Dear Book Case customer or
friend,
We are
thrilled to be able to announce that Kate will be taking over The Book Case
from 1st October. Having worked as the children's book buyer at the Book Case
for the last five years, she will running the business with her business
partner Jake. They will be expanding the upstairs into a reading room where
they hope to be able to host community events, poetry readings, children's
story time etc, and they are keen for anyone who wants to be involved to get in
touch (the current address, telephone number and email address will remain
unaltered). They intend building on The Book Case's reputation as a place to
find interesting and unusual books and also introduce a selection of classic
gifts for book lovers. Peter and Anne will be retiring from The Book Case and
the shop will close for a very short period from September 17th to allow Kate
and Jake to prepare for reopening on 1st October.
To celebrate 27 years of The Book
Case and to mark Peter and Anne and Felicity's retirement, you are invited to a
small celebration in the shop on Monday 19th September 6.00-8.00pm. Please join
us then and raise a glass to the exciting future and continuing success of The
Book Case.
And a message from Felicity Potter (who
has been with the shop since the beginning): I'm moving to rural
Staffordshire, but will retain my links with The Book Case and Royd Press, and
I would like to thank all the wonderful book enthusiasts I've had the pleasure
of dealing with over the years - they will be remembered
fondly.
On our
Customer Opinions board we have praise for A
Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Island by Aldous Huxley, The
Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell ("very gripping,
informative and all about Japan"), Life by Keith Richards, Pompeii by
Mary Beard, Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, The Far Out Worlds of A E
van Vogt', Resolution by C J Sansom and Bloodline by Linda La
Plante. But Christos
Tsiolkas's novel The Slap is said to be
"awful".
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THIS MONTH'S FEATURED BOOKS
We highlight
every month books we think are of particular interest: from adult fiction and
non-fiction and a children's book.
Adult
fiction: Ragnarok: the End of the Gods - A. S.
Byatt (£12.99 at The Book Case). In the Canongate Myths series,
A S Byatt's retelling of the Norse myths, culminating in the end of the world
and of the Gods.
Adult
non-fiction: Faulks on Fiction - Sebastian
Faulks (£8.99). Paperback of his guide to characters in English
Literature - heroes, lovers, snobs and villains.
Children's
book: Everybody was a Baby Once - Allan Ahlberg and Bruce
Ingman (£7.99). Meet witches, snowmen, lizards and favourite
nursery-rhyme characters in this joyful poetry collection for infants of every
age! 19 Ahlberg poems for the very young interlarded with humorous rhymes from
‘our old pals Trad & Anon'. Lots of word play and great
rhythms.
BOOK NEWS
Local Interest
Pennine
Valley: a History of Upper Calderdale - ed. Professor Bernard Jennings,
based on the research work of the Hebden Bridge WEA Local History
Group (£14.99)
We're delighted that Hebden Bridge Local
History Society is reprinting this classic illustrated work from the early
1990s - "the most comprehensive history of the Upper Calder Valley that
has ever been published."
Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken
Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge - ed. Takyoshi Andoh & Stephen
Curry
Imagine what a Japanese man would make
of living and working in a Pennine milltown in 1935! Koichi Andoh travelled by
ship from Japan in 1935 to teach the technique of distinguishing the sex of
one-day-old chicks to Hebden Bridge hatchery businesses. He kept a daily diary
of his journey and life here which his son Takayoshi Andoh discovered in the
late 1990s. In his turn,Takayoshi made the journey to Hebden Bridge and a
collaboration began between him and Stephen Curry of Angeldale to translate
Koichi's experiences and collate his photographs. This book brings to life the
thoughts and observation of a sometimes homesick man.
Brighouse Through Time - Chris Helme
(£14.99)
This fascinating selection of old
photographs alongside the scene today traces some of the many ways in which
Brighouse Town Centre has changed and developed over the last century.
West
Yorkshire Railway Stations: From Aberford to Yeadon - Peter Tuffrey
(£16.99)
The second of Peter Tuffrey's fascinating works on Yorkshire
railway stations - with help from picture postcards,
www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk, and the Yorkshire Post
archives.
Local Authors
The Last Word -
Mark Illis (£8.99)
Gloria, meet Stephen. He's your dead
brother's best friend. He's also a liar, and he doesn't want to hand over your
brother's belongings. He's got a hair collection, and he's got somebody's teeth
hidden in a drawer. Oh yes, and someone is sending him letters claiming it's
his fault Max is dead. Stephen, meet Gloria.
She's not good with people. She wants you to hand over all Max's most precious
stuff. She likes to steal things, she gate-crashes funerals, she's going to
force you to revisit some of the most painful moments in your life. And she
doesn't know who's writing the weird letters you're getting, but she tends to
agree.
Mark lives in Hebden Bridge
and his last book, Tender, was a great success.
Ted Hughes
Society
Details of the new Ted
Hughes Society Journal can be found at
http://www.thetedhughessociety.org/
- where you can also find information on the THOR Project which aims to collect
as many online articles on Hughes that can be found.
And in October, look out
for
And Then It Happened - Linda
Green (£6.99)
From the phenomenally successful local
author, a new novel set in Cragg Vale/Mytholmroyd telling the story of Mel
and Adam, a couple in their mid-thirties who have been together since their
schooldays, and how they cope when Adam is involved in an accident which leaves
him in a coma. "Quite possibly the new 'One Day'" says We Love
This Book magazine/website! The Book Case will be hosting a signing
session. Watch this space!
And also
Sylvia Plath and the Mythology
of Women Readers - Janet Badia (£21.50)
Depicted in popular
films, television series, novels, poems, and countless media reports, Sylvia
Plath's women readers have become nearly as legendary as Plath herself, in
large part because the depictions are seldom kind. If one is to believe the
narrative told by literary and popular culture, Plath's primary audience is a
body of young, misguided women who uncritically even pathologically consume
Plath's writing with no awareness of how they harm the author's reputation in
the process. Janet Badia investigates the evolution of this narrative, tracing
its origins, exposing the gaps and elisions that have defined it, and
identifying it as a bullying mythology whose roots lie in a long history of
ungenerous, if not outright misogynistic, rhetoric about women readers that has
gathered new energy from the backlash against contemporary feminism.
We won't be stocking this because of the price, but we
can order it.
Local Events
'Open Door' Artist Talks: Friday 9th
September 7pm at the Back Door - Simon Manfield
"Lines of Memory":
Illustrator and Book Case staff member Simon Manfield talks about his artistic
journey, from cover artist for Scottish political magazine Radical
Scotland to documentary illustrator in Spain that saw the production of
his Memoria Histórica series, to his most current,
ongoing project, Orcadians: Seven Impromptus
Ted Hughes Festival, 21-23
October 2011 - another exciting line up later this year. You can
download the brochure and find all the details at
Man Booker 2011 Longlist
Favourite to win is
Alan Hollinghurst's "The Stranger's Child" (our Fiction Book
of the Month) but you can never tell with the Booker. The 2011 shortlist will
be announced on Tuesday 6 September 2011 and the
winner on Tuesday 18 October 2011.
NEW TITLES
Highlights
for September: amongst hardback fiction there's A S
Byatt's "Ragnarok", our Fiction Book of the Month, and
paperback fiction includes Henning
Mankell, Douglas Coupland, Susan Hill, Armistead Maupin, DBP Pierre
and a contemporary Icelandic saga.
September's non-fiction
highlights include: Hockney's Yorkshire, knitting cats
and crocheting burgers; Tony Judt, Will Self, Simon Hoggart and a
Yorkshire bobby; the new Good Beer Guide; childcare advice in 1878; Eng Lit,
writing and grammar; and lunar living, farmland birds and
country folklore.
For a fuller listing, click here: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/Forthcoming.htm
______________________________________________________________________________________________
What you've been buying: AUGUST's
bestsellers at The Book Case
Miss Rusty topped the bill in
August at The Book Case - followed by six books of local interest. Also popular
were a child's activity book, a well-reviewed hardback novel and a colourful
2012 diary - summer must be nearly over!
1. Stop! Don't Read This: the story - Leonora
Rustamova (£6.99)
From Hebden Bridge-based publishers Blue
Moose, an account of the racy self-published novel by the Calder High teacher
"Miss Rusty" which led to her suspension - and the novel itself.
2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area -
Peter Thomas (£5.99)
Nudged out last month by the Festival,
Peter Thomas's account of the history of our area from ancient times to the
present day is back where it belongs.
3. The Mills of the Hebden Valley -
HBATC (£5.00)
An informative illustrated booklet about the
history of our area from the Alternative Technology Centre.
4. Savile Bowling Club: 100 Years of Bowling,
compiled by Bill Green (£5.00)
A short history of the
100-year-old club built on a woodland clearing made available by Lord Savile in
1910. It's been compiled from old minute books and documents, with lots of old
and new photographs.
5. "Discover Hebden Bridge" - Town Centre
Trail (£2)
Visitors liked this colourful guide to a 45-minute
walk around the town, produced by Hebden Bridge Local History Society and
Hebden Bridge Walkers' Action.
6. Fustianopolis: Hebden Bridge, the growth of a
textile town - HBATC (£5.00)
Companion volume to "The Mills
of Hebden Bridge" above.
7. The Mystery of the Autumn Crocus (Crocus
nudiflorus) by Steve Blacksmith (£5)
From the Halifax
Scientific Society, an attractive little book with colour photographs about
this attractive but elusive little plant which grows in rural locations
throughout Calderdale.
8. I-Spy on a Car Journey
(£2.50)
Ideal for staving off boredom on journeys. "I-Spy at an
Airport" was popular too.
9. The Stranger's Child - Alan
Hollinghurst (£18 at The Book Case)
Our Fiction Book of the
Month. Well-reviewed novel which begins in an English country house in 1913 and
develops through the century - a "richly comic history of social mores and
literary reputation".
10. Earth Pathways Diary 2012 - Moonshares
Cooperative (£13.00)
A colourful celebration of the work of
UK artists and writers who share a deep love for our land and a vision of a
sustainable future for all, within the context of the seasonal cycle and the
Celtic Wheel of the Year. It includes Moon phases and signs, sunrise and sunset
times, moonrise and moonset times and some astrological information for the
UK.
Best wishes from your local independent
bookshop,
The Book Case
29 Market Street, Hebden Bridge HX7
6EU
Telephone 01422-845353
email: bookcase@btinternet.com
website: www.bookcase.co.uk
text version: http://www.btinternet.com/~bookcase/
"He is not a bad fellow. He
keeps his money and has ideas of living decently. He doesn't drink or gamble.
But he's not a gentleman or anything like one. I should think he never opens a
book."
The American Senator - Anthony
Trollope