Newsletters 2010

DECEMBER 2010

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Despite the snow and ice, darkness and recession, there's a lot going on::

We have a new book about Luddenden Foot published and available from tomorrow! - see below. Well-researched and written by local resident Sheena Ellwood with photos and explanatory maps, we think it will appeal to local people and newcomers alike - and may hold some surprises to those who speed through the village, vaguely puzzling at its giant buildings. You may have known Branwell Bronte was Station Master there but I bet most of you didn't realise the inventor of Briggian Logarithm Tables was from Luddenden Foot!

The Independent on Sunday featured our top ten recommendations for their Hit List on 21st November. Five of our great local authors, three novels, a book on inequality and a poetry book! There's a copy in our window for you to read.

As part of the Totally Locally Festive Fiver Fest we're offering three children’s classics - Railway Children, Treasure Island and Secret Garden - at a special price of £5.00 for the three, tied up with a nice red ribbon.

The HBBA's Festive Fandango is now under way - you get stickers for purchases from five different participating shops to win a prize of a stay at Moyle's. Bring in your card and buy something, and we'll give you a sticker! We also have a few cards if you need one.

Along with many other Market Street traders, The Book Case will be opening at additional times for Christmas shopping - Sundays 12.00-4.00 and Thursdays until 8.00pm.

The Book Case has joined The Campaign For Real Books aka CAMBO which hopes to ensure the survival of the paper book. They say: "Spending time and money in a good bookshop is one of life's greatest pleasures. By joining the Campaign For Real Books you can get 10% discounts on new and old books from your favourite independent bookshops simply by showing them your membership card. You'll also become part of a huge community of book lovers who will have a real say in the future of real books. Too many local shops have closed down." Find out more at http://www.campaignforrealbooks.org/ and collect an application form from the shop.

The Book Case Twitter account is now active. We're trying to remember to keep it updated when interesting new items come in or we hear some news - if we're lucky, it feeds over to Facebook. Find us @bookcasehebden.

Our usual splendid selection of original book-related Christmas gifts is now in stock, including literary dolls, Beano playing cards, Scrabble and Rob Ryan items, a glorious range of mugs (literary and just plain daft), word and art-themed fridge magnets and lots more.

Kate says: "The Book Case is really excited to be relaunching its Schools Reading Prize. Schools taking part are Stubbings, Heptonstall, Old Town, Colden, Riverside, Hebden Royd and Central Street. We leave it up to the discretion of the school to chose a winner of the award, whether for excellence, achievement or to reward effort in reading. The prize is awarded at the end of every term. There is a trophy, which the winning child keeps for the term, then passes to the next winner. We also provide a certificate for the child to keep and a prize of a £10 book token. At the same time we will be launching a children's newsletter called Book Buzz. This will be distributed through local schools, and the shop - so call in for a copy."

And thank you to Hebden's Junior Chess Club for a fab book review from Hebe, Robina and Suzy of Richard James's book Chess for Kids . Pop down to read it and buy the book - or not!

New in is the winter issue of Tykes' News, the popular Yorkshire folk mag, £1.50.

The Christmas issue of the free mag Booktime is also in stock, with new releases, children's books and Stephen Fry. Pay us a visit and pick up your copy - and we have two free books-for-Christmas catalogues too.

As well as a second Crow perched aloft (Hughes, Poe) and some flickering electric candles (winter festival of your choice), The Book Case now has Flying Quotes - a selection of our favourite quotations suspended above your head in the shop. We have to thank Carol for risking her fingers clamping them into the snaps and Kate for daring ladder-expertise in hanging them. They're by way of a small celebration of the power of the written word.

We have splendid new pictures of the Book Case Big Bag in faraway places this month from Tokyo (its furthest ever - thanks to Angela Hornby, Jessica Coupe and the wonderfully coiffed bystanders), Milan (thanks to Luke Spencer), Turkey (thanks to Catherine Putz) and Cologne (thanks, Amy). Click here to view the slideshow. Sadly, we've now run out of supplies - but there must be loads of bags out there if anyone feels inclined to get artistic and send us a pic of their Book Case bag somewhere interesting!

This month our Customer Opinions board shows people enjoying Dave Gahan's biography ("informative but not particularly well written"), Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" ("brilliant fantasy"), Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", Jo Shapcott's poetry and Peter Watson's "The German Genius" ("huge and enlightening"). Sorry to see people not enjoying Dickens, Tennyson and "Sense and Sensibility".

A reminder that you can find a mobile-friendly version of all the current news at The Book Case on our Words site.

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: Hand Me Down World - Lloyd Jones (£11.99). A multi-layered story of a woman’s search for a lost child across different countries, observed by others. From the internationally bestselling author of Mister Pip.

Adult non-fiction: You Can Stick It - P K Munroe (£12.99). Hundreds of subversive, surreal and daft stickers for today’s society, to cheer us all up!

Children's book: The Gruffalo Sound Book - Julia Donaldson (£12.99). Stomp, slither and scamper your way through the deep dark wood with this amazing play-along version of "The Gruffalo". Press the 10 interactive sound buttons and bring the nation's favourite bedtime story vividly to life!

CD: BBC Vintage Comedy: The Goons, Hancock, Take It from Here (£12.99 each). Four episodes from each of these classic comedy series of the 1950s.

NEWS

Local Interest

At the Foot of the Lud - a history of Luddenden Foot - Sheena Ellwood (£9.99)
Four and a half miles west of Halifax the Luddenden Brook, also known as the Lud, flows down past Luddenden to meet the River Calder at Luddenden Foot. The village at the foot of the Lud hardly existed before 1800 but in the nineteenth century, when the domestic system of textile manufacturing was replaced by the factory system, it grew as a workhorse of the industrial revolution. It had its own local government from 1868 until 1937. Only the footprints of many of the huge buildings remain but fifty years ago at Luddenden Foot there was a vibrant community. A Royd Press publication.

The Good Ship "Calder High" and other tales from the 1950s - Peter Thomas (£5.00)
Around 1950 an experimental establishment was set up at Mytholmroyd - along with a handful of others, it was a testing ground for a new concept in education: the comprehensive school. The author was one of the early guinea pigs, and reveals all, along with what else there was for youngsters to do in Hebden Bridge in a pre-TV age!

Around Calderdale: Calderdale and its people on the Calderdale Way [2 DVDs] - Ray Riches and Peter Thornton (£12.99 each, £19.99 for 2-pack with both)
Pathways’ latest creation uses the Calderdale Way to reveal the spectacular and varied landscape of Calderdale. The trail traces historic routes high on the valley sides on the circular route which takes in Todmorden, Heptonstall, Luddenden Dene, Shelf, Brighouse, West Vale, Ripponden, Cragg Vale and Stoodley Pike. Part 1, with Stoodley Pike on the cover, takes you from West Vale to Heptonstall; Part 2, with the Wainhouse Tower, from Heptonstall to West Vale. There’s a double pack with both DVDs.

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.

The Little Book of Yorkshire Humour, ed. Mark Whitley (Dalesman)(£2.50)
The Little Book of Yorkshire Dialect, ed. Arnold Kellett (Dalesman)(£2.50)
The Little Book of Yorkshire Humour, ed. Peter Kearney (Dalesman)(£2.50)
Yorkshire Crossword Book: v. 5 - Michael Curl (Dalesman)(£4.99)
The Book of Yorkshire Wordoku - Neil Somerville (Dalesman)(£4.99)
Nah Then!: Treasury of Yorkshire Dialect Quotations - ed. Ian Dewhirst (Dalesman)(£9.99)

Daft Yorkshire Customs: A Collection of Curious Customs, Weird Traditions and Barely Believable Pastimes - Ian McMillan, ill. Tony Husband (Dalesman) (£6.99)

Curious Tales from West Yorkshire - Howard Peach (£12.99)
A charming compendium of historical oddities, curious customs and strange events from across West Yorkshire. Civil War curiosities, tragic tales and hilarious happenings, 'tha couldna mak it up!'.

Ripponden and the Ryburn Valley - David Cliff (£12.99)

Local Authors

Recipes and Rascals: food and funny goings-on in Yorkshire - Sue Hiscoe (£16.95)
As reviewed in the Courier, a beautifully presented collection of recipes inspired by old customs from Calderdale and beyond (including Dock Pudding). Sue is a professional photographer based in Barkisland and her photos of the dishes and the local landscape are just stunning!

Journeys in Stitch - Gillian Travis (£14.95)
"Embroideries and quilts created following my jaunts" is how the Ripponden-based textile artist and teacher describes this colourful and beautifully photographed collection of textile creations inspired by her travels around Europe and the Baltic states, the USA and Morocco. A feast for the eyes!

No Space But Their Own: Poems About Birds - ed. Joy Howard (£8.00)
From Grey Hen Press of Keighley, new poems about a wide range of species of birds from a range of authors. Illustrated.

Cimmerian Garden - Nuala Fagan (£7.99)
From a native of Donegal now resident in Halifax, a wide-ranging collection of poems on themes of art, nature, myth, psychology and philosophy, with an introduction by poet Gaia Holmes

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

Hilary Mantel: wrote movingly and powerfully about her post-operation hospital experiences for The London Review of Books. There's an extract on the Guardian website at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/13/hilary-mantel-operation-hospital We all wish her well for her recovery.

Guardian First Book Award Winner

The winner is Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Virgina Woolf to John Piper, by Alexandra Harris: a confident case for the interest and importance of the English arts during the modern period. During the 1930s and 1940s, a rich network of cultural and personal encounters was the backdrop for a modern English renaissance, with English artists exploring what it meant to be alive at that moment and in England.(£19.95) We're waiting for it to be available again.

This year's proud winner of the Bad Sex Award is Rowan Somerville for "The Shape of Her". He commented: "There is nothing more English than bad sex, so on behalf of the entire nation, I thank you." You can read an extract at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/30/bad-sex-award, but we don't recommend it.

NEW TITLES

As usual, there are only a handful of new titles in December to tell you about. They include, in fiction, hardback novels from Lloyd Jones and Bernard Schlinck, and paperbacks from Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult, Kate Mosse and Paul Torday.

December's non-fiction (including late announcements) includes Keith Richards' autobiography, a sustainability tool kit, Neil MacGregor's mighty and fascinating History of the World, the creation of the Ordnance Survey map, the High Street in History, the Edwardian Farm and some Earth Magic cards. And a splendid new subversive sticker book from P K Munroe (our Non-Fiction Book of the Month).

Children's books include a noisy press-button Gruffalo book - guaranteed to enliven any Christmas!

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm

E-mail phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.
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What you've been buying: NOVEMBER's bestsellers at The Book Case

Christmas is coming - and it shows in The Book Case’s November bestseller. An attractive children’s item was popular, with six of our remaining top ten sellers being of local interest. Also selling well was an original approach to history, and the ever-popular We’moon Diary.

1. Another Night before Christmas - Carol Ann Duffy, ill. Rob Ryan (£4.99). A warm and witty modern reworking of the Victorian Christmas classic.
2. Animal Parade - Alison Jay (£9.99). A lovely set of six stackable or nestable boxes for small children, illustrated with bright cheerful animals in her signature crackle glaze style by Alison Jay.
3. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle (£6.95). A bit of a surprise considering the weather, but this book of local walks was a popular seller in November!
4. Around Calderdale: Calderdale and its people on the Calderdale Way 1 & 2 - Ray Riches and Peter Thornton (£19.99). A walk tracing historic routes high on the valley sides on the circular route that takes in most of Calderdale, from the Pathways team. This double DVD covers the whole circuit.
5. West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley (£9.99). Local historian John Billingsley's latest collection of West Yorkshire folklore, entertainingly told, with atmospheric line drawings by Heptonstall illustrator, Stan McCarthy.
6. 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 continued popular.
7. History of the World in 100 Objects - Neil MacGregor (£22.00 at The Book Case). The big book related to the brilliant Radio 4 series by the Director of the British Museum.
8. We’Moon Diary 2011 (£15.99). "Groundswell" is the theme of this colourful moon calendar and datebook for women this year.
9. Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle (£9.99). George Ingle’s entertaining talk to the Local History Society boosted sales of this account of the vanished mills of the Dales.
10. One Week in September - Calder VI students and teachers (£5.00). A collection of poetry and prose by Calder VI students and teachers, written at Lumb Bank, September 2009. Published with the help of Sweet and Maxwell in Mytholmroyd.

Best wishes and early Season's Greetings 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
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/

"I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx

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NOVEMBER 2010

Update 18th November: the latest Book Case news - local scenic DVDs, wintry cards, IOS Hitlist, new titles, late night opening, Totally Locally and Twitter

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We've just got in Ray Riches' and Peter Thornton's new DVDs on the Calderdale Way! Do the full spectacular circuit from your armchair:

Lovely new atmospheric and wintry cards of local scenes by award-winning photographer Nigel Hillier are now in stock - find them on the centre table. They include the wavy steps, Widdop reservoir, snow-bound sheep and horses and last year's stunning overview of the town in winter.

Look out for us this Sunday 21st Nov. in the Independent on Sunday's Hit List! - they asked us for ten recommendations.

Also new in: Recipes and Rascals: food and funny goings-on in Yorkshire - Sue Hiscoe, £16.95
As reviewed in the Courier and on the radio, a beautifully presented collection of recipes inspired by old customs from Calderdale and beyond (including Dock Pudding). Sue is a professional photographer based in Barkisland and her photos of the dishes and the local landscape are just stunning!

The Interrogative Mood - a novel? by Padgett Powell, £9.99. This little hardback book, recently discussed on Radio 4, consists entirely of questions - some so thought-provoking you'll soon find yourself in need of little lie-down or perhaps a nice cup of tea. Anyway, it works. (It has a man fighting a question mark instead of a title on the cover.)

Lots of new Yorkshire humour books from Dalesman - including the little £4.99 ones, Daft Yorkshire Customs and a Treasury of Yorkshire Dialect Quotations edited by Ian Dewhirst.

Late night Thursdays: Along with many other Market Street traders, The Book Case will be opening at additional times for Christmas shopping - Sundays from November 28th 12.00-4.00 and Thursdays from November 25th until 8.00pm.

As part of the Totally Locally Festive Fiver Fest we'll be offering three children’s classics - Railway Children, Treasure Island and Secret Garden - at a special price of £5.00 for the three, available from the first late-opening night, 25th November.

More details in our regular monthly newsletter - but in the meantime, keep an eye on our website and our Facebook page - and we're also now active on Twitter - look for bookcasehebden to see the latest news and comments.

UPDATE 8th November: George Ingle, Anne Lister, Moleskine Diaries and Luddenden Foot

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

George Ingle, whose talks are always very enjoyable, will be talking about his book "Textile Mills of the Yorkshire Dales" this Wednesday 10th November at 7.30pm at the Methodist Hall on Market Street in Hebden Bridge, near the Co-op. We have the book in stock, of course (£9.99), or you can get it on the night.

Helena Whitbread will be talking about her new edition of Anne Lister's diaries this Saturday 13 November 2pm at Shibden Hall. Booking essential: 01422 352246. We have the book in stock, price £9.99.

We have a much wider range of Moleskine Diaries now in stock - come and see!

And here's advance notice of a new history of Luddenden Foot we're just preparing for publication. Called At the Foot of the Lud, it's been thoroughly researched by the author, local resident Sheena Ellwood, is very readable, bringing the village back to life over the centuries, and has lots of photos and maps. We hope to have it out in the next few weeks.

November Newsletter

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

The Mytholmroyd-based Ted Hughes Festival, organised by the Elmet Trust, was a spellbinding occasion, this year on a theme of Myth and Legend - congratulations to the organisers!

Kevin Crossley-Holland did a superb job in his introduction of the young winners of the Ted Hughes Young Poets Award 2010, and also talked interestingly about and read from his own mythically-based work for children and adults. Local author Anna Chilvers talked about her novel Falling Through Clouds, loosely based on the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight; Fleur Adcock announced the winners of the Elmet Poetry Prize 2010 as well as reading from her own work; and Ted Hughes's lifelong friend the poet Daniel Huws gave many personal insights into Hughes's life and work, put the record straight about the newly discovered unfinished poem by Hughes, read some of his own poems, and sang some of the folksongs he and Ted used to enjoy at Cambridge. Other events included gnoming in the Nutclough with Ursula Holden-Gill, poetry with James Nash and a Ted Hughes Walk with film-maker Nick Wilding.

We have signed copies of books by Kevin Crossley-Holland (including his Arthurian trilogy for children), Fleur Adcock and Daniel Huws in stock.

The Book Case is supporting the work of The Elmet Trust by offering free membership to any customer who buys a book by or about Ted Hughes. We're also celebrating the poet's work with a Crow and a Fox now resident in the shop!

Out-of-print local interest books:

Such was the enthusiasm for our secondhand copies of some out-of-print books at the Ted Hughes Festival (see our bestsellers below!), we now have a shelf in the shop dedicated to books we consider of great local interest which are no longer in print. You'll find them on the shelf below the till.

There are more local literary causes for excitement this month: the internationally-acclaimed historian and local resident Juliet Barker has just brought out her new edition of The Brontes which is our November Non-Fiction Book of the Month. We have some signed copies in stock! Juliet Barker's landmark book was the first definitive history of the Brontes. It demolishes myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling - but true. Based on first-hand research among all the Bronte manuscripts, many so tiny they can only be read by magnifying glass, and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Bronte biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable. See below.

And this month will see a new Virago version of Helena Whitbread's edition of Anne Lister's diaries - Helena talked about the first edition of the book, "I Know My Own Heart", to a packed audience at the Carlton Hotel (now Carlton Chambers) back in 1988, at an event organised by The Book Case! We hope to be holding a similar event in the months to come. See below.

Congratulations to local author and poet John Siddique for his most moving contribution to Granta's magnificent issue on Pakistan. ‘Six Snapshots of Partition’ is a memoir piece looking at the effect of the Partition of India on his family and in particular his father. You can access it at www.granta.com/Online-Only/Six-Snapshots-of-Partition and we have the book in stock.

And there is an exhibition of watercolours of local landscapes by award-winning author and artist Glyn Hughes at the Linton Court Gallery, Settle, until 19th December.

We've had a rearrangement of our Non-Fiction shelves, so that our Biography and History sections are easier to browse - they're now on the higher shelves at the back of the shop on the right, in the same section as Religion, Philosophy, Politics, Society, Psychology, Science, Ecology, MBS, Wicca, Health, Cookery and Art & Craft. The low shelves by the table are now being used for our displays of diaries, stationery, jigsaws and Christmas gifts such as mugs.

The Book Case has joined The Campaign For Real Books aka CAMBO! It's a not-for-profit pressure group that is trying to ensure survival of the paper book, under the slogan "Paper makes books worth reading!" They say: "Spending time and money in a good bookshop is one of life's greatest pleasures. By joining the Campaign For Real Books you can get 10% discounts on new and old books from your favourite independent bookshops simply by showing them your membership card. You'll also become part of a huge community of book lovers who will have a real say in the future of real books. Too many local shops have closed down - let's make sure we keep the ones we have and encourage new ones to open." Find out more at http://www.campaignforrealbooks.org/ and "make sure that paper books enjoy a future as long, as dignified and as important as their past."

Along with many other Market Street traders, The Book Case will be opening at additional times for Christmas shopping - Sundays from November 21st 12.00-4.00 (we're delighted to welcome back Rowan!) and Thursdays from November 25th until 8.00pm. We've held back on our Christmas displays until Hallowe'en is over, but from this coming Wednesday, we'll have our splendid display of Christmas cards and books out! We already have many new and attractive notebooks, wrapping paper designs and mugs out (including Gruffalo, Charlie & Lola, Rob Ryan, Charles Buchan Football, Beano & Dandy ... and Scrabble on its way!). And we do have on display already the lovely little Carol Ann Duffy & Rob Ryan book Another Night before Christmas (£4.99), Candlestick's Twelve Poems of Christmas 2 ("instead of a card"; selected by Carol Ann Duffy - £4.95) and our rather posh literary Advent Calendars.

Thanks to local artist Julie Thompson for her cheerful picture of the Book Case Big Cotton Bag held by the Green Goddess of the Garden! There are also new pictures of the Bag from Gwynedd and Hull, and we've been promised pictures from Bermuda, Sri Lanka and the Fenland, among other places. We wait hopefully. Click here to view the slideshow and click on "Show info" (top right) to get captions. While stocks last, we're giving the bag away to anyone who spends £10 or more at The Book Case.

Our Customer Opinions board this month expresses enjoyment of are Gore Vidal's biography, Horatio Clare's "Single Swallow" ("more a travelogue than an ornithologue"), Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks ("engrossing family saga, terrible cover") and Karen Armstrong's "Case for God" ("trouncing the atheist"). No reports of disappointments (apart from a customer who eloquently expressed his hatred of "Lucky Jim").

A reminder that you can find a mobile-friendly version of all the current news at The Book Case on our Words site.

And thanks to Haworth author Edward Evans, The Book Case will apparently be mentioned on the back of 60,000 parking tickets in Haworth!

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: The Ballad of John Clare - Hugh Lupton (£9.99). From the well-known Oral Story Teller (who has appeared at Hebden Bridge Arts Festival on many occasions), a bitter-sweet historical novel dealing with John Clare’s early life when he is 17 and in tune with nature and the rural environment around his home in the east of England. The book also looks at the parcelling of the land and its distribution to local landsowners and how this broke up communities in the nineteenth century.

Adult non-fiction: The Brontes (new edition) - Juliet Barker (£14.99). Juliet Barker's landmark book was the first definitive history of the Brontes and is now updated. 'As a work of scholarship it is brilliant ... a stupendous read' - Independent on Sunday.

Children's book: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth - Jeff Kinney (£10.99). Catch the hapless Greg Heffley as he navigates his way through family and school life with his best friend, Rowley, by his side in a brand new "Wimpy Kid" adventure! Readership level: 9-11yrs

CD: Voices of the UK: Accents and Dialects of English - The British Library (2 CDs)(£15.95). 143 recordings that capture and celebrate the rich diversity of British English in locations across the whole of the UK. From Scots to Scouse and Geordie to Cockney, the extraordinary variety of accents and dialects in the UK reflects our society's continuity and change, our local history and our individual identities.

NEWS

Local Interest

Yorkshire Dales in Winter - Keith Wood (£14.99)
Lots of atmospheric pictures of our northern neighbours covered in snow.

Local Authors

The Brontes - Juliet Barker (£14.99)
Juliet Barker's landmark book was the first definitive history of the Brontes. It demolishes myths, yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling - but true. Based on first-hand research among all the Bronte manuscripts, many so tiny they can only be read by magnifying glass, and among contemporary historical documents never before used by Bronte biographers, this book is both scholarly and compulsively readable. 'As a work of scholarship it is brilliant ... a stupendous read' - Independent on Sunday. Now in stock.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister - ed. Helena Whitbread (£9.99)
A new edition of "I Know My Own Heart" - the remarkable diaries by the Halifax lesbian landowner, industrialist, traveller. There were two television programmes about her earlier this year.

The Iron Man - Ted Hughes, illustrated by Laura Carlin, £13.00 at The Book Case
Part modern fairy tale, part science fiction myth, with a message of peace and hope, The Iron Man describes the unexpected arrival in England of a mysterious giant "metal man" who wreaks havoc on the countryside by attacking the neighbouring farms and eating all their machinery. A young boy called Hogarth befriends him and he and the extraordinary being end up defending and saving the earth when it is attacked by a fearsome "space-bat-angel-dragon" from outer space. This is a new hardback version of the children's classic, with new illustrations by Walker Books artist Laura Carlin.

A Choice of Stories for Children - Ted Hughes, ed. Michael Morpurgo (4 CDs), £16.99
A selection of Ted Hughes's wonderfully vivid children's fiction, read by the author and selected and introduced by Michael Morpurgo.

A Choice of Poems for Children - Ted Hughes, ed. Michael Morpurgo (4 CDs), £16.99
Ted Hughes' poetry for children is as rich, powerful and magical as anything he wrote. This new recording consists of a collection of the children's poems of Ted Hughes, introduced and selected by acclaimed writer Michael Morpurgo, and read by both Morpurgo and actor Juliet Stevenson.

A Story to Tell - ed. George Murphy; Maggie Power, £16.99
This book, edited by a Hebden Bridge author, shows how narrative and particularly oral storytelling can be used to bring literacy to life for primary school children, and how teachers develop their own storytelling skills and the abilities of children to share and retell personal and traditional tales. Examples used relate to Scout Road School and locally-based storyteller Christine McMahon of Shaggy Dog Storytellers.

One Week in September, £5.00
A collection of poetry and prose by Calder VI students and teachers, written at Lumb Bank, September 2009. Published with the help of Sweet and Maxwell in Mytholmroyd. Contributors are: Alice Gill, Amelia Gumbrell, Annie Faulds, Clara Collett, Clare Saltiel, Dario Coates, David Hyatt, Devon Broadhurst, Khloe Whelan, Lauren Lobley, Mark Middleton, Michelle Heryet, Meredith Spiller-Wright, Patrick Munsie, Rowan Mataram, Sam Larner, Thomas Deadman and Vita Barnes.

Local Events

Thinking like a Poet, 27 Nov, 10am - 4pm at The Hole int’ Wall, Hebden Bridge with tutor John Siddique
How do we move towards poetic thought? How is it different from everyday thinking? In these highly practical sessions, you will look at many types of poetry from formal to open forms, using them as jumping off points to explore how to develop your writing and reading lives. Write, read, discuss and create while enjoying each other’s company.
To book: call The Poetry School on 0207 582 1679 or book online -
Price: £53, £41 (over 60s), £35 concs per session.

Letters to Charlotte - Caeia March, Saturday 6th November, 2-4pm, Shibden Hall

Ellen Nussey and Charlotte Bronte met as adolescent schoolgirls at Roe Head School near Mirfield. Author Caeia March reveals the life of these two nineteenth-century women, fictionalised in the letters of Ellen Nussey written to Charlotte Bronte throughout her life.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

Booker Prize

The surprise winner was Howard Jacobson's funny and serious novel about love, loss and male friendship, The Finkler Question (£16.99). Our bestseller amongst the shortlist though was Emma Donoghue's Room (£12.99) about a boy locked in a room with his mum.

Guardian Children's winner

Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver (£6.99): survival, loss and the power of friendship, completing the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness set in the Stone Age.

Shortlist for Guardian First Book Award

This was announced 29th October, and is as follows:

Fiction
Boxer, Beetle, by Ned Beauman, 'Not one for the easily shocked, young scribe Ned Beauman subjects the reader to a parade of ghoulish events and ghastly theories throughout his dazzling first novel" (£10.99 at The Book Case - hardback)

Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto, by Maile Chapman. In a remote, piney wood in Finland stands a convalescent hospital called Suvanto, a curving concrete example of austere Scandinavian design. It is the 1920s, and the patients, all women, seek relief from ailments real and imagined. On the lower floors are the stoic Finnish women; on the upper floors are foreign women of privilege - the 'up-patients'. (£12.99, paperback)

Black Mamba Boy, by Nadifa Mohamed: set in 1930s Somalia spanning a decade of war and upheaval, all seen through the eyes of a small boy alone in the world. Aden, Yemen, 1935; a city vibrant, alive, and full of hidden dangers. (£7.99)

Non-fiction

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz: Being wrong is an inescapable part of being alive. And yet, we go through life tacitly assuming (or loudly insisting) that we are right about nearly everything - from our political beliefs to our private memories, from our grasp of scientific fact to the merits of our favourite team. (£15)
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Virgina Woolf to John Piper, by Alexandra Harris: a confident case for the interest and importance of the English arts during the modern period. During the 1930s and 1940s, a rich network of cultural and personal encounters was the backdrop for a modern English renaissance, with English artists exploring what it meant to be alive at that moment and in England.(£19.95)

We have all the books in stock and the winner will be revealed at the beginning of December.

NEW TITLES

It's nothing like the torrent of new books we saw last month as the publishers wind down for the changed buying patterns of Christmas. There's new hardback fiction from Carol Anne Duffy, Paul Auster and Armistead Maupin and new paperback fiction from Shena Mackay, Augusten Burroughs and Jane Casey. Reissues include John Buchan and "Lady Chatterley" (50th anniversary).

November's non-fiction includes:

British textiles, mastercrafts, Puffin covers and knitted fairies in Art, Craft and Design
the Brontes, Alfred Bestall (creator of Rupert Bear) and Michael McIntyre in Biography
poems of place and reasons to be proud of your hometown in Celebrating Britain
Jamie Oliver and Hummingbird cakes in Food
family parlour games and Corgi models in Games & Hobbies
cost-effective self-sufficiency in Gardening & Smallholding
Elizabeth I in History
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Gervase Phinn, QI, Twelve Days of Christmas retold, the Golden Age of BBC Radio (Goons, Hancock, Take it from Here), Pont of Punch, spoof gardening tips by famous authors and a spoof babycare book in Humour
English accents and dialects on CD, the English language, English literature and Oxford Quotations and Proverbs in Language & Literature
pictures of people reading and of women wearing hats 1900-1950 in Lifestyle
Professor Stewart does it again in Maths
the psychology of seeing, a humorous take on therapies, Buddhism, Rumi, an unborn baby and faeries in MBS
the Guardian, the Archers and Only Fools and Horses in Media
Rupert Bear in Nostalgia (see also Corgi in "Hobbies")
Socrates vs Jesus in Philosophy
great modern poets on CD, Baudelaire, Vera Brittain, Craig Raine and Ruth Fainlight in Poetry
40 years of feminism in Society
sports injuries and bike snobs in Sport and Outdoor Activities
and germs, ghosties, Iron Man, CDs of Ted Hughes's poems and stories for children, pirates, the Mummy family, the wimpy kid and more demi-god heroes in Children's books

The Ted Hughes Festival made its mark on The Book Case’s bestsellers in October, accounting for half of the top ten. Two local interest books, two colourful diaries and a much-hyped novel made up the remainder.

1. The Quarry - Daniel Huws (£7.99). It’s the first time we’ve had an out-of-print book as our bestseller! But we had got in a number of secondhand copies of this book of the poems for the author’s appearance at the Ted Hughes Festival.

2. Earth Pathways Diary 2011 (£12.99). Colourful diary with photos, artwork and poems celebrating our connection to the Earth.

3. Beowulf - Kevin Crossley-Holland (£5.99). Kevin Crossley-Holland joked about his rivalry with Seamus Heaney in their modern versions of Beowulf! This version is in strong rhythmical prose, with illustrations by Charles Keeping.

4. Worlds: Seven Modern Poets (£5.99). Another out-of-print bestseller, this well-read book contains Ted Hughes’s essay "The Rock" about growing up in Mytholmroyd, as well as a number of Fay Godwin’s Elmet photos; plus other well-known poets such as Seamus Heaney.

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

6. Seeing Stone - Kevin Crossley-Holland (£6.99). The first in the Arthur trilogy: a 13-year-old boy living in 1199 eventually becomes a squire - while being able to observe the life of King Arthur through a magic stone.

7. We’Moon Diary 2011 (£15.99). "Groundswell" is the theme of this colourful moon calendar and datebook for women this year.

8. Freedom - Jonathan Franzen (£15.00 at The Book Case). This is the novel which had the wrong version published! It’s about a well-meaning couple and their son struggling to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world.

9. Dreamfighter - Ted Hughes (£6.99). Mesmerising creation tales from a master storyteller about the creatures around us.

10. 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 continued popular.

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
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/

Frans Barnard, recently released by kidnappers in Somalia after being marched around the desert for five days, says he kept his focus by imagining reading Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World to his youngest son. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/oct/22/british-hostage-recalls-somalia-ordeal

OCTOBER 2010

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

All this month it's the Calderdale Readers' and Writers' Festival "Word of Mouth" with the Mytholmroyd-based Ted Hughes Festival in the middle of it. We are stocking most of the relevant books with a small display, and will be doing the bookstall for the talks at the Ted Hughes Theatre and the Erringden Room by Kevin Crossley-Holland, Fleur Adcock and Ted Hughes's lifelong friend the poet Daniel Huws. Details below.

We have new pictures of the Book Case Big Cotton Bag in Somerset, Wiltshire, Bristol, the Northumberland coast and even Helsinki! Thanks among others to Geoffrey Robinson and the adventurous Grayston family. Click here to view the slideshow and click on "Show info" (top right) to get captions. And we have the pictures on permanent display in the shop. We're giving the bag away to anyone who spends £10 or more at The Book Case.

Our wide selection of 2011 calendars and diaries started selling a month or so ago, and in many cases, we won't be reordering, so if there's a particular one you want, come and get it!

New on our Customer Opinions board this month are David Kynaston's Family Britain, Conan Doyle's Study in Scarlet, David Mitchell's Ghostwritten ("I thought Cloud Atlas was flawed. Now I understand what all the fuss is about this writer"), Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore ("short, poetic, succinct and evocative") and Charles Dickens's Tale of Two Cities ("great fun!") - all being enjoyed. Not being enjoyed was Kate Atkinson's Started Early, Took My Dog).

A reminder that you can find a mobile-friendly version of all the current news at The Book Case on our Words site. (None of btinternet.com/~ sites are working at present, but hopefully this will soon be fixed.)

(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: Things We Didn't See Coming - Steven Amsterdam (£12.99). Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, this novel follows a man over three decades as he tries to survive - and to retain his humanity - in a world savaged by successive cataclysmic events. But even as the world is spinning out of control, essential human impulses still hold sway - that we never entirely escape our parents, envy the success of those around us and, chiefly, that we crave love.

Adult non-fiction: A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain - Owen Hatherley (£16.99). Enjoyably disgruntled book about the nasty new buildings of millennial Britain with a lot of glum grey photos showing it all at its worst. He likes Halifax's People's Park but finds an "an almost all-pervasive air of latent violence" in the town.

Children's book: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T S Eliot, illus. Axel Scheffler(£6.99). Cats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But you'll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavity's not there! This charming new edition contains original colour illustrations by the award-winning illustrator of "The Gruffalo", Axel Scheffler. We also have the hardback at £4.99.

CD: Ghostly Tales - BBC Audiobooks (£12.99). Tingle your spine with ghostly short stories read by well-known actors - "The Phantom Coach", "The Tapestried Chamber" by Sir Walter Scott, "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker and "The Man of Science" by Jerome K. Jerome: read by Michael Maloney, Eleanor Bron and Andrew Sachs.

NEWS

Local Interest

The Crosses of Aiolos (a tale of wind and wallets) by Keith Milligan (£17.99)
From a Todmorden author, a chunky, potentially controversial, locally-based novel, based on actual events, describing the catastrophic effect of an unwanted wind farm on a small moorland town. Willie Dee is in favour of wind farms. He already lives near one. But when plans for another 78-turbine site are announced, he is not so sure. A journalist friend makes alarming discoveries on the Net. And Willie and his wife, Verity, help the townspeople fight the proposals. But he and the others are up against powerful forces: a Big State government, a Big Wind lobby and Big Money developers. The wind farm is pushed through. And the journalist's findings take on an apocalyptic feel as the wind farm makes its presence felt. The inexorable climax - the result of greed, skulduggery and uncaring dogma - is deeply shocking.

Hard Graft: Yorkshire at Work - Terry Sutton (£20)

Terry Sutton is one of Yorkshire’s most gifted illustrators, and in Hard Graft he has used his talents – both as an artist and as a photographer – to pay tribute to Yorkshire’s rich heritage of craftsmanship and industrial achievement – its willingness to roll up its sleeves and set to work. As well as over 75 of his own watercolours, Terry has included a carefully chosen selection of engravings and historic photographs to celebrate Yorkshire’s industrial past and it appetite for hard graft. Available from mid-October. There'll be an exhibition at the Piece Hall next April.

Walking on Aire - Andy Owens (£7.95)
Illingworth-based Andy Owens intrepidly takes off along the River Aire in peril from psychotic motorists, homicidal livestock, sarcastic bus drivers and folk who get suspicious about you because you don't have a local accent! The cover was done by Mike Barrett of Frogs.

Magnificent Seven - ed. Andrew Collomosse (£16.99)
"Yorkshire's Championship Years: the men, the magic, the memories." The players' own story with Cragg Vale-based author and journalist Andrew Collomosse who tells the story of the men who won a magnificent seven County championships for Yorkshire and gave White Rose cicket its finest hour: Fred Trueman, Brian Close, Raymond Illingworth, Geoffrey Boycott - and Philip Sharpe, Jim Binks, Mel Ryan, Bob Platt, Richard Hutton and more.

Local Authors

Letters to Charlotte: The Letters from Ellen Nussey to Charlotte Bronte - Caeia March (£8.99)
In January 1831, two adolescent schoolgirls meet at Roe heading boarding School in Mirfield, and are instantly drawn to each other. One is Ellen Nussey; the other is Charlotte Bronte. Through a blend of journal entries, real and fictionalised letters, this touching narrative charts the intimate relationship between the pair as they become friends, confidantes and spiritual lovers. It is both a fascinating social document, and an account of how two remarkable women responded to the joys, fears and sorrows of their age, and to the deep emotional bond they found with each other. Caeia March, who is a nationally-published author, lives in Halifax.

Richard - Ben Myers (£12.99)
Mytholmroyd-based Ben Myers is the author of several works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. His writing has appeared in a number of publications including Melody Maker, NME, Mojo and the Guardian. This new novel from Picador tells the story of Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers (who vanished in 1995 and was presumed deceased in 2008) as he might have told it. A story of hope and despair in equal measure, it's an account of an unhappy young man who'll try anything and everything to get some peace from the voice in his head that tells him he's useless, that he'd be better off dead.

The Man They Couldn't Hang - Michael Crowley (£14.95)
"A Tale of Murder, Mystery and Celebrity". From a Heptonstall author and former prison writer in residence, a complete do-it-yourself bonding kit to raise issues of crime and punishment amongst groups in and out of prison or people involved with criminal justice. It's a two-act play that tells the story of John "Babbacombe" Lee, the only person in English history to have been reprieved after a gallows trap failed to open, at Exeter Prison in 1885. The hangman, James Berry from Heckmondwike, took to the boards on retirement telling gruesome tales of his former trade. This play explores the idea that Lee teamed up with Berry in a music hall act, on the latter's final release.

S.L.A.M. by Maia Craven-Smith (£7.99)
From a Halifax born and bred author who works as a teacher, a novel set in 2012 - Britain has been taken over and is under strict control. And S.L.A.M. are the Silent Law-Abiding Majority ...

A Source of Strange Delight - Poems about the Brontes (Calendar 2011), ed.Joy Howard, £3.00
A month-by-month collection featuring poets for whom a connection with the Bronte family, the Parsonage and Haworth has special meaning.

Available again:

No Priest but Love: Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister, 1824-1826, ed. Helena Whitbread (£19.00)
Another selection from her diaries, covering Anne Lister's amours in Derbyshire, Halifax and Paris in 1824.

See below for details of this month's prestigious Ted Hughes Festival. A couple of extra items on Ted Hughes: his childhood home at 1 Aspinal Street, Mytholmroyd, will be open on Thursday 7th October from 11am to 6pm - see http://www.theelmettrust.co.uk/ for more info; and the current issue of Northern Earth has an article on Ted Hughes as Shaman, by Brian Taylor.

Local Events

Ted Hughes Festival

Friday 15 October, 7pm: Ted Hughes Theatre, Mytholmroyd - Kevin Crossley-Holland
Includes the presentation of The Ted Hughes’ Young Poets’ Awards. Kevin Crossley-Holland is a well-known children’s writer, poet and a reteller of myth, legend and folktale. He won the Carnegie Medal for Storm while his Beowulf with Charles Keeping is a contemporary classic. Kevin is the author of the award-winning Arthur trilogy, now translated into 24 languages. He has recently published The Hidden Roads, his memoir of childhood, and next year Enitharmon will publish his new and selected poems The Mountains of Norfolk. Tonight he will announce the winners of the Ted Hughes Young Poets Award 2010 as well as reading from his own work. Tickets £5 (£3 concs) from Hebden Bridge Visitor & Canal Centre, Butler's Wharf, New Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AF. Tel: 01422 843831. Email: hebdenbridge@ytbtic.co.uk

Saturday 16th October, 3pm: Erringden Room, St Michael’s Church, Mytholmroyd - Anna Chilvers

Local writer, Anna Chilvers, has been invited to read from her first novel, Falling Through Clouds at the 2010 Ted Hughes Festival. Anna's novel, although a very modern work, is loosely based on the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight, making it an ideal work to embrace the festival theme of myth and legend. Anna will read from her work and sign books.

Saturday 16 October, 7.30pm: Ted Hughes Theatre, Mytholmroyd - Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand. She spent the war years in England, and emigrated to Britain in 1963, working as a librarian in London until 1979. She was Northern Arts Literary Fellow in 1979-81. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe, 2000), which was followed ten years later by Dragon Talk (Bloodaxe, 2010). Tonight she will announce the winners of the Elmet Poetry Prize 2010 as well as reading from her own work. Tickets £5 (£3 concs) from Hebden Bridge Visitor & Canal Centre, Butler's Wharf, New Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AF. Tel: 01422 843831. Email: hebdenbridge@ytbtic.co.uk

Sunday 17 October, 3pm: Erringden Room, St Michael’s Church, Mytholmroyd - Daniel Huws
The poet and lifelong friend of Ted Hughes, Daniel Huws, is appearing at the Ted Hughes Festival this year to read in the home town of his friend. Daniel met Ted Hughes at Cambridge and he and Ted published their first poems together in St. Botolph's Review. It was at a party to celebrate the publication of this magazine that Hughes met Sylvia Plath. Daniel describes these early years in his book, Memories of Ted Hughes 1952-1963. Daniel rarely gives public readings so this is a unique opportunity to hear him read his poems, answer questions about Ted Hughes and perhaps sing some of the songs he and Hughes enjoyed in Cambridge. An opportunity not to be missed!

Sunday 17 October, 4.30-6.30pm: Erringden Room, St Michael’s Church, Mytholmroyd - Poetry Performance Workshop with James Nash

James Nash is a highly entertaining performer and a truly original voice. His first major collection, Coma Songs, was described by Sarah Waters as illuminating “wonderfully the small details and the large issues of life, love and language.” Come along and learn with James how to make your poems live and loud. Please bring a poem which you’d like to perform. Tickets £5 (£3 concs) from Hebden Bridge Visitor & Canal Centre, Butler's Wharf, New Road, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8AF. Tel: 01422 843831. Email: hebdenbridge@ytbtic.co.uk

and 8pm Erringden Room, St Michael’s Church, Mytholmroyd - Poetry Slam
The bar will be open for this event. In a parallel life James Nash is well known for his hosting and running of literary events and tonight he will be the host at our ever popular Poetry Slam. Bring along your poems, or just come to listen, and expect an evening of inspiration and entertainment. Free.

Word of Mouth: the Third Calderdale’s Readers’ and Writers’ Festival

Friday 1 October, 2pm Elland Library - Glyn Hughes
Glyn Hughes is a poet and novelist living in Calderdale. His books have been awarded: Poetry Book Society Recommendation, Welsh Arts Council Poets' Prize, Guardian Fiction Prize, David Higham Prize, shortlisted Whitbread Prize, Portico Prize, James Tait Black Prize. His recent publications include: The Summer The Dictators Fell (stories), Dancing Out Of The Dark Side (poems), Two Marriages (poems and drawings) and Life Class (an autobiographical poem).Glyn was recently picked by The Times as "one of 6 best ever authors on North of England". Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Saturday 2 October Official opening Day at the new King Cross Library 10.15am onwards, with Tom Palmer and Ian Clayton

Monday 4 October, 7.30pm -9.30pm: Akroyd Library - Victorian Murder Mystery - Who Killed George? with Martin Edwards

Are you a great detective? Can you work out Who Killed George Hargrave? This exciting and dramatic evening will be hosted by award-winning crime writer Martin Edwards. The audience will listen to testimony from the suspects in the case, before deciding the identity of the murderer, the means, and the motive. While solutions are being judged, Martin Edwards will give a reader development talk on Victorian and present day crime fiction. There will be book prizes for the three winners. The evening will include an interval with free wine and nibbles. Martin Edwards will be signing copies of his books, including his critically acclaimed Lake District Mysteries, The Coffin Trail and The Serpent Pool. Tickets £7.50 (£5 concessions)

Thursday 7 October, 2pm: Sowerby Bridge Library - Lissa Evans
Lissa Evans' first novel, Spencer's List, was published in 2002, followed by Odd One Out in 2005. Her third novel, Their Finest Hour and a Half, set in the British film industry during the Second World War, was published in 2009, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her first book for children, Small Change for Stuart, will be published by Random House next spring. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Friday 8 October, 2pm Brighouse Library - The Poetry of Families: One Family’s History with Sarah Hymas

Back by popular request! For her second visit to Brighouse, Sarah will read and talk about family life during the fifties and sixties. "Bedrock" is a dramatic sequence of monologues covering one Yorkshire family’s 20th century. Through four generations the family reveals how it gels, aggravates and echoes itself, all the while responding the events in the wider world. The reading will be followed by an open discussion. From 2004-2006 Sarah was the Calderdale Libraries’ poet in residence, where she celebrated the joy of poetry with whoever was interested. "Bedrock" appears in the collection, Host, published by Waterloo Press. http://sarahhymas.blogspot.com/ Free event

Monday 11 October, 7pm: Northowram Library - Lesley Horton
Since retiring from teaching Lesley Horton has written five novels, the latest of which, Twisted Tracks, was published in December 2008. She is currently writing number six, Honourable Reckoning. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Tuesday 12 October, 7.30pm: Central Library - Some Girls’ Mothers
Do daughters step into their mothers’ shoes? How does this central relationship colour women’s lives?
Six authors offer candid stories that get to the heart of mother/daughter relationships. The stories reflect on daughters’ relationships with their mothers from different perspectives and social backgrounds, but each one is written from a point of growing maturity and the resonance this formative connection brings as life progresses. The six authors in the book are all based in the north and include locally based writers, Anne Caldwell, Char March and Clare Shaw. Events so far in the region have revealed a level of emotional engagement and audience response unprecedented for tours of this nature.
Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Thursday 15 October, 10.30am: Bailiff Bridge Library - Stephen Booth
Stephen Booth is the creator of young Derbyshire police detectives DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry, who have appeared in 10 crime novels, all set in the Peak District. The Cooper & Fry series has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and DC Cooper has been a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the best detective created by a British author. In 2003, the Crime Writers’ Association presented Stephen with the Dagger in the Library Award for “the author whose books have given readers most pleasure.” The novels are sold all around the world, and have been translated into 15 languages. The most recent title in the series is Lost River. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Thursday 21 October 7pm -9pm: Brighouse Library - An Evening with The Pennine Poets and Friends
Following their highly successful appearance during the York Literature Festival, the Pennine Poets invite you to join them for an informal evening of poetry and discussion. Readers will include West Yorkshire Pennine Poets Andrew Boobier, Julia Deakin and Ian M. Emberson, with Pauline Kirk and Margaret Speak coming from York. All are published poets with well respected collections. Local poets in the audience will be invited to join in a ‘read round’ session in the second half. Free event

Saturday 23 October 9.15am -4.15pm Central Library Readers’ Day with Jill Liddington, Nina Boyd, Karen Campbell, Tiffany Murray and Jane Hawking (tbc) - details nearer the time for this exciting event.

Tuesday 19 October, 7pm: Hebden Bridge Library - Aargh to Zzzzzz of parenting by Joanna Simmons and Jay Curtis
Merrily puts two fingers up to the pervasive notion that parenthood is an eternally rewarding experience. Taking a wry, down-to-earth and humorous look at life with young children, it taps into the very normal, but hard-to-admit ambivalence that so many parents feel about raising kids. Darkly funny and occasionally shocking, Joanna Simmons and Jay Curtis' brilliantly alternative A-Z of parenting is essential reading for all mums and dads who really, really love their kids, but... Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Monday 25 October, 7.30pm : Skircoat Library - Linda Green
Linda Green is a Calderdale based author. Her third novel Things I Wish I'd Known was published by Headline Review in May. Her previous two novels 10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love and I Did a Bad Thing sold more than 150,000 copies between them. Linda is also a journalist and creative writing tutor Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Thursday 28 October, 2pm: Southowram Library - Jane Casey
Jane Casey’s debut novel The Missing was published by Ebury in 2010 and was a UK Top 40 bestseller. ‘The Missing a remarkably compelling and convincing depiction of what it must be like to be caught up - first as a witness, then as more than that - in a police murder inquiry’. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Wednesday 20 October, 2pm: King Cross Library - Cath Staincliffe
When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband, Neil, end his life and conceals the truth she is charged with murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling with grief, fights to defend her actions. Cath Staincliffe’s new novel, The Kindest Thing tackles a controversial topic with skill and sensitivity.A book that begs the question: what would you do? Cath Staincliffe is part of Murder Squad, a collective of seven crime writers from the North of England. She is the author of the acclaimed Sal Kilkenney mysteries as well as being a scriptwriter for ITV’s hit police series, Blue Murder. She was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library award in 2006. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Friday 22 October, 7.30pm: Stainland Library - Penny Rudge
Foolish Lessons in Life and Love is a warm and wonderfully funny first novel that launches a memorable new literary matriarch. 23 year-old Taras Krohe is wedged between the two women in his life: his Russian girlfriend, Katya, who is struggling to fund her way through college; and his overbearing Bukovinian mother. He is devoted to both women in different ways but then Katya leaves him for a ponytailed aesthete – and his mother, he realises, he will never be able to escape. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

Saturday 30 October, 2pm Todmorden Library - Crime and Passion: Kate Walker and Stephen Wade

Kate writes romance and Stephen writes true crime. Kate Walker writes for Harlequin Mills and Boon Modern romance, and has had over 55 titles published by them. Her latest novel is The Good Greek Wife? and she has several new titles coming in 2011. Her book on writing romance, Kate Walker's Twelve-Point Guide to Romance, is about to be reprinted for the third time. Stephen Wade's latest books are Empire and Espionage and Britain's Most Notorious Prisoners. In this doubletake talk and question time, the husband and wife team will explain and discuss what the demands and pleasures of their genres are, including discussion of research needs for both fiction and non-fiction. Tickets £3.50 (£2 concs)

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Thinking like a Poet, 30 Oct, 27 Nov, 10am - 4pm at The Hole int’ Wall, Hebden Bridge with tutor John Siddique
How do we move towards poetic thought? How is it different from everyday thinking? In these highly practical sessions, you will look at many types of poetry from formal to open forms, using them as jumping off points to explore how to develop your writing and reading lives. Write, read, discuss and create while enjoying each other’s company.
To book: call The Poetry School on 0207 582 1679 or book online -
Price: £53, £41 (over 60s), £35 concs per session; special offer: book all three sessions for £143, £111, £95

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

The Booker shortlist is as follows. We're currently offering £3 off the prices shown below. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 12 October. More info at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America (£16.99). Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant.

Emma Donoghue - Room (£12.99). It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room.

Damon Galgut - In a Strange Room (£13.99). A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster.

Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question (£16.99). 'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one...' - Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends.

Andrea Levy - The Long Song (£16.99). The story of July, a slave girl on a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the 19th century.

Tom McCarthy - C (£14.99). Born to the sound of one of the very earliest experimental wireless stations, Serge finds himself steeped in a weird world of transmissions, whose very air seems filled with cryptic and poetic signals of all kinds. When personal loss strikes him in his adolescence, this world takes on a darker and more morbid aspect.

Guardian Children's shortlist

Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver (£6.99): survival, loss and the power of friendship, completing the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness set in the Stone Age
The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson (£9.99). When a Hag, an orphan boy and a troll called Ulf get sent to rescue a princess from an ogre, they expect it to be a fairly standard magical mission.
Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes (£6.99). two orphans - the Rat and her brother Bob - on a roadtrip they'll never forget.
Now by Morris Gleitzman (£6.99). The final chapter in the moving story of friends Felix and Zelda in Nazi-occupied Poland.

We have most of them, and the winner will be announced on October 8. Click here for more info.

Longlist for Guardian First Book Award

Can be seen at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/27/guardian-first-book-award-longlist - Ten titles contend for the £10,000 award, with subjects covered including everything from the itinerant experience of the Somali community to Churchill's 'black dog'. The shortlist for this year's prize will be announced in late October, with the winner revealed at the beginning of December.

NEW TITLES

An increase in humorous books and books about the Archers is noticeable this month (can't think why). Unusually there are also two books about fonts.

New hardback fiction includes Rose Tremain and Sally Vickers, both popular authors; and there's new paperback fiction Irene Nemirovksy, Hugh Lupton (of oral story-telling fame), Phil Rickman, Tariq Ali, Arnaldur Indridason and Lisa Marklund. Reissues include attractive new pocket hardbacks of Pride and Prejudice, Alice in Wonderland and Marilynne Robinson.

October's non-fiction includes:

Umberto Eco on Beauty, an analysis of masterpieces and Fonts x 2 in Art and Design
Arthur Ransome, June Spencer (aka Peggy Archer), Nelson Mandela, Diana Athill, Gervase Phinn, Shirley Williams, Stephen Fry and some Northumbrian cats in Biography
River Cottage, Monty & Sarah Donn and Yorkshire pudding in Food
allotments, chickens, bees and Yorkshire gardener Joe Maiden in Gardening & Smallholding
powerful medieval royal women, 18th-19th century English and French crowds and women in WWII in History
card games, chess for kids, paper aeroplanes, family games and posh Christmas puzzles in Hobbies and Games
Colemanballs, Private Eye Annual, Great British Humour, QI & General Ignorance, schooldays of yore, extremely old Greek jokes, Franglais, British oddities and 20th-century classics digested in Humour
English accents and dialects on CD, the English language, English literature and Oxford Quotations and Proverbs in Language & Literature
tea and Victorian etiquette in Lifestyle
the Dalai Lama's spiritual autobiography, living a good life and tinnitus in MBS
the Archers x 2, Coronation Street and Yes Minister in Media
stargazing, weeds, country diaries, a mega natural history book, British butterflies and traditional knowledge in Nature
traffic-free cycling routes and the Spring cycling races in Outdoor Activities
Blake, British and American poets on CD, T S Eliot on CD ("Practical Cats" and "The Wasteland") and the Forward collection in Poetry
Gaza (Chomsky and Pappe), mapping the way we live, the ruins left by New Labour and the financial collapse in Politics
tantalising queries to The New Scientist in Science
British Motorcycles of the 1940s and 50s in Transport
pet-friendly places, different kinds of campsites, South East Asia, Leeds, Manchester, good hotels and the Hindu Kush in Travel
and Meg and Mog, Funnybones, a witch's cat, Charlie and Lola, Old Possum's Practical Cats (with new pictures), Beast Quest, a girl's journey through life and the finale to Chaos Walking in Children's books

What a mixture! Popular at The Book Case in September were three local interest books, four novels, an outstanding book of poetry, and the memoirs of an ex-Prime Minister and of a woman who wanted it all.

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
Again at the top (and that’s not counting the ones the TIC sells), Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area from ancient times to the present day.

2. A Journey - Tony Blair (£17.00 at The Book Case)
We had our doubts - but the ex-New Labour Prime Minister’s memoirs sold well, even in Hebden Bridge.

3. A Human Chain - Seamus Heaney (£12.99)
Our Non-Fiction Book of the Month. His books make up two-thirds of the sales of living poets in the UK, said the BBC in 2007, and this is twelfth collection of poems with "some of the best poems he has written" (Colm Toibin).

4. Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (£7.99)
This year’s Orange Prize winner continued popular, telling the story of an American man working for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in 1930s Mexico.

5. Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert (£7.00)
"One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia". No doubt the new film had something to do with the renewed popularity of this readable travel book-cum-memoirs.

6. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest - Stieg Larsson (£7.99)
Slightly higher this month, the third in the popular Millennium trilogy: Lisbeth Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

7. West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley (£9.99)
Still in the top ten, local historian John Billingsley's latest collection of West Yorkshire folklore, entertainingly told, with atmospheric line drawings by Heptonstall illustrator, Stan McCarthy.

8. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley (£5.95)
A gripping story about a hilltop handloom weaver's son, based on the real history of the Cragg Vale Coiners, giving a fascinating insight into life in the Calder Valley and the local weaving industry over 200 years ago. A Royd Press publication.

9. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (£8.99)
Back in the top ten, Hilary Mantel’s Booker-winning story of Thomas Cromwell - political genius, briber, charmer and bully - as Henry VIII’s pursuit of Anne Boleyn shakes the kingdom.

10. Freedom - Jonathan Franzen (£15.00 at The Book Case)
This much-hyped new novel from the author of "The Corrections" has been attracting a lot of interest_ it's about a well-meaning American couple and their son struggling to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world.

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
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/

"Books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are." - John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644, quoted by Jon Henley in "Fanning the Flames of Intolerance", Guardian, 10 September

SEPTEMBER 2010

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

The Booker shortlist was announced on Tuesday and we now have all the titles in as follows. We're currently offering £3 off the prices shown below.

Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America (£16.99). Olivier is a young aristocrat, one of an endangered species born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant.

Emma Donoghue - Room (£12.99). It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room.

Damon Galgut - In a Strange Room (£13.99). A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way - including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster.

Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question (£16.99). 'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one...' - Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends.

Andrea Levy - The Long Song (£16.99). The story of July, a slave girl on a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the 19th century.

Tom McCarthy - C (£14.99). Born to the sound of one of the very earliest experimental wireless stations, Serge finds himself steeped in a weird world of transmissions, whose very air seems filled with cryptic and poetic signals of all kinds. When personal loss strikes him in his adolescence, this world takes on a darker and more morbid aspect.

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A very nice mention of The Book Case has appeared on the site For Books' Sake ("books by and for independent women") at http://forbookssake.net/2010/08/06/battle-of-the-bookshops-the-book-case-in-hebden-bridge/ - Our thanks to the writer!

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Hot off the press is a chunky, potentially controversial, locally-based novel, The Crosses of Aiolos (a tale of wind and wallets) by Todmorden-based Keith Milligan describing the catastrophic effect of an unwanted wind farm on a small moorland town. It retails at £17.99 paperback (it's over 600 pages) and there are displays at Todmorden Library, Todmorden TIC and Hebden Bridge Library, the latter as part of the Energy section of the Transition Town display.

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Some inventive contributions to the Book Case Bag picture collection have been arriving from Graham and Elaine Ramsden, and can be enjoyed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/52733192@N07/show/

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And our long-delayed parcels from Pomegranate have finally arrived, so we have more Charley Harper cards, postcard books, some new Gorey books and some rather posh jigsaws including Canaletto, Charley Harper and Kliban.

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

With the return to work, school and college, we're seeing a distinct shift in buying patterns and we've been busy at The Book Case ordering in study books; our calendars and diaries have also been selling well.

Now the holidays are over, we'll continue to open Tuesday afternoons, 2.00-5.30pm, but we'll now be closed on Sundays until nearer Christmas.

The Book Case Big Cotton Bag is now back in stock! We're giving it away to anyone who spends £10 or more at The Book Case. This month we thank Wally, Emma, Richard & Mary-Jo from Connecticut, David Wilson & grandson Isaac, Anthea, John, Amy and Simon for their their photos of the bag in far-flung parts (Dorset, Cornwall, Yale University, Lands End, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Germany and Edinburgh). The online slideshow now works a lot better - click here to view and click on "Show info" (top right) to get captions. And we have the pictures on permanent display in the shop. Both are updated as new photos come in.

Congrats to Simon for his picture of James Robertson, author of "The Testament of Gideon Mack", in proud possession of the Book Case Bag! We're eagerly awaiting the photos from the rest of you who promised them.

New in from Hornby-Corgi & Haynes are five packs on iconic cars (Mini, Landrover, E-type Jag, Ford Escort and Ford Capri), containing a mini model of the car and a little book of its history packed with pictures, facts and features. £17.99 each.

We're delighted to be stocking Tykes' News - the quarterly mag for Folk Music in and around Yorkshire, with all the events, interesting articles and reviews, £1.50; it's selling briskly and made our Top Ten.

We now have a wide range of calendars in and expected any minute is the splendid "Wild Nature" diary and calendar from the John Muir Trust. Also in stock are some classy slip-cased spiral-bound diaries from Pomegranate, Beautiful Cows, Pigs, Sheep and Chickens calendars (and postcard books), a range of Yorkshire ones including the Hebden Bridge calendar, Wainwright, canals, Hebridean, We'moon, Redstone, Earth Pathways and we'll be having many more.

Mike Barrett has produced another splendid and quirky range of postcards in honour of Hebden 500: the new set includes the Old Bridge in various guises and Handmade Parade.

Our Customers' Opinions board has sprung back to life and we have recommendations of Norman MacLean's "Young Men and Fire", Henning Mankell's "Chronicler of the Wings", Paulo Coelho's "Like a Flowing River", J-P Sartre's "Nausea", Sylvia Townsend Warner's "Flint Anchor", William Broderick's "Whispered Name", Sarah Hall's "Haweswater", Melvyn Bragg's "Soldier's Return", K S Robinson's "Galileo's Dream" and Ian Rankin's "Exit Music". Less enjoyed was Ian Rankin's "Good Hanging".

A reminder that you can find a mobile-friendly version of all the current news at The Book Case on our Words site.

(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: What Becomes - A L Kennedy (£7.99). Profound and intimate observations of men and women whose lives ache with possibility; perfectly ordinary people - whose marriages founder; who sit on their own in a cinema watching a film with no soundtrack; and who risk sex in a hotel with an anonymous stranger.

Adult non-fiction: Human Chain - Seamus Heaney (£12.99). Seamus Heaney's new collection elicits continuities and solidarities, between husband and wife, child and parent, then and now, inside an intently remembered present - the stepping stones of the day, the weight and heft of what is passed from hand to hand, lifted and lowered. This is his twelfth collection of poems; "District and Circle" was the previous one in 2006

Children's book: I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett (£16.99 at The Book Case). An eagerly awaited new Discworld adventure in the Tiffany Aching series for children and young adults. Featuring a cast of favourite Discworld characters, and there's a magic book or two, a twist through time, a Cunning Man - and a Giant Man of chalk. Ages: 12+

CD: Favourite Poems for Children - read by: Anton Lesser; Roy McMillan; Rachel Bavidge (Naxos)(£8.99). This anthology brings together a selection of best-loved children's poems. All of the old favourites are presented including Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat and Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. These classic poems combine catchy, memorable rhymes with vivid word pictures to offer an imaginative feast for children.

NEWS

Local Interest

Rushes and Ale - Garry Stringfellow, £5.00

A Brief History of Rushbearing with particular reference to rushbearing in the Calder Valley. Well-researched and well-illustrated history of the tradition through the centuries, including the furious opposition of the church!

Hebden Bridge Now and Then (DVD) £5.00
An 18-minute DVD showing the contrast between pictures taken of Hebden Bridge and Mytholm in the past by Harry Pogson and modern-day photos taken by Nigel J Lloyd. All profits go to Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Local Authors

Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War - Juliet Barker (£9.99)
From the eminent locally-based historian and now in paperback, the story of the dramatic years when England ruled France at the point of a sword. Henry V's second invasion of France in 1417 launched a campaign that would put the crown of France on an English head. Only the miraculous appearance of a visionary peasant girl - Joan of Arc - would halt the English advance. Colour illustrations. This edition came out in June this year and I failed to spot it - sorry!

Spotland: The Sun Also Rises - And Other Football Stories - Mark Hodkinson (£7.99)
To mark Rochdale AFC’s promotion (after 36 years of trying!) locally-based Mark Hodkinson has written a book about the 2009/10 season. It's a personal reflection of the season, written from the perspective of a long-term supporter whose family and life are intertwined with his football club. Also included are interviews with Paul Gascoigne; Colin Bell and Mike Doyle of Manchester City; the irrepressible Stuart Hall; Barry Hines, and schoolboy football legend Paul Moulden, plus articles on Halifax Town, Accrington Stanley, non-League football and tragic footballers Gary Charles, Jason Ross, Bobby Stokes and Pedro Richards. Other topics include cortisone use, racism in football, sport finance, The Damned United and the perils of being a football reporter. And, of course, Subbuteo.

Misery Begins at Home - Winston H Plowes, Rachel Bond, Marianne L Daniels, John Darwin (£5.00)
Poems from Hebden Bridge-based performance poet Winston H Plowes, and three Manchester poets. Winston can be seen at the Hole in the Wall ("Write Out Loud") and at Open Mic sessions at Stubbing Wharf. Gaia Holmes in her Foreword says: "Raw, rich in atmosphere and imagery, claustrophobic and mercilessly intense; the poems ... share a love for the powers, density and potential effect of language as well as themes of loss, love, identity, rejection and illicit unions." The cover picture by Jefferson Hammond is from a local ruined farm house.

Diomed's Ghosts - Peter Copley (£12.99)
Picaresque thrilller and ghost story set on a ship, from a Todmorden-based retired seaman and fireman. The story is loosely based on a haunted tramp steamer he actually served on, with vivid descriptions of life at sea.

And to celebrate what would have been Ted Hughes's 80th birthday, The Independent has made available online Aelish Michael's play Dreaming of Foxes at

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/free-independent-drama-late-poet-ted-hughes-is-remembered-in-dreaming-of-foxes-2056052.html
The play is set in Mytholmroyd: Ted Hughes is visited by an old school friend after he becomes Poet Laureate. Will their shared boyhood provide the link between them or has time and experience destroyed their chances of re-connection? It was performed as part of The Ted Hughes Festival in October 2008, and locally-based actor Robert Garrett played Ted Hughes in both productions.

Local Publishers

Under the Apple Boughs - Dr James Walsh & Vanessa Rosenthal (£9.99)

James Walsh grew up in Barrowford and after becoming in succession a committed Young Conservative and a Communist, ended up as the very popular Deputy Registrar of Leeds University. This book consists of his memoirs punctuated by his widow Vanessa's moving accounts of her bereavement and life without Jim.

"James Walsh's life was transformed by his grammar school in a way denied to his parents' generation. He became a first-generation university student at Leeds University, got a first class degree, joined the Conservative Party and then the Communist Party (and eventually became the university's registrar). Under the Apple Boughs is a classic account of a northern working class boyhood in the 1940s, interspersed with his widow Vanessa Rosenthal's searingly honest letters telling of her anguish and despair after his death. Two moving human documents within one cover." - Brian MacArthur, Literary Editor, Daily Telegraph.

Published by our own Royd Press.

Local Events

Writers Roadshow, Saturday 4th September, Brighouse Library, 9.00am-5.00pm

How To Make A Living As A Writer Freelance writer, poet and performer with Craig Bradley
Starting to Write with Stephen May
Radio: The ultimate writers' medium with Char March
Capturing the Past: Ways into memoir or family history writing with James Nash
The Celestial Kettle: Writing poetry or prose with Gaia Holmes
Freelance Journalism with Jenny Roche
“I'm fabulous!” - or how to get judges to spot your work with Char March
Discussion: Landscape in Literature with Glyn Hughes and John Siddique

Full details at http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/readers/writers-roadshow/brighouse-roadshow.html

It's Only Words - Creative Writing at the Library, from Monday 6th September
Award-winning novelist and experienced workshop leader Stephen May begins a new six week series of writing sessions that take place from 6.00pm -7.30pm every Monday. Using stimulating, practical and fun exercises, Stephen's friendly and informal course covers character, pace, structure, imagery, dialogue, plot in a way designed to help you get the stories in your head out and on to the page. Suitable for shy beginners and the more experienced you can reach Stephen on 07872 418501 or email stephen_may@ymail.com in order to ensure your place. Check www.sdmay.com for more details...
The six sessions cost £30 payment on the first session and the course will culminate in a reading where all the participants will get the chance to read their work to a supportive audience (if you want). We keep Stephen's popular book Teach Yourself Get Started in Creative Writing at the shop, as well as his award-winning novel TAG.

Walk and Ride Festival, September 11-26
Enjoy the South Pennines landscape during two weeks of guided walks, cycle rides and horse rides. Lots of local walking guides are in stock at The Book Case, and we also stock local cycling and bridle-path guides.

On Sunday 19 September, 10.30, Jill Liddington will lead a "Walking with Women's Suffrage" 8-mile 6.5 hour walk from Mytholmroyd station (Manchester platform). Book with Hebden Bridge TIC on 01422 843831. We keep Jill's book Rebel Girls in stock at The Book Case.

Wednesday 22 September, 10am, Mick Chatham leads a "Cragg Vale Coiners" 10-mile walk from Mytholmroyd Library: phone Mick on 01706 379318. There's not a lot in print on the Coiners at present, but we have Phyllis Bentley's "Gold Pieces" and Peter Kershaw's "Last Coiner".

Thursday 23 September, 6pm, Anne Lister Walk with Jill Liddington - 3.5 miles, starting from Halifax Piece Hall (north entrance near Woolshops car park), climbing steeply to Anne’s home, visiting some of her agricultural tenancies and coal mines, and exploring the landscape so familiar to her.Bring walking gear, snacks & drinks. Phone Shibden Museum, 01422 352246. We keep in stock Jill Liddington's books on Anne Lister: "Female Fortune", "Presenting the Past" and "Nature's Domain", and Helena Whitbread's transcription of Anne Lister's diaries, "I Know My Own Heart".

There are many more walks of a less book-related nature - see http://www.southpenninesfestival.co.uk/ and www.mytholmroydwalkers.org

Thinking like a Poet, 25 Sep, 30 Oct, 27 Nov, 10am - 4pm at The Hole int’ Wall, Hebden Bridge with tutor John Siddique
How do we move towards poetic thought? How is it different from everyday thinking? In these highly practical sessions, you will look at many types of poetry from formal to open forms, using them as jumping off points to explore how to develop your writing and reading lives. Write, read, discuss and create while enjoying each other’s company.
To book: call The Poetry School on 0207 582 1679 or book online -
Price: £53, £41 (over 60s), £35 concs per session; special offer: book all three sessions for £143, £111, £95

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

Longlist for Man Booker Prize 2010

Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America
Emma Donoghue - Room
Helen Dunmore - The Betrayal
Damon Galgut - In a Strange Room
Howard Jacobson - The Finkler Question
Andrea Levy - The Long Song

Tom McCarthy - C
David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Lisa Moore - February
Paul Murray - Skippy Dies
Rose Tremain - Trespass
Christos Tsiolkas - The Slap
Alan Warner - The Stars in the Bright Sky

These are mostly hardbacks or pricey paperbacks, so we are being restrained in our ordering, but can get most of them overnight - and of course there's our usual £2 off on hardback fiction. We have the Carey and the Mitchell at present and we'll get more proactive when the 2010 shortlist is announced on Tuesday 7 September. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 12 October. More info at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Longlist for Guardian First Book Award

Can be seen at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/27/guardian-first-book-award-longlist - Ten titles contend for the £10,000 award, with subjects covered including everything from the itinerant experience of the Somali community to Churchill's 'black dog'. As usual, we're waiting to hear which ones you want us to stock. The shortlist for this year's prize will be announced in late October, with the winner revealed at the beginning of December.

NEW TITLES

Publishing houses come back to life in September and we can expect hardback fiction from Salman Rushdie, Peter Ackroyd, Susan Hill, Alexander McCall Smith, C J Sansom, Henning Mankell and Maeve Binchy. New paperback fiction includes books from Sebastian Faulks, J M Coetzee, Alice Munro, Orhan Pamuk, John Irving, Douglas Coupland, Stefan Zweig and many more. Reissues include attractive new pocket hardbacks of Sherlock Holmes, Treasure Island and Great Expectations, plus Dostoyevsky, D H Lawrence, Kipling, Fairy Stories, Zane Grey and Flann O'Brien

September's non-fiction includes:

Iassen Ghiuselev’s Alice calendar, Paula Rego's Nursery Rhymes, Street Art Stencils, buildings over time, alphabet designs, cardboard boxes, artists' textiles and the makers of the Bayeux tapestry in Art, Architecture, Design and Craft
Charlotte Bronte, Gandhi, Golding, Herriot, a Romani and a 1950s Yorkshire nurse in Biography
making resilient urban communities in Environment
Good Food, Good Beer, Nigella Lawson, storing home-grown produce, comforting baked fruit dessert and Ross Dobson on wholefood in Food
companion planting, pest control and planting by the moon in Gardening
the RAF helping the Russian White Armies in 1919 and Punch in WWII in History
an unlikely Oxford Dodo, Mock the Week, the Oldie Annual, "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", Jessica Mitford being caustic about US journalism, Virginia Ironside on getting old and schoolchildren's howlers in Humour
the language of the King James Bible, Guardian style, poetry and prose to read aloud, Shakespearean quotes, 17th-century slang, Grammar-land, grammar and the W&A guide to getting published in Language & Literature
baby names, country living and self-suffiency in Lifestyle
sitting still, being mindful, men vs women, old age, women in healing, witches' almanacs,the I Ching and Chinese animals in MBS
how music works and a pop-up orchestra book in Music
stargazing and two new books on Weather and the Climate in Nature
pedestrianism and Yorkshire Dales trig points in Outdoor Activities
Seamus Heaney, the Underground, Carol Ann Duffy, Shakespeare's sonnets, multicultural British poets and children's poems on CD in Poetry
Obama, historical dissent and worldwide resistance in Politics
the Guinness Book of Records, visual illusions, maze puzzles and Oldie Crosswords in Puzzles & Games
two books showing how universe-wide history and facts can be deduced from small objects - and two books with useful maths for grownups in Science & Maths
the hidden psychology of value and a Dutch village in decline in Society
hidden Yorkshire, haunted canals, beekeeping in Kosovo, Languedoc & Roussillon, New Zealand, Dublin and Glasgow in Travel
and a kingdom-less princess, a singing cat, Rainbow Fish, Bogwoppit, a dodgy dragon-slayer, Grimm, Skulduggery, Terry Pratchett and some classics from Susan Cooper and E Nesbit reissued, in Children's books

The Book Case’s customers in August mostly wanted to find out about the area, enjoy novels and keep their children amused. But there was also interest in Jackie Kay’s autobiography and "why more equal societies almost always do better".

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99). It was back to the top again for Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area from ancient times to the present day.
2. Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (£7.99). This year’s Orange Prize winner was still popular, telling the story of an American man working for Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in 1930s Mexico.
3. I-Spy on a Car Journey (£2.50). This was the most popular of the newly re-released I-Spy books but they’re all good sellers and have been universally welcomed, especially by parents, grandparents and minders on car and train journeys.
4. West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley (£9.99). Local historian John Billingsley's latest book was close behind with cautionary tales, amusing anecdotes, age-old legends and fantastical myths.
5. Hebden Bridge Town Trail (£2.00). Town visitors were keen to "Discover Hebden Bridge" with this guided illustration walk produced by the Local History Society and Hebden Bridge Walkers’ Action.
6. The Spirit Level - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (£9.99). Following attacks by The Policy Exchange, interest in this book explaining why "Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better" has increased again.
7. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest - Stieg Larsson (£7.99). Third in the popular Millennium trilogy: Lisbeth Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. The second in the trilogy also sold well.
8. Red Dust Road - Jackie Kay (£11.99). 'I was adopted by warm-spirited Scottish communists. When people ask me if I've ever found my "real" Mum and Dad, it is them I think of.’ Our June Non-Fiction Book of the Month.
9. Flat Stanley - Jeff Brown (£5.99). The boy who gets flattened by a falling bulletin board and finds he can get around much better. First published in 1964.
10. Tykes News (for folk in and around Yorkshire) (£1.50). The quarterly Yorkshire folk music journal is new to us, but has been selling well.

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
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/

"Slow reading is a community event restoring connections between ideas and people. The continuity of relationships through reading is experienced when we borrow books from friends; when we read long stories to our kids until they fall asleep." - John Miedema, quoted by Patrick Kingsley in the Guardian, 15 July 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/15/slow-reading

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AUGUST 2010

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Simon Armitage's stop-off at the Ted Hughes Theatre at Calder High on his trek southwards along the Pennine Way was a big success - well done to the organisers! The poet read mainly from his recent book "Seeing Stars" and his "Selected Poems", with a hilarious concluding riff on Luddenden Foot (from "Gig").The event was hosted by the Elmet Trust based in Mytholmroyd. Look out for the book he's going to write about his journey.

Another success is the Book Case Big Cotton Bag, being given away to anyone who spends £10 or more at The Book Case. Thanks to Claire, Meg, Kate and the Binns family for their nice photos of the bag on holiday with them! And we'd like even more photos of it in interesting and unusual places! There's a slideshow in the shop of it on locations from Mytholmroyd to Utah and another online via our webpage. We're still working out how to put captions on. The slideshows will be updated whenever we get new pictures.

This month we're on Bookhugger online literary mag as Independent Bookshop of the Month - and see their main page for lots of lively info on books, authors and events.

Throughout August we will continue to open Tuesday afternoons, 2.00-5.30pm, and Sunday afternoons: 2.00-4.30pm

We're now selling the new Student Book Token Card - which ensures that parents' money is ring-fenced for books. It comes as two connected gift cards: parents keep the Top Up Card and add value whenever required at their local bookshop; students use the Book Card to buy books at their campus bookstore. [Each half of the card can be topped up and/or redeemed as well.]

The new Permaculture magazine is in and comes with a copy of the "Book of Green - Eco Living Directory 2010/11".

Calendars and diaries are starting come in - we have a range of Yorkshire ones including the Hebden Bridge calendar, Wainwright, canals, We'moon, Redstone, Earth Pathways and we'll be having many more.

A reminder that you can find a mobile-friendly version of all the current news at The Book Case on our Words site.

(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 Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke (£7.99). Soon after moving to a secluded Norfolk village, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with an ageing poet and his young lover, who are obsessively searching for the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, in the hope of finding an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. 1989 Whitbread winner.

Adult non-fiction: I Never Knew There Was a Word for it by Adam Jacot de Boinod (£12.99). The languages of the world are full of amazing, amusing and illuminating words and expressions that will improve absolutely everybody's quality of life. Albanian has 29 words to describe different kinds of eyebrows and "tingo" from the Easter Islands of course means to borrow things from a neighbour’s house one by one until there are none left. Bind-up of "The Wonder of Whiffling", "The Meaning of Tingo" and "Toujours Tingo".

Children's book: Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex - Eoin Colfer (£12.99). Artemis Fowl's criminal ways have finally got the better of him ...Young Artemis has frequently used high-tech fairy magic to mastermind the most devious criminal activity of the new century. Now, at a conference in Iceland, Artemis has gathered the fairies to present his latest idea to save the world from global warming. But Artemis is behaving strangely - he seems different.Fairy ally Captain Holly Short doesn't know what to do. Ages 8 -12+yrs

NEWS

Local Interest

Walks around Calderdale - Dorian Speakman (£2.99)
From Dalesman, a pocket-sized guide to ten local walks, ranging from Ogden Water and Mirfield to Walsden, and including Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall, Mytholmroyd, Cragg Vale and Todmorden areas.

Hebden Bridge 1510 - the 500-year-old bridge (£1.00)
A fold-out poster with a late-19th-century photo on one side and notes about the history of the bridge and of Old Gate on the other.

Hebden Bridge Calendar, 2011 - Vanessa Kay (£4.99)
Local photographer Vanessa Kay has taken over the Hebden Bridge Calendar from Geoff Boswell - the format is basically the same with lots of nice colour pictures and room to write your appointments - but the pictures and some info are shown on the back cover.

Mountain Bike Guide - South Pennines of West Yorkshire and Lancashire - Stephen Hall (£16.50)
Introduces you to the wilderness and urban trail networks of Kirklees & Calderdale, Airedale & Wharfedale and Lancashire. Contains 26 well-researched and legal routes, most with short, medium and long modular options. Colour photos, Ordnance Survey mapping, gradient profiles, clear route descriptions and informative text. The front cover shows a cyclist on an uphill track near Stoodley Pike and local routes include Crimsworth Dean, Widdop, and Luddenden, Oxenhope and Ogden.

Lament for the Mills - Robert Cockcroft (£7.99)

This unusual and striking book from an author born in Todmorden tells the story of the Cockcroft family and their mills through skilled poetry, prose and some great black and white photos - some supplied by Roger Birch.

More Memories of Halifax (£10.99)
From True North books in Halifax, another collection of old photos of Halifax as it used to be.

125 Not Out: the Story of Illingworth St Mary's Cricket Club, 1884-2009 - Andrew Smith (£10)
From Illingworth CC President Andrew Smith, a history of Illingworth Cricket Club which celebrated its first 125 years last year. Nicely produced in colour with lots of facts and figures and loads of illustrations.

Local Authors

Tyke on a Bike: Canals of Northern England and Scotland - John Priestley (£9.99)
From Halifax-based author John Priestley, an account of how he abandoned his job to bike around the canals of Yorkshire, Lancashire and further afield - including our very own Rochdale Canal.

Upward Road: my early life - John Priestley (£9.99)
This new book by the same author is about growing up in Halifax in the 1950s and '60s before he went on to Oxford University.

From Haworth-based author Edward Evans: II PY (£12.99)
A thriller featuring a Rolls Royce - the IIPY of the title - crimes and chases from Haworth to France, with homage to one of automobile history's greatest cars. (The car is alive and well and available for hire.) The book, first published in 2008, raised £2,000 for the homeless.
Like a Fish Out of Water (£14.99)
A chunky page-turning novel which ranges from a mid-20th century English public school to the violence of Nazi-occupied France - seen through the eyes of an 89-year-old widow who asks a Bradford Telegraph and Argus journalist to write her life-story. £1 from every copy sold goes to the RAF Benevolent Fund. For the Right Reasons (£12.99)
New out this year, and featuring the Conway family of Haworth first met in "IIPY". As the Berlin Wall falls, they become dragged into the murky world of espionage. £1 from every copy sold will go to the Help for Heroes charity.

Local Publishers

Gabriel's Angel - Mark A. Radcliffe (£7.99)
From Hebden Bridge publishers Blue Moose, a novel about a grumpy web journalist who not only has sperm problems and a vanished job - he also gets run over and and wakes up to find himself in a therapy group run by Angels just beneath heaven - and that really annoys him! "The perfect antidote to the glib platitudes of emotional quick-fix culture: tender, astute and very funny" says Christopher Brookmyre

Local Events

Woven in the Fabric by Anna Carlisle, Sat 14 August - Halifax Festival & Square Peg Productions
An exciting new promenade play which examines the lives of Martha Crossley of Dean Clough, Halifax and Lavena Saltonstall of Hebden Bridge and Halifax Suffragette. During the performance the audience will be invited to assist in the making of a rag rug. The performance will start at Square Chapel and make its way to Halifax Minster, so please dress with the weather in mind!

We have Jill Liddington's book Rebel Girls - which follows Lavena Saltonstall's career, amongst others - in stock at The Book Case.

Anna Chilvers - So you want to write a novel? Sun 15th August, 10.00am, Square Chapel Centre for the Arts
Many people dream of writing their own novel, maybe you have an idea of what it will be about, or maybe you don’t. How do you begin? Local author Anna Chilvers’ first novel Falling Through Clouds was published this year by Bluemoose Books. Come along for inspiration and encouragement as Anna shares the secrets of her success; don’t forget your pen! More info here.

Anna Chilvers - Falling through Clouds: Sun 15th August, 1.00pm, Square Chapel Centre for the Arts: A modern twist on a medieval classic, Falling Through Clouds is local author Anna Chilvers’ first novel, published this year.. Based on the story of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the book follows Gavin, a journalist returning from Iraq with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Join Anna to hear extracts from the book, learn what inspired her and where the ideas came from. More info here
Tickets for both from the Festival Box Office on 01422 349422

19 August, 7-9pm: An Evening with Helena Whitbread at Halifax Town Hall. £7.50, including cheese, biscuits and wine. This is to raise funds for glaucoma laser, and neither Helena Whitbread (editor of Anne Lister's diaries) nor the Town Hall are taking a fee. We are selling tickets for this at The Book Case until 10th August. More info from Vera at 01422 378071.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

NEW TITLES

August's hardback fiction includes new novels from Kate Atkinson and James Robertson and there's plenty of new paperback fiction, including books from Margaret Atwood, A L Kennedy, Alexander McCall Smith, Anne Tyler, Sue Townsend, Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Sophie Hannah and many more. Reissues include "Agnes Grey", attractive new pocket hardbacks of Stevenson and the Brontes, Henty ("Wulf the Saxon"), Doyle (Brigadier Gerard), Bessie Head and Lindsay Clarke.

August'snon-fiction includes:

a wide range of £4.99 classic texts in the Penguin Great Ideas series
Bach, Sylvia Plath and Clarissa Dickson Wright in Biography
the media's dehumanisation of suffering, world migration patterns, an Afghan woman MP, Saudi Arabia and cocaine smuggling in Current Affairs
behaviour management made easy in Education
slow-cooker vegetarian recipes in Food
the world's greatest chess games in Games and Hobbies
gardening and planting by the moon in Gardening
19th-century magic lantern slides in History
the Children's Writers and Artists Yearbook, a Tingo anthology, Grammar-land and a new pocket thesaurus in Language & Literature
benefits for the elderly in Lifestyle
crystals, a witches' almanack, a gift edition of Gibran's "Prophet", and goblins, witches and ancient tracks in MBS
film studies in Media
edible mushrooms and geomorphology in Nature
rock athlete Ron Fawcett in Outdoor Activities
the multiverse in Science
the destruction of money, positive thinking and psychogeography in Society
the Playfair Football Annual in Sport
the effect of railways across the world, Fred Dibnah's traction engine and the Flying Scotsman in Transport
the British countryside, the Yorkshire Dales, cycling in the South Pennines, and touring Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Skye in Travel
and a cave baby, the Famous Five updated, dangerous time travel and more Artemis Fowl in Children's books

Recent local literary events strongly flavour The Book Case’s July bestsellers, with Hebden Bridge Festival and Simon Armitage’s visit competing for the top places. Two local interest books get a look in, as does an exploration of the history of an acre of land in North Yorkshire. The Orange prizewinner made our top ten yet again.

1. Notwithstanding - Louis Bernieres (£7.99): "Stories from an English village" where a lady dresses in plus fours and shoots squirrels, a retired general gives up wearing clothes altogether and a spiritualist lives in a cottage with the ghost of her husband. Louis de Bernieres appeared in Mytholmroyd during the Festival.

2. Selected Poems - Simon Armitage (£9.99) & 3. Seeing Stars - Simon Armitage (£12.99): Simon Armitage opened his reading at the Ted Hughes Theatre with the memorable "Sperm Whale" piece from this new collection described as "by turns a voice and a chorus: a hyper-vivid array of dramatic monologues, allegories, parables and tall tales." "Selected Poems" has a choice of poems from nine of his books up to 2001.

4. All Points North - Simon Armitage (£8.99): And this humorous prose collection is about growing up and being Northern in West Yorkshire.

5. Amenable Women - Mavis Cheek (£7.99): Mavis Cheek spoke with Louis de Bernieres to an appreciative audience in Mytholmroyd. In this novel, Flora Chapman is in her fifties when her husband dies in a bizarre ballooning accident. Seizing upon her new found freedom, she decides to finish the history of their village that Edward had begun.

6. Truth to Tell - Mavis Cheek (£11.99): Mavis Cheek’s most recent novel. Nina Porter seems to have it all: husband, home, family and security. But her life turns upside down when a marital row over truthfulness sets her thinking.

7. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99): Local author Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area continues to sell briskly.

8. Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers (£7.99): A modern twist on a medieval classic from a local author. Anna will be talking about the book during the Halifax Festival.

9. The Plot - Madeline Bunting (£8.99): Subtitled "A biography of an English acre", this was our July Non-Fiction Book of the Month. Following the author’s deeply conservative father’s death, she began to explore his passionate, lifelong attachment to a small plot of land in North Yorkshire.

Tied at 10th place: West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley (£9.99): The people of West Yorkshire have always been fond of a good story. Well-known local historian John Billingsley's latest book includes cautionary tales, amusing anecdotes, age-old legends and fantastical myths
& Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (£7.99): Orange Prize winner about a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America.

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
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/

Lloyd Jones - author of the Booker-shortlisted novel "Mr Pip", about a reclusive white man who teaches Dickens to the children on a Pacific island in a war zone - is founding a library on Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. As a result of the civil war, today's young generation mostly missed out on education and opportunities to acquire literacy. More info at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/24/bougainville-library-author

The book so excoriated by Giles Coren last month was Arundhati Roy's "God of Small Things", which others have also found rather annoying. But it has many supporters.

Find us on Facebook!

22nd July: Simon Armitage at Calder High, Bookhugger, walking guide, bridge leaflet, new cards and literary mags, new Blue Moose book, Reg Godwin

Dear Book Case customer or friend: a reminder and some updates -

Friday 23 July, Calder High School, 8pm – evening with Simon Armitage. He says:

"In July 2010 I’m walking the Pennine Way and writing a book about it. All the guide books recommend (in fact some insist) that the walk should be done from South to North, to keep the weather at your back and the sun out of your face. Despite which, I’m walking it from top to bottom, starting in Kirk Yetholm and finishing in Edale. It’s because I live close to the southern end of the trail, and I like the idea of walking home. Also, that way it will be downhill, right?

"More importantly, I’m doing the walk as a poet, in the style of the old troubadours. Wherever I stop for the night I’m going to give a poetry reading. There will be no charge for the reading, but at the end of the evening I’m going to pass a hat around, and people can give me what they think I’m worth. I want to see if I can pay my way from start to finish on the proceeds of my poetry. So, it’s basically 264 miles of begging."

More info at http://www.thescaremongers.com/simonarmitage/pennine-way.html - it's a free event but Simon will be passing round his troubadour's hat afterwards.

For more information please contact anna.turner@calderdale.gov.uk or phone 01422 392606.

This month we're on Bookhugger online literary mag as Independent Bookshop of the Month - and see their main page for lots of lively info on books, authors and events.

Just into stock is a new pocket-sized walking guide, Walks around Calderdale by Dorian Speakman (£2.99). From Dalesman, it gives details of ten local walks, ranging from Ogden Water and Mirfield to Walsden, and including Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall, Mytholmroyd, Cragg Vale and Todmorden areas.

We also have the fold-out leaflet/poster about the Old Bridge produced by Hebden Bridge Local History Society for the recent reenactment of the 1643 battle on the bridge: Hebden Bridge 1510 - the 500-year-old bridge (£1.00). There's a late-19th-century photo on one side and notes about the history of the bridge and of Old Gate on the other.

We've more great quality remainders (e.g. "God of Small Things" for £2.99) - some on the centre table, some on the landing - and we're trying the literary mags Ambit and Popshot: the Liberate issue after they were praised in the Independent.

Also new in, some bright new nature cards from Woodland Trust, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (a brilliant one of damselflies and one of a heron) and from Heart of a Garden: currently on the stand near the door.

And new from Hebden Bridge publishers Bluemoose, a novel, Gabriel's Angel by Mark A. Radcliffe (£7.99) about a grumpy web journalist who not only has sperm problems and a vanished job - he also gets run over and and wakes up to find himself in a therapy group run by Angels just beneath heaven - and that really annoys him! "The perfect antidote to the glib platitudes of emotional quick-fix culture: tender, astute and very funny," says Christopher Brookmyre. The author is not the DJ with a similar name, before you ask.

We were all very sorry to hear about the recent death of Reg Goodwin who was such a cheerful and helpful presence at Hebden Bridge station. There are details of the funeral at http://www.hbstationfriends.org.uk/ - News page.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop

7th July: Lavena Saltonstall et al, Simon Armitage does the Pennine Way, West Yorks Folk Tales, John Siddique on the London bombings and Ted Hughes

Another quick update from The Book Case on Market Street:

Friday 9 July, Hebden Bridge Library, 7.30pm: Jill Liddington on writing suffragette Lavena Saltonstall
Lavena Saltonstall, fustian tailoress from Hebden Bridge, is the most celebrated of all local suffragettes. We know about her through her vivid writing, in which she reflected back on her own confining growing-up. This evening, Jill Liddington, author of Rebel Girls, discusses Lavena's own writing and the Votes for Women campaigns which took her first to Halifax, then down to London, then into Holloway. Tickets £2 (£1.50 concs) from Hebden Bridge Library. We have Rebel Girls in stock at The Book Case.

Sunday 11 July, Hebden Bridge Library, 9am to 5pm: Writers' Roadshow with John Siddique, Melvin Burgess, Anne Caldwell, Fran Sandham and Philip Foster
A day of talks, readings, workshops and discussions with locally based authors. Stretch your creative muscles, meet publishers and learn from other writers. There is also a chance for a one to one session on your own writing on the Saturday.
£20/£15 concs (including lunch). Extra fee of £10 for one to one sessions. We keep all of John Siddique's books in stock!

Friday 23 July, Calder High School, 8pm – evening with Simon Armitage. He says: "In July 2010 I’m walking the Pennine Way and writing a book about it. All the guide books recommend (in fact some insist) that the walk should be done from South to North, to keep the weather at your back and the sun out of your face. Despite which, I’m walking it from top to bottom, starting in Kirk Yetholm and finishing in Edale. It’s because I live close to the southern end of the trail, and I like the idea of walking home. Also, that way it will be downhill, right?

More info at http://www.thescaremongers.com/simonarmitage/pennine-way.html

For more information on all three events and a programme/booking form, please contact anna.turner@calderdale.gov.uk or phone 01422 392606.

A correction and addition to our last newsletter: John Billingsley's West Yorkshire Folk Tales is £9.99, not £12.99 as stated - and the eye-catching illustrations are by Heptonstall artist Stan McCarthy.

John Siddique says: Being the 5th anniversary of the London Bombings of July 2005, I have recorded my poem Inside #2 which takes the reader/listener onto the bus in Tavistock Square. I decided to put it on Youtube and share it on my blog, to make it easily accessible for use by anyone interested. Please take a look, and pass on to anyone who you think would be interested, or who perhaps thinks poetry has no relevance in these days.

http://johnsiddique.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaSOQf9YVvU

I believe that peace comes from being strong enough to make it, war and terror are the weapons of the weak. It is time we individually let ourselves be strong, and to stop looking outside to people who believe in statistics and the economy as some kind of god.

And Keith Sagar's new book Ted Hughes and Nature: "Terror and Exultation" is now in stock. We also have copies of his book Laughter of Foxes at £12.99.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop, The Book Case

JULY NEWSLETTER

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We are currently supporting Hebden Bridge Arts Festival which is now well under way and as well as a display of books in the Festival Office by author's who are participating there are a selection of books about the artist Paula Rego at Artsmill from this Saturday. The Old Bridge has enthusiastically celebrated its 500th birthday and the winner of our adult quiz about bridges in books was Liz Dodd, to whom congratulations and a £10 book voucher. See below for the answers.

Book Case bags on holiday!

Proving popular are our nice big cotton shoulder-friendly Book Case bags - free to anyone who spends £10 or more - and if you send us a photo of it with you on holiday, there’s a chance to win a voucher. There’s a photo of one enjoying the sun in Aqaba here!

Throughout the summer we will continue to open Tuesday afternoons, 2.00-5.30pm, and Sunday afternoons: 2.00-4.30pm

We've got some of our big new selection of quality bargain books on a nice wooden table on the half-landing at the bottom of the stairs, and you'll now find our CDs of classical and other music in the wall racks nearby.

Free to take away is a "Lose yourself in a good book" catalogue of Summer Reading suggestions.

Our Readers' Opinions board is feeling a bit neglected, so we're giving it a rest. However there was support for Jon McGregor's "Even the Dogs", Lorrie Moore's "Who will Run the Frog Hospital" (wonderful!), Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy (excellent!), Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and David Adam's "Cry of the Deer".

Radical mag "Northern Voices" issue 11 (on sale at the shop) claims that the best Eccles Cakes aren't made in Lancashire but in Waites of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge!

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: Travelling Light - Tove Janssen (£7.99). This newly translated collection of stories brilliantly evokes the shifting scenes and restlessness of summer. A professor arrives in a beautiful Spanish village only to find that her host has left and she must cope with fractious neighbours alone; a holiday on a Finnish Island is thrown into disarray when a disconcerting young boy arrives; an artist returns to an old flat to discover that her life has been eerily usurped.

Adult non-fiction: Plot: A Biography of an English Acre - Madeleine Bunting (£8.99). After "Guardian" columnist Madeleine Bunting’s deeply conservative father’s death, in an attempt to understand him better, she began to explore his passionate, lifelong attachment to a small plot of land in North Yorkshire, and uncovered traces of its Neolithic inhabitants and of the Cistercian monks. The result sheds a fascinating light on what a contested, layered place England is, and on what belonging to a place might mean to all of us.

Children's book: Eating Things on Sticks - Anne Fine (£5.99). Harry is in trouble. He's burned down the family kitchen so now has to spend a week of his summer hols with his uncle Tristram - who's heading off to stay with a new girlfriend - Morning Glory - on a tiny British island. Harry doesn't expect it to be a lot of fun - with just a wacky competition at the end of the week to look forward to. Ages 8 -12yrs

CD: Venice by Jan Morris, Read by Sebastian Comberti - Naxos CDs (£16.99). To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first publication of one of the finest travel books on the world's most famous tourist destination! "To be heard on the way to Venice, whilst there, and on return."

NEWS

Local Interest

West Yorkshire Folk Tales - John Billingsley, £9.99
Whether hailing from the open Pennine hills or the close-knit neighbourhoods of the industrial towns, the people of West Yorkshire have always been fond of a good story. Well-known local historian John Billingsley's latest book includes cautionary tales, amusing anecdotes, age-old legends and fantastical myths. Line drawings by a local artist.

Waterside Walks in West Yorkshire - Peter Young (£7.99)
Ranges over the whole of West Yorkshire, including rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs, and has Todmorden, Hardcastle Crags and Ryburn as the most local, as well as Bronte Country.

Helen of Four Gates - Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (£18.95)
A facsimile reprint of the 1917 novel about hard times in the Pennines, the 1920 silent film of which was shot around Hebden Bridge and recently shown to a capacity audience at the cinema.

Local Authors

Reflections - Rob Ward (£45)
From the locally-based international artist and sculptor, a beautiful big yellow new book illustrating over 30 years of his work. Now in stock! More info here.

All for Poor Jack - Steve Tilston (£7.99)
From the well-known folk musician now based in Hebden Bridge - and also a keen archer! - a gripping historical novel set in 1485. While the merchants of Bristol await the outcome of the Battle of Bosworth, the surviving crew of their exploration ship Swallow are force-marched into the hinterland of the New World by native tribes.

Don't Wear It On Your Head, Don't Stick It Down Your Pants: Poems for Young People - John Siddique (£6.99)
From the well-known Hebden Bridge-based poet, a new version of his popular book of poems for young people. "This book is a celebration of who we are; the good stuff, our amazing senses, language, love, gossip and cheese. John Siddique's poems blast off the page into real life or they can melt as gently as a snowflake on your tongue. Many of the poems in this book were conceived in primary schools, so John has added special bonus material to help you enjoy reading and writing more, and also included is an exclusive interview about what it is to be a poet." Shortlisted for the CLPE Award. We hope to have John doing some children's poetry readings at The Book Case over the summer! Watch this space!

A Useful Punctuation Handbook for Adults - Catherine Taylor (£5.99)
Another helpful book from the Norland-based author and teacher, with lots of useful exercises.

Lookbook: colour and design jewellery - Wendy Wright (£3.99)

Start by colouring in the necklaces in the pictures, and end up designing jewellery from the shapes illustrated! Local author from over the county border.

Local Events

Hebden Bridge Arts Festival

We're midway through the festival and the literary events are proving very popular! - John Morrison reminded us of the mockable side of Hebden Bridge, Martin Parr talked about his time at the Albert Street Workshop in the 1970s and Louis de Bernieres and Mavis Cheek talked about their work to a large appreciative audience in Mytholmroyd Marti Parr's photos of everyday life in the Upper Calder Valley continues at the Festival office.

Still to come:

Saturday 3 July: Long Nose Puppets present Penguin at Little Theatre, Hebden Bridge, 11.00-11.45am. We're stocking the book Penguin by Polly Dunbar.

Sunday 4 July: Going the Distance: Novel Writing Workshops with Anna Chilvers at Hebden Bridge Library, 10am-12.30pm, 2.00-4.30pm. We stock Anna's successful novel Falling through Clouds.

Monday 5 July: Alison Weir and Suzannah Dunn: In Search of Henry's Women at Little Theatre, Hebden Bridge, 8pm-10pm. Two historical novelists (Alison Weir is also a popular historian) renowned for their work about the Tudors discuss Henry VIII's hapless wives.

Sunday 11 July: Trinidadian poet, artist and cook John Lyons returns to Hebden Bridge for a Cook Up in the Trades Club Kitchen, Hebden Bridge Trades Club, 12.30-2pm. Janet Oosthuysen will be supplying a 3-course meal from John's Trinidadian recipes - and we have Cook-Up in a Trini Kitchen and his latest poetry book No Apples in Eden in stock.

Sunday 4 July - Sunday 15 August: Paula Rego Recent Prints Exhibition at Artsmill, Wed-Sun., 11am-5pm.

And "Berringden Brow" author Jill Robinson will be appearing on the Festival Bus with her latest book "A Place like This" on 4th July and 10 July. We stock Jill's humorous trilogy about life in a town not too far from Hebden Bridge.

"Happy 500th Birthday Bridge" Quizzes

The answers to our adult quiz (three of the bridges were located in Yorkshire) are:

1. "Horatius" from The Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay (Lord Macaulay) - Rome.
2. Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell - Whitby (called Monkshaven in the book).
3. "Lucy Gray" by William Wordsworth - a mill near Halifax, possibly Sowerby Bridge. Near Sterne’s Mill, says one source.
4. "The Long Tunnel Ceiling" from Remains of Elmet and Elmet by Ted Hughes - the bridge east of Mytholmroyd that carries the A646 over the canal.
5. "The Tay Bridge Disaster" by William McGonagall - Rail bridge over the Tay between Dundee city and suburb of Wormit.

and children's quiz:

1. Eeyore in A A Milne's House at Pooh Corner;
2. Black Beauty in the book by Anna Sewell;
3. Anne of Green Gables in the book by L M Montgomery;
4. Maria in Elizabeth Goudge's Little White Horse;
5. Lyra in Philip Pullman's Northern Lights;
6. Tooticky in Tove Janssen's Moominland Midwinter;
7. The three Billy-Goats Gruff (traditional);
8. Jim in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island;
9. Tom in Arthur Ransome's Coot Club;
10. Toad in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

Orange Prize for Fiction

The winner was The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social- climbing flapper mother, Salome. Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution. Lacuna is in our bestsellers list. (£7.99)

Orange Award for New Writers

The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
As Zimbabwe breaks free of British colonial rule, young Lindiwe Bishop encounters violence at close hand when her white neighbour is murdered. But this is a domestic crime, apparently committed by the woman's stepson, Ian, although he is released from prison surprisingly quickly. Intrigued, Lindiwe strikes up a covert friendship with the mysterious boy next door. (£7.99)

Both are in stock at The Book Case and there's more info on both at http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/home

Puffin of Puffins

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer got 68% of the vote for "the Puffin of Puffins" in a project to celebrate the imprint's 70th birthday - more info at http://www.puffin.co.uk/static/puffinminisites/puffin70/vote.html - and if you disagree with the choice, you can read a spirited debate at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jun/17/puffin-of-puffins-goodnight-mister-tom

Oxford Professor of Poetry

Esteemed British poet Geoffrey Hill had a landslide vote into the post from Oxford undergraduates. Last year's election resulted in a public argument between Ruth Padel and Derek Walcott, and the post was shelved for a year. We have Geoffrey Hill's "Selected Poems" in stock £8.99

NEW TITLES

July's hardback fiction will include a new novel from Alexander McCall Smith and there's paperback fiction from Tove Janssen, Audrey Niffenegger, Ben Elton, Paul Auster, Matt Haig, Geoff Dyer, Iain Banks, Garrison Keillor, Robert Harris, David Baldacci and more. Reissues include Maria Edgeworth, Thackeray, John Buchan, Christopher Isherwood and Paul Gallico.

July'snon-fiction includes:

Marie Antoinette, James Herriot, Buzz Aldrin, Peter Kay, Mark Radcliffe, a woman who married into France and an Alzheimer's carer in Biography
Oil and fighting in the Middle East in Current Affairs
local ecopractice in Environment
feeding babies and toddlers, curries for students and traditional British cooking in Food and Drink
Bumper Guardian puzzles in Games and Hobbies
a North Yorkshire acre and the 1960s in History
British eccentrics in Humour
a year's reading from home in Language & Literature
Professor Stewart's oddities in Mathematics
miracles, angels, messages in water and fulfilment in making your own in MBS
donkeys and new editions of classic nature books (Bell, Williamson, Mabey, Leighton) in Nature<FONT>
Ray Mears goes North in Outdoor Activities
The Ancient Mariner (with Dore pictures), U A Fanthorpe and Jo Shapcott in Poetry
Karen Armstrong on God in Religion
Wainwright 2011 diaries, Redstone Art diary 2011 and Earth Pathway 2011 diary in Stationery
Minis and buses in Transport
2011 road atlases, living in the Uzbek desert, driving to Mongolia, England's unfashionable places, drugs and violence in Latin American and travel classics from Hudson, Wharton and Slocum in Travel
and an excited dog, a dreaded weird island holiday, Artemis and a Tudor escapist romance in Children's books

Local books including our own history and a new walking guide are again featured in The Book Case bestsellers for June as well as current national prizewinning fiction.

1. I Know My Own Heart - Anne Lister, ed. Helena Whitbread (£15.99)
There was universal interest in Anne Lister following the broadcast of "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister" starring Maxine Peake at the end of May which brought a lot of orders for local author Helena Whitbread’s book based on the diaries through our website.

2. Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (£7.99)
Again in second place, this chunky novel from the author of Poisonwood Bible about a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America. Making himself useful in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and Trotsky, he inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
Back near the top is Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area. Our own Royd Press publication.

3. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (£8.99)
The Booker-winning story of Thomas Cromwell - political genius, briber, charmer and bully - as Henry VIII’s pursuit of Anne Boleyn shakes the kingdom. The audio version is our current CD of the Month and Hilary Mantel is attending the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival.

5. The Pennine Way - Paddy Dillon (£12.95)
A new guide with a detailed description of the official route, photographs throughout the seasons and OS map extracts with full information about accommodation, public transport and other facilities available en route.

6. Halifax and Calder Valley Memories (£12.99)
From True North in Halifax, photographs and descriptions of scenes in Halifax, Elland, Brighouse, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden from Edwardian times on, covering events, street scenes, the war years, royal visits, the shops, leisure and transport.

7. Beautiful Cows - Valerie Porter (£12.99)
Photographic portraits of the best in bovine beauties. Beautiful Pigs and Beautiful Sheep are also available.

8. Memories of Ted Hughes 1952-1963 - Daniel Huws (£5.99)
This little book about Ted Hughes in his Cambridge years, and his friendship with Sylvia Plath continues to sell well.

9. Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle (£9.99)
An illustrated Royd Press publication about the many - now mostly forgotten - textile mills there used to be in the Dales.

10. Change of Climate - Hilary Mantel (£8.99)
By this year’s Booker winner, a novel from 1994 described as both a first rate thriller and a literary family saga - from the violent townships of South Africa to the windswept countryside of Norfolk.

"Like a book written by a computer. Like a pile of quivering word vomit. Like my worst reading experience ever."

Identify this prizewinning book (in stock at The Book Case) so loathed by Giles Coren! Answer next month.
Find us on Facebook!

24 June: "Yorkshire in Watercolour" book signing Saturday, the Book Case Bag and I-Spy

Hallo all, a reminder that artist Les Packham will be at The Book Case, 11.00am-12 noon, this Saturday 26th June, signing his colourful new book Yorkshire in Watercolour. The atmospheric pictures cover aspects of the whole of Yorkshire from here via the Dales to the coast. The wonderful Handmade Parade doesn't start till 2pm, so you'll have time for lunch inbetween times.

To celebrate the start of Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, we'll be giving away with all purchases, on Saturday 26th June only, The Book Case Cotton Bag - it has a nice long strap to go over your shoulder and is strong enough to carry your book purchases! We would like to know where our bags get to this summer, so wherever you go send us some photographs of the bag in unusual places. Email the photographs to bookcase@btinternet.com and receive a voucher from us for every photograph we publish on our website www.bookcase.co.uk! Today, tomorrow, and from Monday 28th onwards, the bag is free with purchases over £10.00.

Back in stock are the iconic spotter's I-Spy books, £2.50 each, brought up to date and re-issued for a modern market. Designed to stimulate children's observational skills, I-Spy books take you on a voyage of discovery and are a fun and exciting way for families to take a closer look at the world around them. They are a great family holiday activity, and what better way to keep the kids entertained on long journeys?

Congratulations to local resident and author Linda Patterson OBE on her appointment as Clinical Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians of London! More info on the Hebweb.

17 June 2010: Rob Ward, Martin Parr, Birthday Bridge Quizzes, Anne Lister, Blackberries and more

Now in stock is locally-based artist and sculptor Rob Ward's splendid new book Reflections colourfully illustrating over 30 years of his work! See our website for more details.

It's a big disappointment that Hilary Mantel can't attend the Festival and we wish her a speedy recovery. Wolf Hall is a gripping read, and we also have it on CD. We have in stock books by the authors expected at the Festival.

We have managed to get some copies of Martin Parr by Val Williams, including his Calderdale photos now on show in Albert Street. This book is generally unavailable at present so we're pleased to have three to offer at £35 each.

A reminder that the deadline for our two Bridges in Literature quizzes is this Saturday 19th June. Available at the shop, there is an adult quiz with five quotations about bridges to identify, and a children's quiz with ten characters doing things on and around bridges. The quizzes celebrate 500 years of Hebden Old Bridge.

Now in stock is a selection of the popular I-Spy books - including one on Green Britain, with some controversial windmills on the front cover.

More events about Anne Lister are planned:

20 June, 2pm, Shibden Mereside: Jill Liddington talks about "In token of our union: same sex partner ceremonies 1834"

23 June, 2pm, Shibden Hall: Afternoon tea with Anne Lister: learn about Anne's day to day life and enjoy a traditional afternoon tea.

25 July, 2pm, Shibden Mereside: Helen Whitbread talks about "The Social Life of Anne in early 19th-century Halifax".

8 August, 2pm, Shibden Hall: Anne Lister's Shibden: guided tours around the hall and park to discover Anne's impact on the Estate.

Booking essential: 01422 352246. All talks are £5 and include entry to Shibden Hall.

And we continue to post copies of "I Know My Own Heart" to all over the country following the recent TV programmes!

A new selection of quality bargain books is now in and on display on our centre table.

For people with Blackberries and such, you can access a low-memory text-only version of some of our informative pages (including Newsletters, Forthcoming and Local Interest) at our parallel Words site: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/. It's also accessible from the main shop website - click on "Words, Words, Words".

You'll probably be aware that another bookshop has opened in Hebden Bridge, aiming to duplicate many of the services we have been providing for decades. Peter's statement can be read on our website.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop,

JUNE NEWSLETTER

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Stand by for an eventful month with some superb authors attending Hebden Bridge Arts Festival (see below) and the ongoing celebrations of the the 500th anniversary of the Old Bridge. Entries to our two quizzes about bridges in books close on 19th June. The adult prize is a £20 Book Case book voucher, and there are five £10 book vouchers as prizes for children; the winning pictures will be on show in the window. Our 500 year literary time line leaflet with quotations from books published around the 10th year of each century is available to take away from the shop - or it can be downloaded here.

Linda Green signed copies of her new novel Things I Wish I'd Known (partly set in Todmorden) for customers at The Book Case - and we have a few signed copies in stock if you missed it.

"The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister", starring Maxine Peake, finally went out on TV and has been well-received, with a rush on Anne Lister's diaries in I Know My Own Heart - more stock is expected in soon. We' ve also sold out of Jill Liddington's book about Anne Lister, Female Fortune - also expected back in stock soon. We do have Jill's other two books about Anne Lister in stock (Presenting the Past and Nature's Domain, both with extracts from her diaries) - and we now have more copies of the Spring issue of the women's history magazine Herstoria which featured Anne Lister.

The summer issue of Herstoria is now in stock and it includes a big illustrated article by local journalist Issy Shannon on the history of women's magazines, an interview with Sarah Dunant, medieval nuns, a 12th-century female scribe, baby farmers, lady plant collectors and Warwick the Kingmaker's sisters.

From next Tuesday 8th June, we'll be opening on Tuesday afternoons again: 2.00-5.30pm

A reminder of our new Mr Men and Little Miss mugs, Gruffalo milk and biscuit set (a mug and a plate) in a sturdy carry box with cord handles and stylish retro Charles Buchan Football Mug.

Our Readers' Opinions board shows signs of revival, and people report enjoying Vendela Vida's Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and her Vacant Possession (very funny), Winifred Holtby's South Riding, David Mitchell's Ghostwritten (twice), Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Jacqueline Wilson's Love Lessons and David Mitchell's Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. NOT enjoyed were "fiction" (says someone sweepingly) and Cornelia Funke's Inkheart Trilogy.

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: Troubles by J G Farrell (£7.99). In 1919 Major Brendan Archer travels to the Majestic Hotel in Ireland and the fiancee he acquired on a rash afternoon's leave three years ago. 'Lost Booker' winner and the first of Farrell's memorable and entertaining Empire Trilogy.

Adult non-fiction: Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay (£14.99 at The Book Case). In this revelatory and redemptive book, with characteristic generosity and humour, Jackie Kay tells her own story. 'I was adopted by warm-spirited Scottish communists. When people ask me if I've ever found my "real" Mum and Dad, it is them I think of.'

Children's book: The Museum Book by Jan Mark and Richard Holland (£6.99). From the late lamented Jan Mark and a talented new artist, a brilliant and thought-provoking book for children about visiting museums.

CD: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, read by Dan Stevens (£15.99). The best-selling and riveting fictional account of the life of Thomas Cromwell during Henry VIII's long-drawn-out divorce of Catherine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn. Six CDs.

NEWS

Local Interest

Yorkshire in Watercolour - Les Packham, £14.99 paperback, £19.99 hardback
From the Pennines to the coast, over the North Yorkshire Moors and through the Wolds to the industrial south of the region, this book encompasses everything to please lovers of this remarkable county, portraying the Yorkshire landscape through the eyes of one of the county's most versatile and best known watercolourists. There's an exhibition of the paintings in Huddersfield and we'll be hosting a signing session at The Book Case on Saturday 26th June, 11.00am-12 noon.

Halifax - John A Hargreaves

Dr Hargreaves' definitive hardback illustrated book on the town is now £10.00.

Local Authors

Ted Hughes and Nature: "Terror and Exultation" - Keith Sagar, £9.50
Keith Sagar takes discussion of Hughes' relationship with nature onto a deeper level by relating it to paganism and Christianity, myth, Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and the whole tradition of nature poetry in English. He traces Hughes' painful journey from terror in the face of nature in his first three collections, through the transitional works from Crow to Cave Birds, to the transformation in Moortown and Remains of Elmet, culminating in the exultation of River.

Happy Holiday, Hammy the Wonder Hamster! - Poppy Harris, £4.99

From a local author, another of the popular books about Hammy the very special hamster. Hammy is very excited about his first trip to the seaside and he can't wait to dig lots of hamster tunnels deep down in the sand! But it's far too easy to lose a little hamster on a very big beach and Bethany isn't the only person who wants to find Hammy.

Leg before Wicket by Colin Goodwin, £6.99
From a Burnley-based author, a first novel about dodgy goings-on involving a local cricket club and property deals, in the style of Tom Sharpe.

Walking in Purbeck - Andrew Bibby, £6.95
From the local author and journalist, a second edition of this guide to 15 circular walks in this lovely area in Dorset.

Locally-based poet and playwright Amanda Dalton's new play for everyone over nine, Powder Monkey, will open at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester today 3rd June and continue to 19th June. Powder Monkeys were the children on ships' gun crews in the 1600s. Stella's brother is away fighting for freedom. She has his collection of soldiers - and Worm - but weird things are starting to happen.

Local Publishers

Royd House has just published a new collection of offbeat verse and prose from Helmshore-based historian Chris Aspin, entitled The Owl and the Pussycat: new light on an old legend (£4.99). Well-known poems take an unexpected turn, great figures of history are pithily portrayed in verse, weird and wonderful things happen to assorted animals, while there are strange goings on in the world of the KGB. Meanwhile Simple Simon continues to outwit cleverer folk! The delightful cartoon on the cover from Dick Graham, formerly the Manchester Evening News editorial cartoonist, shows the Owl and the Pussycat unhappily in the grips of Hokusai's Great Wave.

Local Events

Hebden Bridge Arts Festival

What a line-up! (With particular reference to dodgy Tudor goings-on.) And what a great Festival picture! As well as our stock at the shop, most books will be available from the Festival Box Office from 12 June, as well as at the actual events.

Monday 28 June: John Morrison presents his inimitable Milltown series at aj's Restaurant, Hebden Bridge, 8pm-9.30pm. We stock John's Milltown series, and also some of his splendid photographic books

Tuesday 29 June: Martin Parr talks about his time at Albert Street Workshop and his photos of everyday life in the Upper Calder Valley at Hebden Bridge Picture House, 8pm-9.30pm. We're stocking Val Williams' book which includes these early black and white photos. There'll be an exhibition of them at the Festival Box Office during the Festival.

Wednesday 30 June: Louis de Bernieres and Mavis Cheek talk about their work at St Michael's Hall, Mytholmroyd, 8pm-9.30pm. We're stocking a selection of their books, including the most recent - de Berniere's Notwithstanding and Mavis Cheek's Amenable Women (about Anne of Cleves) and Truth to Tell.

Friday 2 July: Hilary Mantel talks about her work at Hebden Bridge Picture House, 8pm-9.30pm. We stock most of her books, including the phenomal Wolf Hall about Thomas Cromwell.

Saturday 3 July: Long Nose Puppets present Penguin at Little Theatre, Hebden Bridge, 11.00-11.45am. We're stocking the book Penguin by Polly Dunbar.

Sunday 4 July - Sunday 15 August: Paula Rego Recent Prints Exhibition at Artsmill, Wed-Sun., 11am-5pm.

Crime Writers Association Event at Hebden Bridge Library, Friday 4th June

Crime writer and scriptwriter Cath Staincliffe will be talking about her new novel The Kindest Thing at 7.30pm at the Library. It's a love story, a modern nightmare and an honest and incisive portrayal of a woman who honours her husband's wish to die and finds herself in the dock for murder. More info about Cath here and contact Anna Turner 01422 392606 / Anna.Turner@calderdale.gov.uk about the event.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

Orange Prize shortlist

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver
Born in the US and reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd is a liability to his social- climbing flapper mother, Salome. Making himself useful in the household of the famed Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and exiled Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky, young Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution. (£7.99)

Black Water Rising - Attica Locke
On a dark night, out on the Houston bayou to celebrate his wife's birthday, Jay Porter hears a scream. Saving a distressed woman from drowning, he opens a Pandora's Box. (£7.99)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
Thomas Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. (£8.99)
A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
With America gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, a 'half-Jewish' farmer's daughter from the plains of the Midwest, escapes to university and takes a job as a part-time nanny to a couple who seem at once mysterious and glamorous. (£7.99)

The Very Thought of You - Rosie Alison
31st August 1939: the world is on the brink of war. As Hitler prepares to invade Poland, thousands of children are evacuated from London to escape the impending Blitz. Torn from her mother, eight-year-old Anna Sands is relocated with other children to a large Yorkshire estate which has been opened up to evacuees. (£7.99)

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle - Monique Roffey
When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national party.(£7.99)

"Lost" Man Booker (1970)

And the winner, by a big majority of the popular vote, was Troubles by J G Farrell, set in Ireland in 1919, just after the First World War, and the first of his Empire Trilogy. We have all three books in stock. Troubles won 38% of the votes by the international reading public, more than double the votes cast for any other book on the shortlist. More info at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1418 This is our June Novel of the Month.

The Manchester Poetry Prize 2010

Judges: Simon Armitage, Lavinia Greenlaw and Daljit Nagra. First prize: £10,000. Deadline for entries: 6th August 2010. Entry fee: £15
Under the direction of Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University is launching the second Manchester Poetry Prize, a major international literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing. To find out more about the Manchester Poetry Prize, and enter online, go to: www.manchesterwritingcompetition.co.uk

Picador Poetry ...
is launching an exciting competition to find the very best new, previously unpublished poetry in the UK. The winner will have their collection edited by their own prize-winning poetry editor Don Paterson and published onto the Picador Poetry list, where they'll join some of the finest contemporary poets.
The judging panel will be chaired by Don Paterson and will include poets Jackie Kay and John Stammers and the Guardian's Sarah Crown.
Entrants should submit ten pages of their poetry via the Picador website. The closing date is 1 September 2010. For more details, including full terms and conditions, please go to http://www.picador.com/Poetry/prize/picadorpoetryprize.aspx

Puffin of Puffins

Puffin are celebrating their 70th birthday and want people to vote on their favourite modern classic from the following; one has been chosen from each decade:

The Family from One End Street by Eve Garnett â€“ 1940s: a gentler classic of life in a simpler time, at home with the Ruggles family where there is never a dull moment.
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White - 1950s: the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur and of Wilbur's dear friend, Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider.
Stig of the Dump by Clive King - 1960s: a solitary little boy falls into a chalk pit and lands in a sort of cave, where he meets 'somebody with a lot of shaggy hair and two bright black eyes'.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl - 1970s: Charlie Bucket loves chocolate - and Mr Willy Wonka, the most wondrous inventor in the world, is opening the gates of his amazing chocolate factory to five lucky children.
Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian - 1980s: the story of young Second World War evacuee Willie Beech and grumpy but kind Mr Tom.
The Hundred Mile-an-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong - 1990s: Streaker is no ordinary dog, she's a rocket on four legs with a woof attached!
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer - 2000s: an explosive blend of action, comedy and fast-paced adventure.

You can vote from tomorrow, 4th June, until 16th June, at http://www.puffin.co.uk/static/puffinminisites/puffin70/vote.html

NEW TITLES

June's hardback fiction will include a new novel from Yann Martel and there's paperback fiction from Barbara Kingsolver (already out), Terry Pratchett, William Boyd, William Nicholson, Caryl Phillips, Barry Pilton, Maeve Binchy, Jodi Picoult, Nick Cave, Michele Roberts, Adam Thorpe and more. Reissues include Colette, A J Cronin, Regency Romance, stories for night reading, Jane Bowles, William Boyd and P D James.

June's non-fiction includes several books with unusually long and comprehensive titles (try Media and Science. Particularly impressive is Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as If it Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority).

a colour-it-yourself graphic novel of Frankenstein in Art
James Herriot, Aeronwy Thomas (daughter of Dylan), Brian Keenan, Vince Cable, Frank Gardner, Rachel Cusk and Jackie Kay in Biography
a Dutch reporter in the Middle East in Current Affairs
Rose Elliot, student cooking, ale (Indian Pale and Real) and how cooking civilised us in Food and Drink
wartime allotment methods in Gardening
Time Team Britain, Anne Boleyn, the English Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Israeli national myth and the women who invented the 20th century in History
dads making things, reconstructing a Halifax bomber and the Oxbridge questions in Hobbies, Practical Craft and Puzzles
parodies from Sebastian Faulks, lethal games in the recent past and unsuccessful dairy farming in Humour
the new Writers and Artists Handbook, the Arvon on biographic writing, beginning Theory and Shakespeare and Zadie Smith on writing in Language & Literature
spoilt children, baby names, miracles, dying gently, angels and Rose Fyleman fairies in MBS
Zizek on Hitchcock (and possibly Lacan) in Media
cows, birds, waves, landscape and salmon in Nature
surfing, walking, swimming and camping in Outdoor Activities
Marvell, Herrick, Ralegh, Blake, Thoreau, Fitzgerald and Judy Dench in Poetry
Tony Benn and Andrew Marr in Politics
Dalrymple on India and green men in Religion
opinions of Darwin and historical studies of science in Science
superfreakonomics, drug barons and holiday camps (we like to be diverse) in Society
the North of England, Wainwright through the Pennines and across the country, the Dales, Purbeck, free attractions, Scotland, India, Iceland, Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian coast, Naples and the Amalfi coast and London in Travel
and icebergs, Milly-Molly-Mandy, museums and teenage Sherlock Holmes in Children's books

Novels again made up half the total in The Book Case's May bestsellers - one of them by a local author. Three other books were of local interest, a children's sticker book was popular, and Mark Thomas's entertaining book of political ideas continued to sell briskly.

1. Things I Wish I'd Known - Linda Green (£6.99). Successful Todmorden-based author Linda Green signed her new novel for customers at The Book Case. Set partly in Todmorden, it's about a woman realising how far her present life is removed from her teenage dreams. Warm and funny with a dark edge.

2. Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (£7.99). Chunky new novel from the author of The Poisonwood Bible about a man torn between the warm heart of Mexico and the cold embrace of 1950s McCarthyite America. Making himself useful in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and Trotsky, he inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99). Back near the top is Peter Thomas's account of the history of our area. A Royd Press publication.

4. Last Voyage of the Olivebank - Len Townend, ed. Elvin Carter (£9.99). Len Townend's diary of one of the last Great Grain Races on the tall ships of the 1930s, with wonderful black and white photos. Len Townend lived locally and still has family in the area.

5. The People's Manifesto by Mark Thomas (£4.99). Inspiring to downright hilarious ideas for sorting out the country's political chaos and taking back power for the people. It's kept selling post-Election so can it be that the new government doesn't have everyone's unquestioned support? For shame!

6. The Ted Hughes Trail in Crimsworth Dean - the Elmet Trust, Donald Crossley, Nick Wilding & Lesley Alston (£2.50)
This colour illustrated booklet with sketchmap takes you on a circular walk from Midgehole visiting places significant in some of Ted Hughes' poems, many of them from Elmet. (Which is still inexplicably unavailable.)

7. Ultimate Truck Sticker Book (£3.99). Lots of trucks to identify and place, with a bit of info about each.

8. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (£8.99). The Booker-winning and bestselling story of Thomas Cromwell - political genius, briber, charmer and bully - as Henry VIII's pursuit of Anne Boleyn shakes the kingdom. The audio version is our current CD of the Month and Hilary Mantel is attending the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival.

9. The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt (£7.99). This novel about a famous Edwardian writer and her children (based on E Nesbit) holds its place at No 9.

10. Brooklyn - Colm Toibin (£7.99). Costa-winning novel about a girl emigrating from Ireland to New York in the 1950s.

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

"Three-quarters of readers are not aware of the Amazon Kindle. Three in every five have never even heard of a Sony Reader. The vast majority of consumers (68%) are unlikely or dead set against buying an e-book reader."

So found Reading the Future, The Bookseller's third annual survey into what readers and book buyers are thinking. More info at http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/119078-reading-the-future-2010.html

26th May: Anne Lister and "Yorkshire in Watercolour"

Now the election's over, the postponed BBC2 programmes about Halifax lesbian Tory landowner Anne Lister (1791-1840) are to be shown on Monday 31st May.

The fictional version, "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister", starring Maxine Peake, goes out at 21.00 (90 mins) and a programme about the research involved, "Revealing Anne Lister", presented by Sue Perkins, at 22.30 (1 hour).

We have in stock Anne Lister's diaries edited by Helena Whitbread in I Know My Own Heart and Jill Liddington's books about her, and we expect more stock of Herstoria Magazine featuring Anne Lister and the new Anne Lister walk shortly.

New in stock are copies of Les Packham's colourful new book, "Yorkshire in Watercolour", including paintings of Heptonstall and Mankinholes. We hope to be hosting a signing session at The Book Case on Saturday 26th June. The book's £14.99 in paperback and £19.99 in hardback.

14th May 2010: Linda Green signing Todmorden novel tomorrow! And more Mr Men/Little Miss mugs, Charles Buchan football mug, Gruffalo ...

Just a reminder that Linda Green, whose previous novel set in Hebden Bridge made our annual Top Ten, will be signing copies of her new novel, Things I Wish I'd Known, which is partly set in Todmorden, at The Book Case on Saturday 15th May from 11am. "Warm and enjoyable with a dark edge" is one reaction to the book.

And a new selection of Mr Men and Little Miss mugs has just arrived - choose from Mr Tickle, Mr Messy, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Giggles, Little Miss Scatterbrain and Mr Bump! If you're more of a Gruffalo person, we've now got in their porcelain milk and biscuit set (a mug and a plate) in a sturdy carry box with cord handles.

We're also now selling a rather nice Charles Buchan Football Mug. Charlie Buchan was a football player who on retirement edited his own football magazine, Charles Buchan's Football Monthly which ran through the 1950s.

MAY NEWSLETTER

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

It's spring at last and there's lots lined up, including a talk on Gaza by Sharyn Lock on 7th May (see below), a signing session by Linda Green on 15th May (see below), an Anne Lister walk on 16th May (see below), Hebden Bridge Arts Festival and the ongoing celebrations of the the 500th anniversary of the Old Bridge. Call at The Book Case to collect your copy of our two quizzes about bridges in books and our colourful Timeline!

The adult quiz features five quotations about bridges - you have to identify the sources and say where the bridges are. The prize is a £20 Book Case book voucher.
The children's quiz has characters from books doing various things involving bridges - who are they? Parents and grandparents can help - but the tie-breaker bridge picture on the back is for children only, within five different age ranges. There are five £10 book vouchers as prizes and the winning pictures will be on show in the window. The closing date for both quizzes is June 19th.
And our 500 year time line leaflet with quotations from books published around the 10th year of each century is available to take away from the shop - or it can be downloaded here.

Coming up is the renowned Hebden Bridge Arts Festival which will run from 26 June to 11 July. More details next month, but the programme will be available from Saturday 8th May.

The "Go away, I'm reading" cotton bags and mugs have been so successful we've reordered already - how nice and quiet it promises to be in the town. The Gruffalo, Little Miss and Beano & Dandy mugs are also selling well.

New in is an attractive selection from Flights of Fancy - colourful bird and animal cards with magnet stickers, a make-it-yourself Barn Owl mobile and a range of educational toy kits in cardboard tubes at £3.99: choose from knots, French knitting, magnetism, animal tracks casting, a whittling kit and a pocket sundial!

The Observer never used our week's bestsellers for their "Culture Map" feature. Bah, humbug.

Our excellent range of bargain books is still on display on our centre table and around the shop (with coloured dots on the spines).

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: Things I Wish I'd Known - Linda Green (£6.99). A new novel from bestselling Todmorden author Linda Green. Remember when life revolved around what top to wear? This is a hilarious, romantic and touching journey back to your teenage years... When Claire discovers the 'dream list' she wrote as a teenager, she realises how far removed her life is from the one she'd imagined. Divorced, stuck in a dead-end job and dating an ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer, she decides it's time to put her life back on track. See below.

Adult Non-fiction: The Tent, the Bucket and Me - Emma Kennedy (£7.99). A painfully funny reminder of just what it was like to spend your summer holidays cold, damp but with sand between your toes.

Children: Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree - Andy Stanton (£5.99). An other in the series from one of the most popular writers for this age group. Follow Polly and Friday on another crazy adventure on the streets of Lamonic Bibber. Watch out for that dastardly villain, Mr Gum, not to mention his sidekick, Billy William. 5-9yrs.

CD: The Life and Works of Chopin (4 Naxos CDs) (£16.99). In 2010, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Chopin is celebrated. Regarded as one of the most mesmerising performers of his day, Frederic Chopin, the pianist-composer, lives on in his music - his waltzes, mazurkas, etudes, preludes, nocturnes, three piano sonatas and two piano concertos. Here, his life, from his birth in Poland, his famous affair with the French writer George Sand, to his death at the age of 39 in Paris, is told with his music featuring prominently.

NEWS

Local Interest

Windyridge: a classic Yorkshire novel - Willie Riley (£9.99)
First published in 1912 and a bestseller of its time, this is a charming tale of Yorkshire village life. Grace Holden feels the "pull of the heather" and moves from London to an isolated Yorkshire village. There are locations based on real Yorkshire moors and villages and a cast of Yorkshire characters. Now reprinted with the original photos of Yorkshire. Willie Riley was born in Bradford and had a background in early cinema. Now in stock!

Local Authors

Things I Wish I'd Known - Linda Green, £6.99
A new novel from the successful Todmorden-based author. A coming-of-age story meets a hitting-40-crisis story with two parallel narratives - Claire's troubled teenage years in North London in the 1980s, and her present day life in Todmorden where she remembers the glamorous dreams of her youth. What happened to the handsome footballer husband, the high-powered law job and the beautiful Georgian townhouse she had her heart set on all those years ago? Linda will be signing copies of her book at The Book Case on Saturday 15th May from 11am.

Last Voyage of the Olivebank - Len Townend, ed. Elvin Carter (£9.99)
A true and poignant account of the ill-fated "Last Voyage of the Olivebank" in 1938-39 told with verve, humour, honesty and sensitivity by Len Townend, who at one point lived in Heptonstall and still has family in the area. He made that voyage, one of the Great Grain Races of the 1930s, and survived - and had his rough logs typed up before he died. Now edited by Elvin Carter, who previously published Mytholmroyd-born Geoffrey Robertshaw's accounts of the grain races of the 1930s. Now in stock and selling briskly!

Local Author Events

John Siddique will be standing in for Alice Walker at The Happy Soul Event - a celebration of Asian and Black film, arts and music exploring well-being - at Wandsworth Town Hall, London, tonight, 30th April - details of the event at http://www.happysoulfestival.co.uk/ John says: "Alice can’t be in the UK at the moment, so if you fancy an evening of poetry, prose and music with myself and a bunch of other lovely talented people, it would be lovely to see you. The theme for the event is well being and mental health, but do expect some favourite pieces from me, and a couple of special new things.. and I promise not to talk about the bigoted woman story and the election."

Sharyn Lock, the author of Gaza: beneath the bombs, will talk about her experiences on the Gaza strip at Hebden Bridge Library, 7.30pm on 7th May. Tickets £2 or £1.50 available from the Library. More info here. Gaza: beneath the bombs is on sale at The Book Case.

Linda Green will be signing copies of her book, Things I Wish I'd Known, at The Book Case on Saturday 15th May from 11am.

Anne Lister Walk: Jill Liddington will lead a guided walk from the North entrance of the Piece Hall, Halifax, following the route of the new Anne Lister walk featured in the Spring 2010 issue of Herstoria magazine, on Sunday 16th May, meeting 11am. You need to book for this by calling Julie Swift on 01422 393273. More details at http://www.jliddington.org.uk/anne-lister.html We have Anne Lister's diaries and Jill Liddington's books about her in stock.

Locally-based poet and playwright Amanda Dalton's new play for everyone over nine, Powder Monkey, will open at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester on 3rd June and continue to 19th June. Powder Monkeys were the children on ships' gun crews in the 1600s. Stella's brother is away fighting for freedom. She has his collection of soldiers - and Worm - but weird things are starting to happen.

Local Publishers

Cold Spring in Winter by Valérie Rouzeau, translated by Susan Wicks and published by Todmorden-based Arc Publications is one of only four international titles to be short-listed for this year's Griffin Poetry Prize, the world's largest international poetry prize. The book is available at The Book Case.

Local Events

Public Performance: Calder High School Expressive Arts students exam performances inspired by Upper Valley Oral Histories, 10th May at Calder High School Theatre, 6.30-7.30pm. No charge.

Guided Historical Walk up Colden Valley, 11,00 am, Sat. 22 May, from Church Lane near the turning circle, Mytholm. A moderate walk, about two hours, 3-4 miles round trip looking at the industrial history of the valley including old mill sites, associated oral history and some natural history. Appropriate footwear and clothing. Organised by Wild Rose Heritage and Arts, phone 01422 843398.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

"Lost" Man Booker (1970)

A shortlist of six from 22 books which would have been eligible to be Booker winners in 1970 but were never considered because of a change or rules, has now been announced:

• The Birds on the Trees by Nina Bawden (Virago) - £8.99
• Troubles by J G Farrell (Phoenix) - £7.99
• The Bay of Noon by Shirley Hazzard (Virago) - £8.99
• Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (Arrow) - £8.99
• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark (Penguin) - £8.99
• The Vivisector by Patrick White (Vintage) - £8.99

The winner will be decided by the international reading public - until midday today you can vote at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1412 and the overall winner will be announced on 19 May. We have them all in stock.

NEW TITLES

May's hardback fiction will include books from Alexander McCall Smith, Blake Morrison and David Mitchell. In paperback, apart from local author Linda Green, there's Louis de Bernieres, Penelope Lively, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Barbara Trapido, Anita Shreve, Alexander McCall Smith, Anne Michaels, Wilbur Smith, Iain Pears and many more. Reissues include James Hogg, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Taylor, Daphne du Maurier (CD), Duncan Williamson, Christopher Priest, Italo Calvino and a number of Central European Classics.

May's Non-fiction includes:

British painting in the National Gallery, and a sneaker colouring book (really) in Art
Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome, Sir Ranulph Fiennes & family, Alan Bennett and an officer in the Grenadier Guards in Biography
Gaza, Zhao Ziyang and Yemen in Current Affairs
carbon footprints in Environment
worms in Gardening
Druids, the Jesus Wars, domestic life (Bill Bryson), Elizabeth I's women, the Pilgrim Fathers who came back, reivers, Dibnah on British buildings and industrial Britain, modern Britain (Andrew Marr), morbid interwar Britain and family Britain of the 1950s in History
Heath Robinson, pig farming, cold damp camping, Top Gear, Jack Dee, P J O'Rourke and a sequel to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Humour
the new Writer's Handbook, the new Collins-Robert French dictionary and small dictionaries for French, Spanish, English and Scrabble in Language & Literature
cooperation strategies, why we lie, helping babies sleep and the archangel Raphael in MBS
sheep, badgers and clouds in Nature
living wild, a camping cookbook and Bonatti's mountains in Outdoor Activities and Sport
German philosophy, Schopenhauer and Terry Eagleton on Evil in Philosophy
Simon Armitage, Sylvia Plath, Philip Larkin, Neruda, Fleur Adcock, Chase Twichell and Browning and Coleridge on CD in Poetry
prayers and the Qu'ran in Religion
the history of the universe in Science
Malcolm Gladwell in Society
some early Hebridean diaries and a calendar in Stationery
roads, Chris Stewart in a boat, Ararat, the Arctic, cycling in Northern England, North Yorkshire, a selection of the new Lonely Travel Discover series and some Cook's guides in Travel
and boots, Mr Gum, an adventure in Indonesia, and a spook's apprentice in Children's books

April saw novels popular at The Book Case, making up half the total. Mark Thomas’s entertaining book of political ideas continued to sell briskly, a new book about working on a tall ship in the 1930s immediately shot into the charts, and the remaining books sold to people interested in the local area.

1. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest - Stieg Larsson (£7.99). Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. Concludes the immensely successful trilogy. No. 2 was also in our Top Ten.

2. The People's Manifesto by Mark Thomas (£4.99). Mark Thomas toured the country getting audiences to come up with policies aimed at sorting out the country's political chaos and taking back the power for the people. From the inspiring to the downright hilarious, you'll wonder why these fantastic ideas aren't part of the constitution already.

3. Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead (£8.50). Back in stock, this collection of strange local legends is always popular.

4. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Philip Pullman (£14.99) Part novel, part history, part fairytale, The Good Man Jesus offers a radical new take on the myths and the mysteries of the Gospels, and the genesis of church that has so shaped the course of the last two millennia.

5. The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson (£7.99). The second instalment in the popular Millennium Trilogy sees Lisbeth Salander wanted for murder while Blomkvist tries desperately to clear her name.

6. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (£8.99). The Booker-winning story of Thomas Cromwell - political genius, briber, charmer and bully - as Henry VIII’s pursuit of Anne Boleyn shakes the kingdom.

7. Last Voyage of the Olivebank - Len Townend, ed. Elvin Carter (£9.99). This true and poignant diary of one of the last Great Grain Races of the 1930s, by Len Townend, who at one point lived in Heptonstall and still has family in the area, has only been with us for two days and is already a bestseller!

8. Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle (£9.99). An illustrated account of all the mills that once stood in the Dales, with information about the firms, child labour, and hand-loom weavers' riots plus details of the buildings, the machinery in them and their power sources.

9. The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt (£7.99). A famous writer is interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends are already inscribed with mystery.

10. Millstone Grit: a Pennine Journey - Glyn Hughes (£3.95). The classic description of the area first published in the 1970s, written as an account of a journey on foot.

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

"Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. "

- William Ewart Gladstone

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23rd April: Walking with Women's Suffrage, this Sunday

Feeling disenchanted with the coming Election? Perhaps thinking you may not even vote? Then step out into the beautiful Calderdale countryside this Sunday - and walk in the footsteps of the local suffragettes who fought so hard for women to win the right to vote.

'Walking with Suffrage' is an 8-mile circular walk skirting round the Upper Calder Valley hillsides. It visits the homes of local suffragettes, the clothing factories they worked in, and the Hebden Bridge square where Emmeline Pankhurst addressed a packed Votes for Women meeting in January 1907. Follow in the steps of Lavena Saltonstall, fustian clothing machinist - and Calderdale's most celebrated suffragette.

The walk starts at 10.30 am on Sunday 25 April, meeting on the Manchester platform of Mytholmroyd Railway station. It finishes about 4.30 pm back in Mytholmroyd for a cup of tea, and is organized by Mytholmroyd Walkers' Action. The walk is led by suffrage historian Jill Liddington, author of Rebel Girls: their fight for the vote (Virago).

Booking advisable - please email julie.swift@calderdale.gov.uk or phone 01422 393273 to reserve a place.

Rebel Girls by Jill Liddington is in stock at The Book Case.

April Newsletter

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

It's nearly Easter and we have on display cards involving chicks, bunnies and lambs, and of course Eddie Cass's definitive book about the Calderdale Pace Egg Play, which is due to have its annual outing tomorrow in various locations. This month's issue of Northern Earth also has a groundbreaking article on "The Poetry of the Pace-Egg" by Michael Haslam.

Our opening hours for Good Friday will be 10am-4.00pm, and for Easter Monday, 12.00-4.00pm. Saturday will be as normal.

In celebration of the the 500th anniversary of the Old Bridge, The Book Case has produced two bridge-related quizzes and a timeline. The adult quiz and timeline - which celebrates 500 years of Hebden Bridge and literature - is available now at the shop, with a prize of a £20 book token, and the children's quiz will be ready soon.

Mike Barrett's quirky postcards celebrating Hebden 500 are now in stock and available as a pack or individually, and we continue to sell the postcards of evocative old photos of the local area from the Alice Longstaff Collection.

Following customer requests, we've now produced our own colourful paper book tokens for use at The Book Case, and continue to sell and redeem the new card-style National Book Tokens.

New in are some brightly coloured cotton bags with the encouraging remark "Go away, I'm reading" and mugs saying the same - and from the same suppliers, classic Ladybird cover teatowels and attractive affordable bookplates.

The Observer contacted us to ask for our top three sellers of the week for their "Culture Map" feature; we're waiting to see if they appear. (Since you ask, they were Anna Chilver's "Falling through Clouds", Peter Thomas's "Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area" and Mark Thomas's "People's Manifesto").

We've restocked our Tarot section and have a good selection of packs for you to choose from (others can be ordered).

An impressive quantity of excellent bargain books is currently being unpacked - with the likes of Colm Toibin, Isabel Allende and Ernest Hemingway, as well as old favourites such as "Watching the English". Find them on our centre table or around the shop (with coloured dots on the spines).

West Yorkshire Forget Me Not Trust have teamed up with Hebden Bridge & District Rotary Club to produce a a colour-illustrated booklet about Wadsworth Parish Boundary Walk. The booklet tells you where to go and what to look out for, and can be used on the day of the organised walk or independently. All proceeds to charity, to raise the money to build a children's hospice.

Our opinions board shows people enjoying Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry, Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Sarah Dunant's Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan, Paul Kingsnorth's Real England, Ursula le Guin's Changing Planes, Greg Mortensen's Three Cups of Tea and Malorie Blackman's Double Cross. Not enjoyed were Kate Mosse's Labyrinth, J G Ballard's Crystal World and Stephen Galloway's Cellist of Sarajevo.

If you know of an enthusiastic youngster who’s keen on books and would like to work at The Book Case on Saturdays from 10am-4pm, please get in touch with Peter Tillotson at the shop

(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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: Trespass - Rose Tremain (£15.99 at The Book Case). In a silent valley in the Cevennes stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Its owner is Aramon Lunel, an alcoholic so haunted by his violent past that he's incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin. His sister, Audrun dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life.

Adult Non-fiction: Map Addict: A Tale of Obsession, Fudge and the Ordnance Survey - Mike Parker (£7.99) On an average day, we will consult some form of map approximately a dozen times, often without even noticing. At a stroke, they convey precise information about topography, layout, history, politics and power. They are the unsung heroes of life: Map Addict sings their song.

Children: Ghost Hunter - Michelle Paver (£6.99). Paperback edition of the finale of the acclaimed Wolf Brother series. As winter approaches and Souls' Night draws near, the Eagle Owl Mage holds the clans in the grip of terror. To fulfill his destiny, Torak must seek his lair in the Mountain of Ghosts. Ages: 10+

CD: Sylvia Plath: The Spoken Word (£9.99). This new CD from British Library Publishing brings together BBC recordings from the British Library Sound Archive, and includes Plath discussing and reading from her work. A particular highlight is a 1961 recording of a BBC programme Sylvia Plath recorded with Ted Hughes, where they talk about their marriage and what it means to live with your muse. Many of these recordings are published here for the first time. The publication date has slipped, and we now expect this mid-April.

Apologies for the late arrival of our last month's choice, "Secret Songs of Birds", which also slipped its date - it has just arrived today!

NEWS

Local Interest

Pennine Way North, National Trail Guide - Tony Hopkins (£12.99)
This is the complete, official guide to the northern section of the Way, following the Countryside Agency's acorn waymarks from Bowes across the rugged Durham moors, past Hadrian's Wall to Kirk Yetholm, a distance of 129 miles, for the long distance walker or the weekend stroller.

The Heritage Trail - Tom Schofield (£8.99)
The Heritage Trail is a 54-mile walk within the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the route of which connects three preserved steam railways — the East Lancashire, the Keighley and Worth Valley and the Embsay to Bolton Abbey. The Trail is divided into 16 linked circular stages ranging between 4 and 9.5 miles.

Local Authors

Bluemoose Books of Hebden Bridge have just sold the rights to Falling through Clouds by Anna Chilvers to Russian publishers Centrepolygraph, to be translated and published in the next 18 months. Congratulations to Anna, who's now an international author!

Out of Office - Mark Piggott (£7.99)
From an ex-Hebden Bridge resident, a gritty fast-paced novel about a man dissatisfied with life. Set around the time of the 2012 Olympics, the novel sees a chaotic London, with failed terrorism attacks and significant problems in the City, leading to a growing sense of unease. The central character Christian Hook finds his life spiralling into freefall.

Memories of Ted Hughes 1952-1963 - Daniel Huws (£5.99)
The life of his Cambridge years, and his friendship with Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath: The Spoken Word
This new CD from British Library Publishing brings together BBC recordings from the British Library Sound Archive, and includes Plath discussing and reading from her work. A particular highlight is a 1961 recording of a BBC programme Plath recorded with her husband, Ted Hughes, where they talk about their marriage and what it means to live with your muse. Many of these recordings are published here for the first time. (£9.99)

Love and War in the Pyrenees: A Story of Courage, Fear and Hope, 1939-1944 - Rosemary Bailey (£8.99)
From a Halifax author, a well-written history and travelogue about the hidden history of the area, where she now lives, including the Resistance, collaboration, treatment of refugees from the Spanish Civil War, and concentration camps.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

• The Birds on the Trees by Nina Bawden (Virago) - £8.99
• Troubles by J G Farrell (Phoenix) - £7.99
• The Bay of Noon by Shirley Hazzard (Virago) - £8.99
• Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (Arrow) - £8.99
• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark (Penguin) - £8.99
• The Vivisector by Patrick White (Vintage) - £8.99

The winner will be decided by the international reading public - you can vote at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1412 and the overall winner will be announced on 19 May. We have them all on display except the Patrick White which is due in.

The Diagram Prize annual award

This is bestowed upon the book carrying the oddest title of the year. The 2009 shortlist was as follows, with the starred one the triumphant winner:

Collectible Spoons of the 3rd Reich by James A Yannes
Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter by D.W.T. Crompton
Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots by Ronald C. Arkin
The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Ellen Scherl and Marla Dubinsky
**Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Daina Taimina**

What Kind of Bean Is This Chihuahua? by Tara Jansen-Meyer

Run by The Bookseller magazine, the prize was first awarded in 1978 - to Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice - and was conceived to alleviate boredom during the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Find out more at http://www.thebookseller.com/Diagram+Prize

NEW TITLES

The big names are still rolling in during April in fiction - there are new hardback novels from Rose Tremain, Philip Pullman (this one promises to be controversial), Isabel Allender and Susan Hill and in paperback, there's the final Stieg Larsson, a new Tolkien, Sebastian Faulks, Philippa Gregory, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Aravid Adiga, Rachel Cusk, Tracy Chevalier, Joan Bakewell, Henning Mankell, Andrew Martin and many many others. Reissues include Conrad (on CD). Barbara Pym and a Penguin reissue of their 1960s classics including Keith Waterhouse, David Lodge, Anthony Burgess, Barry Hines, Margaret Drabble, Susan Hill and J L Carr.

April's Non-fiction includes:

Venice, northern knitting, spinning and Clarice Cliff in Art, Architecture & Craft
Sofia Tolstoy, Vera Lynn, Ted Hughes, Paddy Ashdown, Shappi Khorsandi, an Imam's daughter and a Yorkshire bobby in Biography
liberty vs. terror, Islamic civilisation, the Taliban and Dubai in Current Affairs
greenishness and ecological intelligence in Environment
Jamie Oliver, halogen ovens and WI bread in Food
gardening in schools in Gardening
the human colonisation of the Earth, ancient Roman rulers, forgotten English history, WWI women, WWI postcards, a WWII escape and a humorous look at modern Britain in History
Punch cartoons and Rum Doodle in Humour
A C Grayling in Ideas
nature-deficit disorder in Lifestyle
Manguel, the British working classes, Aldous Huxley, the gospels as literature and five centuries of reading in Literature
20 centuries of world maps and a map addict in Maps
the selfish society, coping with change, good retreats, on the couch and angels in MBS
the Proms and Aled Jones's favourite hymns in Music
the impact of the first images of the earth, the British landscape and fields (Collins) in Nature
dogs and cats (from PBI) in Pets
Sylvia Plath, Andrew Motion and Seamus Heaney in Poetry
Winstanley, Marx and Martin Bell in Politics
evolution and cells in Science
the Pennine Way North, the coast to coast walk, small campsites, cycle rides in the north, unusual bits of Yorkshire, Portugal, hiking in Ireland, a journey in search of salsa, Alan Whicker, rivers, drovers' roads in the Cairgorms and two travel classics (Byron and Cherry-Garrard) in Travel
and monster care, a lost deerhound, the final Wolfbrother in paperback and Lia's life as a machine in Children's books

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

What you've been buying: MARCH's bestsellers at The Book Case
As always, World Book Day dominated March sales at The Book Case, with five adult novels also selling well. Peter Thomas’s ever-popular local history, weird Calderdale goings-on, an alternative election manifesto and a book analysing what’s wrong with our society made up the remainder.

1. World Book Day Special: Kitten Chaos by Anna Wilson with Magic Ballerina: The Magic Dance by Darcey Bussell (£1.00). All of the World Book Day Specials for children were popular, but ballerinas and kittens took first place!

2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (£8.99). Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009 and our March Fiction Book of the Month. 'Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.'

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99). Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area keeps selling! A Royd Press publication.

4. The People's Manifesto by Mark Thomas (£4.99). Mark Thomas’s entertaining guide to what people really want from their government. If only!

5. Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers (£7.99). Hebden Bridge author Anna Turner’s novel, a contemporary retelling of the medieval English tale "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", is selling well.

6. We Are All Made of Glue - Marina Lewycka (£7.99). Georgie Sinclair's life is coming unstuck. Her husband's left her. Her son's obsessed with the End of the World. And now her elderly neighbour Mrs Shapiro has decided they are related. The latest entertaining novel from the author of "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian".

7. The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone - Richard Wilkinson (£9.99). Still selling well is this groundbreaking book demonstrating that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor. Our February Non-Fiction Book of the Month.

8. Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead (£8.50). Back in stock, this collection of strange local legends is always popular.

9. Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (£7.99). A chilling ghost story set in a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire. A doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries. Our Fiction Book of the Month for February.

10. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (£7.99). First in the popular Millennium series and now a film. The original Swedish title was "Men Who Hate Women"! Book 3 is now out and expected to be popular.

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

"Men who do not read are unfit for power." - Michael Foot in Debts of Honour.

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5th March: Anne Lister in Herstoria and Anna Turner reading

Two more bits of news:

The new edition of Herstoria - "the history magazine that puts woman in her place" - is now in, with a special feature on Anne Lister of Shibden Hall including articles by Jill Liddington and Alison Oram, and a new Anne Lister Walk. Jill Liddington will lead a guided walk following this route on Sunday 16th May meeting 11am. You need to book for this by calling Julie Swift on 01422 393273.

Tonight at Hebden Bridge Library, 7.30pm, Anna Turner will be reading from her novel Falling through Clouds - and again in the Bluemoose Showcase at The Huddersfield Literature Festival on Thursday 11th March at 4.00pm. Local author Stephen Clayton will also be reading from his book The Art of Being Dead at this Huddersfield event.

March Newsletter

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

March is a busy month in the world of books - publishers get their top Spring titles out, and it's World Book Day too: see below for both.

In addition, we expect the forthcoming film (however inaccurate) and TV documentary about Anne Lister to spark interest in her diaries, published in I Know My Own Heart, edited by Helena Whitbread, and in Jill Liddington's books about her. We don't have a transmission date yet, but BBC2's The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister will open the 24th BFI London Lesbian and Gay Festival on 17th March. More info at the BBC and Screen Yorkshire.

Already under way is the Totally Locally Fiver Fest Fortnight from 26th February to 14th March. "If every adult in Calderdale spent just £5 per week extra in our local shops & businesses it would mean an extra £40 million a year going into our local economy!" For the duration of the event, The Book Case will be offering for £5 each (and offering you the opportunity to brush up your local history at the same time):

Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area by Peter Thomas
Gold Pieces by Phyllis Bentley
Ned Carver in Danger by Phyllis Bentley
The Adventures of Tom Leigh by Phyllis Bentley

Our lovely new cards and stationery have been very well received - we've lost track of the number of compliments we've received. Go to our Facebook page to see some samples of the cards! And Mike Barrett's wonderful quirky postcards to celebrate Hebden 500 will soon be available here too.

Speaking of Hebden 500, The Book Case has produced a small bookish celebration of 500 years of Hebden Old Bridge, which can be downloaded here in pdf. Some of the publication dates are slightly "circa" - like the bridge. More about Hebden 500 soon!

We have fresh stocks in of Beano, Dandy and Gruffalo mugs and we're keeping in a few of the classic Penguin mugs too.

We now have in stock the Royal Society of Literature's Review journal for 2010, £5.00. Lots of good articles by well-known authors, including Philip Pullman, Jenny Uglow, Frances Wilson and Anna Stein discussing e-books.

Since last month, readers have commented favourably on our opinions board about Maggie Gee's My Driver, Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father (but not Audacity of Hope?- it's unclear), Niall Murtagh's Blue-Eyed Salaryman, Arturo Perez-Reverte's Seville Communion and Queen of the South and Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes.

On a more environmental subject, the two shops on Market Street deliberately kept semi-derelict have long been causing annoyance and frustration and there's a petition at the shop asking the Council to do something about them - please come and sign! More info on Hebweb.

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

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

Adult fiction: Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (£8.99). 'Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.' Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009.

Adult Non-fiction: Do They Think You're Stupid?: 100 Ways of Spotting Spin and Nonsense from the Media, Celebrities and Politicians - Julian Baggini (£8.99). Aka "The Duck that Won the Lottery", another entertaining selection of examples of bad argument.

Children: Lord Sunday by Garth Nix (£5.99). In this seventh and last book of "The Keys to the Kingdom", the mysteries of the House, the Architect, the Trustees, the Keys and the Will are revealed, and the fate of Arthur, our Earth, and the entire Universe is finally decided. Ages 8 -12yrs+

CD: Secret Songs of Birds: The Hidden Beauty of Birdsong Revealed (£9.99). Many songbirds, such as the Skylark, Icterine Warbler and Grey Fantail produce songs that astound us with their complexity and speed of delivery. Though these songs never fail to impress, it is almost impossible for the human ear to distinguish the wealth of hidden notes and surprising melodies that make up these remarkable compositions. On this disc original recordings are played alongside digitally mastered versions where the natural speed has been specifically altered to reveal the subtle intricacy of each song in its full splendour.

NEWS

Local Interest

Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead (£8.50)
Back in stock, an expanded and updated edition of this collection of strange local legends.

The Pennine Way - Paddy Dillon (£12.95)
The Pennine Way was the first long-distance path to be created in Britain, back in 1965. It traverses the 'backbone of England', striving to stay high on the moors, yet dropping down to delightful little towns and villages each evening. It has always been a popular trail, rightly regarded as a challenge, running higher and wilder than any other National Trail. This title presents detailed description of the official route, with variants. It is illustrated with photographs throughout the seasons and OS map extracts with full information about accommodation, public transport and other facilities available en route.

Local Authors

Savage Gods, Silver Ghosts: In the Wild with Ted Hughes - Ehor Boyanowsky (£19.95)
Ehor Boyanowsky became friends with Ted Hughes through their shared passion for fishing, and this is a portrait of Ted Hughes the outdoorsman via their joint fishing expeditions in British Columbia.

Gaza: Beneath the Bombs - Sharyn Lock; Sarah Irving (£12.99)
Hebden Bridge-based Sharyn Lock's eyewitness account brings home the horror of life in Gaza beneath the bombs. Sharyn went to the Gaza strip with the Free Gaza Movement, thinking the greatest danger she faced was making it past the Israeli sea blockade in a fishing boat, but soon after her arrival Israel attacked Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants by land, air and sea. With others from the International Solidarity Movement, Sharyn volunteered with Palestinian ambulances, assisting them as they faced overwhelming civilian casualties.

Local Event

Locally-based poet Simon Rennie will be having his Hebden Bridge launch of his first collection of poems, Little Machines, on Thursday 11th March from 8pm onwards, upstairs at the Hole in t'Wall (just by the old Packhorse Bridge) and reading with him is another fantastic poet from Hebden Bridge, John Siddique.

NATIONAL BOOK EVENTS

World Book Day

This year’s World Book Day falls on Thursday 4th March, and the theme is 'Read to a Million Kids'. This year’s 11 £1 books are as follows (please note that the age ranges given are for appropriate content and not reading age), and we'll have them piled up ready for the influx of young readers with their special £1 tokens:
:
Picture book - Thomas & Friends: Thomas to the Rescue

And five special two-books-in-one - double the fun!

Age 5+ flip books
Kitten Chaos by Anna Wilsonwith Magic Ballerina: The Magic Dance by Darcey Bussell
The Charlie Small Journals: Valley of Terrors with Dinosaur Cove: Battle of the Giants by Rex Stone

Age 7+ flip book
Grubtown Tales: The Great Pasta Disaster by Philip Ardagh, illus. Jim Paillot with Pongwiffy and the Important Announcement by Kaye Umansky, illus. Nick Price

Age 9+ flip book
Jamie Johnson: Born to Play by Dan Freedman with Young Samurai: The Way of Fire by Chris Bradford

Age 11+ flip book
Walking the Walls by Chris Higgins with Medusa Project: The Thief by Sophie McKenzie

And for adults, we have a good range of Quick Reads at £1.50.

"Lost" Man Booker (1970)

Because of a change of rules in 1970, a number of possible winners for that year were never considered. There's now a plan to select a shortlist of six from 22 of those books which would have been eligible and are still in print, as listed in last month's newsletter.

The shortlist will be announced this month but, as with the Best of the Booker in 2008, the international reading public will decide the winner by voting via the Man Booker Prize website. The overall winner will be announced in May.

Read more at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1317

NEW TITLES

March is traditionally one of the big months in publishing, and this one is no exception. In fiction, we’ll have new novels in hardback from Ian McEwan, Alexander McCall Smith, Sophie Hannah and Delphine de Vigan. In paperback, there will be Hilary Mantel and Colin Toibin (the Booker and Costa winners), Kazuo Ishiguro, Ursula Le Guin, Salley Vickers, Fay Weldon, Maggie Gee, Val McDermid, Donna Leon, Nicci French and many many others. And lots of promising reissues too: Oxford anthologies of short stories, Gaskell, Philip K Dick, Alfred Bester, Terry Pratchett, Nancy Mitford, John Wyndham and a whole lot of Hilary Mantel and Val McDermid.

March's Non-fiction includes:

Calligraphy, craftsmanship, knitting and the Roma in Art & Craft
Mary Tudor, Margaret Drabble, William Fiennes, Gervase Phinn, a check-out girl and an ambulance control phone answerer in Biography
schools for girls in Afghanistan and an unlikely cross-border friendship in Israel in Current Affairs
a Malawi boy who built windmills for his village in Environment
Pam Ayres and a British miscellany in Humour
good English food over the centuries, vegetarian cookery and vegan cookery in Food
gardening in schools in Gardening
the Celts, British rebels, the Arab golden age, Tower beheadees, English childhood 1600-1914, the Hellfire Clubs and how to fly a Spitfore in History
small everyday problems and a 9-5 jungle survival skills in Humour
the God debate and post-hoc fallacies in Ideas
David Crystal and reading and writing in Language
ironing really flat in Lifestyle
labyrinths, babies, panic attacks, sleep, shaking, witchcraft, angels and cosmic ordering in MBS
trees, chickens, horses, swallows, bees, quite a lot about birds, Richard Mabey, snow geese and living in Nature
the SAS survival guide and Himalayan Mountaineering in Outdoor Activities
BBC CDs of The Country Wife, The Importance of Being Ernest, Private Lives, Time and the Conways and The Norman Conquests, and Classic FM Favourite Poems, international poetry and love poems in Plays and Poetry
post-war Britain, local money, less stimulation for children and our relationship with work in Society
the Pennine Way, the Lake District, North Britain, camping, back roads in Britain and Europe, Middle England, natural navigation, 18th-century India, US railroads, train travel, exploration and reissues of Dervla Murphy and Wainwright in Travel
and ladybirds, warrior sheep, Percy Jackson, the final Keys to the Kingdom and the Titanic in Children's books

The Calder Valley factor made itself felt again at The Book Case, with two books of local interest and four more by local authors. In addition, two books looking at present-day society, one wry and humorous and the other scientific, were popular, and a ghostly novel and love poems made up the remainder.

1. The People's Manifesto by Mark Thomas, £4.99. Mark Thomas toured the country to find out what people really wanted. There are some really good ideas in this thoroughly entertaining little book!

2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99. Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area continues popular. A Royd Press publication.

3. Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers, £7.99. This first novel from a Hebden Bridge author is a contemporary retelling of the medieval English tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight via the story of a young man plagued with nightmares after being held hostage in Iraq and his relationship with 22-year-old student Kat as they summer in Cornwall.

4. Little Stranger - Sarah Waters, £7.99. A chilling ghost story set in a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire. A doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries. Our Fiction Book of the Month for February.

5. The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone - Richard Wilkinson, £9.99. This groundbreaking book, based on thirty years' research, demonstrates that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor. Almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society. Our February Non-Fiction Book of the Month.

6. Hammy the Wonder Hamster - Poppy Harris, £4.99. Hammy: the cleverest hamster the world has ever seen! But there's something different about Hammy, something very special. Not only is he super cute, he's got amazing brains and an incredible secret. By a local author.
7. Life Class by Glyn Hughes, £13.95. A magnificent poem by a major poet, notable for its keen attention to the natural world and accounts and circumstances of a life lived to the full. Glyn Hughes lives locally and is a prize-winning author and poet.

8. Memories of Dolphin - Tom Greenwood, £11.99 inc DVD. Still selling well, this book from a Hebden Bridge author commemorates the great Baildon climber Arthur Dolphin who died tragically young in the Alps in 1953 and includes a DVD of black and white footage showing Dolphin in action in the Lake District in 1950 and 1951.

9. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty, £9.95. Steve Murty's well-illustrated history of the Calder Valley and surrounding area, last year’s bestseller, makes another appearance.

10. 10 Poems About Love, £4.95. Well, it was Valentine’s Day! This is one of Candlestick’s little pamphlet-card anthologies.

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

"It is fair to say that book publishing is more than a business. Without the contents of our libraries - our collective backlist, our cultural memory - our civilisation would collapse."

- James Epstein, "Publishing: the revolutionary future" from The New York Review of Books, 20 February 2010

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10th Feb: Gaza, Weird Calderdale, cheering stationery items from Pomegranate and Valentine's Day

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We found out too late to do a mail-out about the launch on Saturday of Sharyn Lock's book Gaza: Beneath the Bombs - but we do now have the book in stock at £12.99.

Everyone will be pleased to hear that Paul Weatherhead's popular book Weird Calderdale is now back in print, expanded and updated at £8.50, and he'll be talking about more unpleasant local legends tonight for the Local History Society at the Methodist Hall, 7.30pm. We have stock of that too!

New in is what we think is an exceptionally attractive range of stationery - bookplates, bookmarks, notebooks and notecards - from Pomegranate and Sierra Club, including wildlife artist Charley Harper, Inuit art and some impressive waves.

And if you're stuck for ideas for Valentine's Day this weekend, we have a good range of cards and several books of love poems.

Best wishes from your local bookshop

_______________________________________________________

February 2010 Newsletter

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

A reminder that from Monday 1st February, National Book Tokens Gift Cards replaced the traditional paper Book Tokens, but the paper tokens already in circulation will remain valid for exchange.

We've now restocked with loads of good quality bargain books alongside all the new ones - you'll find them on and under our centre table.

We also have some brilliant new cards in, including some lovely bright ones from Victoria Macleod who did the pictures for the Earth Pathways diary. And some striking new ecofriendly ones are on their way, as is a gorgeous selection of cards and stationery featuring Charley Harper's bright quirky birds and animals. And if you want unusual Valentine cards, look no further!

We still have a few of Geoff Boswell's Hebden Bridge calendar left. It's the last year he's doing it, so get one while you can! It's become quite an institution over the years and we'll all miss it in its current incarnation.

Apologies for missing the paperback version of Sarah Waters' Little Stranger which came out in January unannounced by our suppliers. It's now in stock and we've made it Fiction Book of the Month to compensate.

Hurrah for smaller publishers who keep republishing good books from decades and centuries gone by! We keep looking out for ones you might like. But we were a bit startled to see a picture of Ted Hughes as Heathcliff on the cover of a forthcoming new edition of Wuthering Heights. We have both pictures on display in the shop!

And on the subject of small presses, Bertram Books of Norwich have launched a new bargain classics imprint Samphire Press, for independent booksellers, and we're selling them at £2.00. If you like them, we'll stock more.

Our readers' opinions board is coming back to life - people report enjoying Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, Tove Jansson's True Deceiver, Stephen King's The Stand, James Robertson's Testament of Gideon Mack and Frances Spalding's John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art. Not being enjoyed is Annie Proulx's Accordion Crimes, reported to be depressing.

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

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

Adult fiction: Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (£7.99). A chilling ghost story set in a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire. A doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, home to the Ayres family for over two centuries.

Adult Non-fiction: The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone - Richard Wilkinson (£9.99). This groundbreaking book, based on thirty years' research, demonstrates that more unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them - the well-off as well as the poor. Almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society.

Children: King of Tiny Things - Jeanne Willis and Gwen Millward (£5.99). When two little girls visit their grandparents, it seems like a brilliant idea to camp outside for the night. But then the dark comes and it doesn't seem such a good idea, until an unexpected visitor arrives - the King of Tiny Things. He is the shepherd of creepy crawlies, bugs and grubs and shows the girls that the night is bright with magic. Ages: 4-7yrs.

CD: Fry's English Delight (£12.99). Four programmes on the joys of the English language, hosted by Stephen Fry on Radio 4. Puns, metaphors, quotations and cliches, all expertly and entertainingly dissected.

NEWS

Local Authors

Memories of Dolphin: the life of a climber remembered - Tom Greenwood (£11.99)
Commemorates the great Baildon climber Arthur Dolphin who died tragically young in the Alps in 1953 and includes a DVD of black and white footage showing Dolphin in action in the Lake District in 1950 and 1951. The book was launched at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on 16th January.

The Sea and the Forest - Sally Baker (£4.00)
Poems from a locally-based author and gardener. Her poetry has been published in several magazines.

Local Events

An Afternoon with Anne Lister and friends - Sunday 7th February, 2.30 - 5.15pm at Hebden Bridge Library

2pm Children's storytime with Tamsin Walker
Tamsin Walker is a locally-based lesbian author and illustrator whose book Not Ready Yet! came out last year. She is also a mother, teacher and activist who enjoys going camping. She lives locally and 'Not Ready Yet!' is her first book. Her aim is to create images and text that reflect the lives of her family and friends.

2.30pm A Short Film : Anne Lister's Diaries: The Rosetta Stone of 19th Century Lesbianism.
The discovery and publication of Anne Lister's diaries by Helena Whitbread in 1988 challenged previous conceptions about lesbianism in early 19th Century Britain. Anne Lister owned Shibden Hall in Halifax. The presenters, all from Halifax and members of GALYIC (Gay and Lesbian Youth in Calderdale), will provide an intriguing introduction to this fascinating lesbian.

2.45pm Helena Whitbread
Anne Lister was born in 1791 and died in 1840. Her life was adventurous and colourful. Residence at a girl's boarding-school in York at the age of fifteen led to her first love-affair with a fellow-pupil, Eliza Raine. Helena Whitbread will discuss Anne's childhood and her complicated early love-life during her search for the ideal female lover with whom she could share her life.

3.30pm Jill Liddington
In 1832, Anne Lister returned home to Shibden, feeling bitterly betrayed again by another woman's marriage plans. She confided to her diary, 'Here I am, at forty-one, with a heart to seek'. She found Ann Walker, a neighbouring heiress - and in 1834 their union was celebrated with an exchange of rings. Jill Liddington's talk explores this same-sex partnership - 175 years ago.

4.15pm Refreshments and discussion

4.45pm Phil Pagraves on the Gay Liberation Front
Phil Pagraves give a presentation about the Gay Liberation Front in Leeds in the early seventies. He has recently been acquiring documents from that time and re-meeting old members.

5.15pm Finish

Contact Katherine Coussement on 01422 288040 for more info. We have Anne Lister's I Know My Own Heart on sale at The Book Case as well as Jill Liddington's two books about her, and Tamsin Walker's books is due back in.

Cracking On: poems on ageing by older women - Hebden Bridge Library, Friday 12th February 19.00 – 20.30

Pamela Coren, Joy Howard, Meg Peacocke and Gina Shaw will read from this anthology which explores all aspects of ageing, from losing parents to confronting the inevitability of our own deaths. Here are poets facing up to life, with a recognition of its transience, absurdities, triumphs and disasters, in the spirit of taking it on the chin. The book costs £10.00 and is available from The Book Case.

Costa Awards

The Costa Award winners are selling well, with the exception of the overall winner, Christopher Reid's The Scattering, which sadly hasn't been available for some weeks. We'll get it back as soon as we can. We did spot it as a good'un when it first came out!:

Best Novel: Colm Tobin - Brooklyn. "It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time." We now have the trade paperback; the mass-market paperback is due in March.

Best First Novel: Raphael Selbourne - Beauty. The story of a young Bangladeshi woman on the run from her family, inspired by the author's experiences of teaching in a deprived area of Wolverhampton. £7.99

Best Biography: Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man. Paul Dirac was a leading pioneer in the field of quantum mechanics, and was the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. He was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. £9.99.

Best Poetry: Christopher Reid - The Scattering. A moving, unsentimental record of loss. Its playfulness, which includes finding rhymes for "sarcoma" and "tumour", does not obviate tenderness but complements it. Where others ratchet up their writing, Reid prefers a quiet approach. Out of stock, £7.99

Best Children’s Book: Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer. A dazzlingly-imagined, morally complex, compulsively-plotted tale. £7.99

Find out more at http://www.costabookawards.co.uk/awards/category_winners.aspx

"Lost" Man Booker (1970)

Because of a change of rules in 1970, a number of possible winners for that year were never considered. There's now a plan to select a shortlist of six from 22 of those books which would have been eligible and are still in print, as follows

o Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy
o H.E.Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
o Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
o Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
o Christy Brown, Down All The Days
o Len Deighton, Bomber
o J.G.Farrell, Troubles
o Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
o Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
o Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
o Susan Hill, I'm The King Of The Castle
o Francis King, A Domestic Animal
o Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
o David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
o Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
o Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
o Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander
o Joe Orton, Head To Toe
o Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
o Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
o Muriel Spark, The Driver's Seat
o Patrick White, The Vivisector

The shortlist will be announced in March but, as with the Best of the Booker in 2008, the international reading public will decide the winner by voting via the Man Booker Prize website. The overall winner will be announced in May.

Read more at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1317

NEW TITLES

In Fiction in February, there are new hardbacks from Andrea Levy and Martin Amis, and again lots in paperback, including Sarah Waters, Marina Lewycka, Alexander McCall Smith, Paulo Coelho, Kate Grenville, Henning Mankell, Alaa Al Aswany, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, Tom Rob Smith, John Wyndham and many more, with reissues from Defoe, Doyle, Gaskell, Kipling, Sayers, Fallada and Mankell again.

February's Non-fiction includes:

dogs smelling in Animals
Victorians, print-making, hats, textiles and wool pets in Art & Craft
Constable, Sibelius, a Russian-Scottish family during the Revolution, Hitler's reading habits, Howard Marks, a family under Saddam Hussein, a woman surgeon and extraordinary true tales by ordinary people in Biography
unequal societies, the world economic crisis, the war in Darfur and an unlikely friendship in Baghdad & London in Current Affairs
Moosewood and Indian-East African-British cuisine in Food
kids, natural drugs, vegetables and containers in Gardening
Alexander the Great, Saladin and the Spanish Civil War in History
Pam Ayres and a British miscellany in Humour
Arabic and Japanese dictionaries in Language
crofting, cutting back on shopping and weddings in Lifestyle
the geological past in Nature
The People's Manifesto, Marx, Salman Rushdie, and Arundhati Roy on Democracy in Politics
Jung in Psychology
the Universe as Quantum Information and 13 scientific mysteries in Science
flying, camping in Wales and Scotland, b&bs, the Dales, Paris, Cape Town, the Winelands and the Garden Route, underground Britain and Britain by bike in Travel
and guinea pigs, a dragon, creepy crawlies while camping,and a teenage girl enslaved by Vikings in Children's books

A new year and a change of pattern. Last month The Book Case unusually had a history book at second place, and five novels, one by a local author. Peter Thomas’s local history rose back to the top, and three other books, including a bestselling walking book, had local connections. The other one was an entertaining travel book cum spiritual autobiography.

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
It’s back to the top for Peter Thomas’s account of the history of our area. A Royd Press publication.

2. The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer (£8.99)
What would you see and hear and smell if you went back to the Middle Ages? How would people behave? This book tells you.

3. The Children’s Book - A S Byatt (£7.99)
A famous writer is interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends are already inscribed with mystery. Our Fiction Book of the Month.

4. Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers (£7.99)
This first novel from a Hebden Bridge author and published by local publishers Blue Moose has been getting lots of coverage. It tells the story of a young man plagued with nightmares after being held hostage in Iraq and his relationship with 22-year-old student Kat as they summer in Cornwall.

5. Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer (£12.99 at The Book Case)
The exciting conclusion to the Twilight Saga. There’s still no sign of this book going into paperback but it doesn’t seem to hurt sales!

6. Memories of Dolphin - Tom Greenwood (£11.99 inc DVD)
This book from a Hebden Bridge author commemorates the great Baildon climber Arthur Dolphin who died tragically young in the Alps in 1953 and includes a DVD of black and white footage showing Dolphin in action in the Lake District in 1950 and 1951.

7. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert (£7.99)
"One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia." The sequel, Committed, gave a boost to sales of the lively and thought-provoking original.

8. The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson, trans. Thomas Teal (£7.99).
Our December Fiction Book of the Month continued to sell well. A strange young woman fakes a break-in at the house of an elderly artist in the deep winter snows of a Swedish hamlet, in order to persuade her that she needs companionship.

9. Beauty - Raphael Selbourne (£7.99)
The story of a young Bangladeshi woman on the run from her family, inspired by the author’s experiences of teaching in a deprived area of Wolverhampton. Costa winner.

10. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle (£6.95)
Whatever the weather, this book of local walks from Hebden Bridge publishers Pennine Pens keeps selling!

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

"The physicality of books enables serendipitous discovery" - Steven Poole reviewing Robert Darnton's The Case for Books in the Guardian, 30 Jan. 2010. Elsewhere a contributor to an online discussion about ebooks vs real books comments:

"And there is something, on a very simple level, remarkably pleasurable about physical books anyway ..."

There's also a nice piece off the Guardian books blog about reading books in your lunch hour.

Find us on Facebook!

Two additions, Thursday 7th January 2009

Stop Press: "Falling through Clouds" on Radio Leeds, and a climber remembered

Anna Chilvers, author of "Falling through Clouds" will be appearing live on the Jonathan I'Anson Radio show at 10.15am on Friday 8th January on BBC Radio Leeds.

And there'll be a feature about her book in the Yorkshire Post on 16th January.

New into stock is "Memories of Dolphin: the life of a climber remembered". Compiled and edited by Hebden Bridge-based Tom Greenwood, it commemorates the great Baildon climber Arthur Dolphin who died tragically young in the Alps in 1953, and it will be launched at Hebden Bridge Trades Club at 3pm on 16th January. The book costs £11.99, which includes a DVD of black and white footage showing Dolphin in action in the Lake District in 1950 and 1951. Part of the film will be shown at the launch.

Book launch, Costa winners, local pages and Book Token cards

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

You're invited to the launch of Hebden Bridge author Anna Chilver's novel, Falling through Clouds, on

Saturday 9th January, 5.30pm at The Trades Club - with a party afterwards!

The book tells the story of a young man plagued with nightmares after being held hostage in Iraq and his relationship with 22-year-old student Kat as they summer in Cornwall and is published by Hebden Bridge-based Bluemoose Books. "Anna's prose is razor sharp, her dialogue pitch perfect. This, her fine first novel, weaves a tale that moves effortlessly through light and darkness. It's a serious page turner, moving, witty and thoroughly engrossing." - Lesley Glaister.

The Costa Award winners are now out, as follows:

Best Novel: Colm Tobin - Brooklyn. "It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time." The hardback is currently unavailable, as is the trade paperback. It's due in March in paperback at £7.99. Till then, we'll stock the trade paperback if we can get it.

Best First Novel: Raphael Selbourne - Beauty. The story of a young Bangladeshi woman on the run from her family, inspired by his experiences of teaching in a deprived area of Wolverhampton. Due in today, £7.99

Best Biography: Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man. Paul Dirac was a leading pioneer in the field of quantum mechanics, and was the youngest theoretician ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. He was also pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and legendarily unable to communicate or empathize. Due in today, £9.99.

Best Poetry: Christopher Reid - The Scattering. A moving, unsentimental record of loss. Its playfulness, which includes finding rhymes for "sarcoma" and "tumour", does not obviate tenderness but complements it. Where others ratchet up their writing, Reid prefers a quiet approach. In stock, £7.99

Best Children’s Book: Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer. A dazzlingly-imagined, morally complex, compulsively-plotted tale. Due in today, £7.99

------------------------

You can now access some of the missing local interest booklists via the Words site. Better-looking ones are in preparation!

--------------------------

National Book Tokens in their wisdom are replacing the paper tokens with electronic gift cards from the end of this month. We will still be able to accept paper tokens indefinitely, but apparently we won't be allowed to sell them. When we know more, we'll let you know, and apologise in the meantime to anyone who doesn't think it's a terrific idea.

Best wishes from your local bookshop

JANUARY 2010

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

A very happy New Year to you! It's been a busy month and our new website still needs some work, but we hope to have all the sections up and running soon. After today (we're closed), we will be back to normal opening hours.

You can find our bestsellers of 2009 below - only the President of the United States, the Poet Laureate and a word card game - plus a successful local novelist - could hold their own amongst the popularity of publications on local walks and history!

The Gruffalo mugs proved very strong sellers, and we'll have new stocks in a couple of months.

We now have in stock a self-published, not-for-profit women's health book called Threads - for more information see www.threadsbook.org

At http://www.audiobookradio.net/ you can find a free radio station dedicated to broadcasting stories, drama, poetry and interviews. I can't actually get it here because we don't have the right sort of Flash, but you might be luckier ...

Now that the Christmas rush is over, we plan to put back on display our board for your thoughts on the books you're enjoying - or otherwise. How about a discussion of book covers too? I'm cross about the irrelevant new covers on Penguin's John Wyndham books - surely someone at Penguin has read them and could have explained to the artist what the books are about? Any other covers you love or loathe? And why?

THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS

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

Adult fiction: The Children's Book - A S Byatt (£7.99). A famous writer is interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends are already inscribed with mystery.

Adult Non-fiction: Smile or Die - How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World - Barbara Ehrenreich (£10.99)
Explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. Rigorous, insightful, bracing and funny, this book uncovers the dark side of the 'have a nice day' nation.

Children: Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster - David Conway (£5.99). Little Miss Muffet is bored with her tuffet, and goes in search of a new nursery rhyme to be in. Before you can say "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," the whole book of rhymes is in chaos. Ages: 3+ yrs

CD: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carre (£15.65). The first in the Karla trilogy starring Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and with a star cast including Anna Chancellor, Alex Jennings, Kenneth Cranham and Bill Paterson.

NEWS

Local Interest

What Brass Bands Did For Me - Chris Helme (£12.99)
Chris Helme is a retired police officer living in Brighouse and has been associated with brass bands for 50 years; he edits The Conductor magazine and also writes for The British Bandsman. This new book celebrates the world of brass bands and remembers the unforgettable characters - performers, composers and arrangers - that live on through their music. It's a record of life in the mill towns as it once was and a triumphant celebration of the brass band community of today, with over 100 previously unpublished archive photographs from private collections.

Local Authors

Congratulations to Halifax historian and author John Hargreaves for his personal achievement award from the British Association of Local History. Dr Hargreaves is well-known as the author of Halifax, editor of the Halifax Antiquarian Society's Transactions and as a lecturer.

Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers (£7.99)

From a Hebden Bridge author, the story of a young man plagued with nightmares after being held hostage in Iraq and his relationship with 22-year-old student Kat as they summer in Cornwall. "Anna's prose is razor sharp, her dialogue pitch perfect. This, her fine first novel, weaves a tale that moves effortlessly through light and darkness. It's a serious page turner, moving, witty and thoroughly engrossing." - Lesley Glaister.

COSTA BOOKS AWARDS CATEGORY SHORTLISTS

The category award winners will be announced 5th January, and the overall winner on 26th January. Nominees for ...

Costa Novel Award

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall: a vividly told tale of Tudor intrigue about the blacksmith's son who rose to become one of the most powerful men in England. Booker winner. In stock
Penelope Lively's Family Album, about adult children who return to the family home and the memories it holds for them.
Christopher Nicholson's The Elephant Keeper about a young stable boy who forms an attachment to two elephants in 18th-century Britain.
Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, about an Irish immigrant's adjustment to post-Second World War America in Brooklyn.

Best First Novel

Rachel Heath - The Finest Type of English Womanhood
Peter Murphy - John the Revelator
Raphael Selbourne - Beauty
Ali Shaw - The Girl with Glass Feet

Biography

Graham Farmelo's The Strangest Man: the Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius.
William Fiennes's The Music Room: "a small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory"
Simon Gray's Coda: his memoir about dying of cancer.
Caroline Moorehead's Dancing to the Precipice: the life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, a courtier who survived the French Revolution and fled to the New World.

Poetry

Clive James - Angels Over Elsinore
Katharine Kilalea - One Eyed Leigh
Ruth Padel - Darwin: A Life in Poems (in stock)
Christopher Reid - A Scattering (in stock)

Children's literature

Siobhan Dowd - Solace of the Road
Mary Hoffman - Troubadour
Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book Two)
Anna Perera - Guantanamo Boy (in stock)

Find out more at http://www.costabookawards.co.uk/awards/thisyearshortlist2008.aspx (sic)

NEW TITLES

It's a new year and the publishers' production lines are rolling again. In Fiction, there's a new Orhan Pamuk in hardback, and lots in paperback, including A S Byatt, Sebastian Barry, Barry Unsworth, Anita Brookner, Dai Sijie, Raymond Feist and many others, with reissues from Conan Doyle, Wilde, Rose Macaulay, Mikhail Bulgakov and P D James.

January's Non-fiction includes:

a dog, horses, pigs and poultry in Animals
Andy Goldsworthy in Art
love letters, an ambulance and the author of "Eat Pray Love" finding commitment in Biography
vanishing Gaia in Ecology
the Nordic diet and vegan recipes in Food
the Goddess in the British landscape, Tacitus on Britain and Germania, walking through British history, Islamic history and World War I in History
failing to be a better person in Humour
retirement and laptops for the mature in Lifestyle
meditation, enlightenment, emotional intelligence, human relationships, brain training, modes of thinking, compassion, dying, babies' names, bringing up children, Tai chi, NLP and astrology in MBS
Asian horror in Media
love poems, W B Yeats, Carol Ann Duffy and poems for children in Poetry
Chris Mullin in Politics
cosmic ripples and physics in Science
"positive thinking", depressing modern life, the failure of aid to Africa, fanatical fundamentalism and privacy in Society Today
camping, rivers, England and new guides to Ireland, Andalucia, the Italian Lakes and Amsterdam in Travel
and a nursery rhyme disaster, an orangutan and world cooking in Children's

For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/new_title_bc.htm

E-mail, phone or fax us to reserve any of these new titles.
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What you've been buying: DECEMBER's bestsellers at The Book Case

Humorous stocking fillers featured amongst The Book Case’s December bestsellers, along with a moon calendar, a card game and two books on nature - but local interest was again at the top and made up four of the top ten positions.

1. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty, £9.95
Yet again Steve Murty's well-illustrated history of the Calder Valley and surrounding area was in top position!

2. Calder Valley Christmas DVD - Nick Wilding, £11.99
A classic mixture of archive film (including the snow of 1947), reminiscences, hilarious anecdotes and old traditions, from the well known local film-maker.

3. Book of Funny Signs - Eleanor Morton, £4.99
From the pages of Dalesman magazine, a collection of weird and wonderful signs.

4. Mrs Scrooge: A Christmas Tale - Carol Ann Duffy, ill. Posy Simmonds, £4.99
A droll retelling of the classic story, brought up to date with a message about the nature of the real gifts we give and receive.

5. Lecardo, £5.99
This entertaining card wordgame for ages 10-adult continued to sell strongly.

6. Red Sky at Night - Jane Struthers, £9.99
"The Lost Book of Country Wisdom" - an attractive collection of traditional countryside lore.

7. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
Peter Thomas’s history of our area continued popular. A Royd Press publication.

8. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.95
Cold snowy weather didn’t stop people buying this best-selling book of local walks.

9. Lunar Calendar 2010, £5.25
An attractive poster style calendar of the phases of the moon for the coming year.

10. Cloudspotter’s Guide - Gavin Pretor-Pinney, £8.99
Several books on clouds were popular, but this one did the best!

BESTSELLERS OF 2009 (excluding books supplied to other shops)

1. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty; 2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas; 3. Hebden Bridge Town Trail - Local History Society & Walkers Action; 4. South Pennines OS map; 5. Ten Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green; 6. World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy; 7. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle; 8. Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama; 9. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley - HB ATC; Joint 10th: Lecardo game & Cheers! A History of Hostelries in the Upper Calder Valley - Issy Shannon.

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

"If I'm not reading something in which my full interest is engaged, the feeling of disaffection tends to encroach upon all other areas of my life, rendering me a shadow of my former self, left to wander listlessly from room to room, sighing heavily and gazing wanly out of windows. Well, metaphorically, at least."

- Wayne Gooderham - "What are your new year's reading resolutions?", Guardian 1 Jan 2010

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