opened and the first copies will be handed out to customers. The book is embargoed until then. For the customers who have ordered the book in advance there will be celebratory drinks and refreshments, prizes for the best Harry Potter fancy dress costumes and entertainments until 12.30am.

We'll open early again at 8.00am on Saturday 21st July specially for customers who have ordered the book in advance.

We're also running a Countdown to Harry Quiz. Guess the answers to 3 questions about the plot of the new book and the person with the answers judged to be the most correct will receive a £10.00 Book Case voucher. Answers must be received by The Book Case no later than 11.59pm on Friday 20th July. The answers will be judged no later than Saturday 28th July and the winner notified by phone or email. If there is more than one set of correct answers, the winner will be chosen in a draw.

Advance orders are available at £10.99 at The Book Case. RRP is £17.99. The normal Book Case price will be £12.99.

Hebden Bridge Arts Festival:

Malorie Blackman talked to a full audience at the Picture House on 30th June about her Noughts and Crosses series (about to be staged) and her anthology on slavery, "Unheard Voices". The first Ted Hughes Festival was a great success and the Calder High event with Yorkshire poet and novelist Simon Armitage was packed out - see our Bestsellers list!

Other literary events in the Festival so far include Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth", poems by Clare Shaw, Tony Curtis and Carola Luther, and Clive Stafford Smith's talk on his book "Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons". Yet to come are Louis MacNeice, Beowulf, local author Linda Green, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Lucy Popescu's voices-of-conscience anthology "Another Sky", and a Harry Potter parody. More info at the Festival website - http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/festival/2007/index.html

Currently, according to the board on the centre table, our customers are enjoying Chandler's Big Sleep, le Guin's Gifts, Maggie Gee's The Blue, Golding's Close Quarters, Carey's Theft, Amis's Experience, Le Carre's Absolute Friends, James Wilson's Bastard Boy, Bacharach by Michael Brocken, Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones and Conversations with God by Walsch. This month the only complaint is about someone's mother-in-law ... Keep us posted (though not necessarily about the mother-in-law).

Congratulations to ex-Book Case worker Pauline Stephenson whose wry poem on a particularly uninspiring Muse won an award in the WEA's "Create '07" festival.

And farewell and a very happy retirement to Steve Hirst who has been keeping our windows sparkling for decades!

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and non-fiction and a children's book.

Adult fiction: Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra: 947-page epic from the masterly Indian-born novelist, set in Mumbai, where a fading Sikh police inspector confronts the most wanted gangster in India. Compared to the classics of nineteenth-century fiction. (£7.99)

Adult non-fiction: Pennine Perspectives: Aspects of the History of Midgley: see below for details of this major new local history hardback. (£18)

Children's book: Starring Tracy Beaker - Jacqueline Wilson. Tracy Beaker is desperate for a role in her school play. They're performing 'A Christmas Carol' and for one worrying moment, the irrepressible Tracy thinks she might not even get to play one of the unnamed street urchins. But then she is cast in the main role. Can she manage to act grumpy, difficult and sulky enough to play Ebenezer Scrooge? Ages: 8+ yrs.(£5.99)

CD: Best of British - a two-CD set of Stirring Music by the the Best of British Composers. Includes Elgar, Bridge, Rubbra, Arnold, Britten, Walton, Holst, Parry, Vaughan Williams, Stanford, Elgar, Bax, Ireland, Stainer, Finzi, Rutter, Tavener, Harty and Delius. (£10.99)

DVDs: Rivers and Tides - Andy Goldsworthy: Working with Time. Shot in four countries across four seasons, and show the sculptor's painstaking creative process and the elusive quality of his intricate and often ephemeral works. (£19.99)

Into Great Silence - A Meditation on Life; a Contemplation of Time; Silence, Repetition, Rhythm. A two-CD Collector's Edition of Philip Groning's documentary on monastic life in the Grande Chartreuse, almost silent except for the chants in the monastery. The viewer is invited to watch the films as part of a meditative experience. 162 mins. (£22.99)

A Prairie Home Companion - as seen at Hebden Bridge Picture House, Robert Altman's final, quirky and highly enjoyable film. (£15.99)

Price Promotion

Our Summer 3-for-2 promotion will continue through the season and has proved very successful. This is your chance to catch up those books you've been meaning to read all year!

NEWS

Local Interest

Pennine Perspectives: Aspects of the History of Midgley - Midgley History Group, ed. Ian Bailey, David Cant, Alan Petford and Nigel Smith (£18)

Launched at Midgley Pageant on 30th June, and two-and-a-half years in preparation, this magnificent book covers many aspects of Midgley’s past, from pre-history, through to medieval times, the Victorian era and the early twentieth century. Topics include religion, railways, Murgatroyds’, quarrying, farming, self-help, housing, pubs, leisure, riots, geology and folklore. The whole of the ancient township of Midgley is covered, including Midgley Moor, Luddenden, Luddenden Foot and Mytholmroyd as well as the village. It has 352 pages, hardback with over 160 illustrations of photos (including colour), maps & archive documents.

A Laureate's Landscape: walks around Ted Hughes's Mytholmroyd - John Billingsley (£4.50)
Engrossing and informative illustrated booklet that takes us around the area in which the ex-Poet Laureate grew up and which inspired some of his most memorable work. The relevant poems are referred to (but not quoted! - the copyright is closely guarded) in the text. Local historian John Billingsley has led many Ted Hughes walks around Mytholmroyd, and here is a permanent memento - or a good substitute if you are unable to take part.

The Bronte Connection - Ann Dinsdale (£6.95)

From the Collections Manager at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, a collection of 43 photographs associated with the Brontes' lives and works, with dates and information.

A Guide to the Historic Haworth & the Brontes - Mark Ward, Ann Dinsdale and Robert Swindells (£5.99)

A new edition of an entertaining and informative guide to Haworth and the surrounding moor, written as a series of four walks with illustrations and lots of historical information.

Romantic Wycoller: a haunt of the Brontes - E W Folley, photographs Charles Green (£2.99)

At a special price, a facsimile reprint of a book first published in 1949. Covers the history of Wy

NEWSLETTERS OF 2007