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We're supporting two widely differing events this month: on 7th June you can help raise money for Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue based in Cragg Vale at an event at The Book Case at 2pm. You can meet a visiting greyhound, buy Tia's own book about "a decade of dogs", take part in a raffle, pledge to sponsor an abandoned greyhound, and for every copy we sell in June of Michael Morpurgo's new book about a champion greyhound, Born to Run, we're donating £1 to Tia.

Then on Sunday 8th June, there is a launch for local author and musician Richard Bunzl's new book In Search of Thinking. 4-6pm at the Rudolf Steiner Centre, Station Road, Hebden Bridge. What are our memories and feelings? What are ideas? What is the nature of time? How do our thoughts connect with the world at large? Is freedom of thought an illusion, or a possibility worth striving for? Afternoon refreshments will be provided.

Later this month we'll be publishing a new local interest book, Growing Up in Sowerby ... and More by Jean Illingworth (£9.99). This engaging history weaves Jean's own memories with the recollections of others in her local community to reveal a rich and detailed picture of the life and character of this ancient hilltop village. Numerous photos are included of people and places as they were.

We were very sad to hear of the death of locally-based author and veteran political and CND activist Harry Sculthorpe, who is much missed.

Customers who remember ex-Book Case member of staff Valerie Cullinane, who had fought her way back to an extraordinary recovery after being severely injured by a van outside the shop, may already know that sadly she recently suffered a stroke. The latest news is that she is making good progress but it will be months before she is able to leave hospital.

More from Oxford University Press's relaunched World's Classics series this month; they make our window look so up-market! Click here for the full June list.

The Readers' Opinions board on our centre table has come back to life: this month we have applause for Barry Unsworth's "A Ruby in Her Navel" (again), "Daily Life in Ancient Rome" by Jerome Carcopino, "Violence" by Slavoj Zizeh, Erich Fromm's "Fear of Freedom", Tove Janssen's "Comet in Moominland", Enid Blyton's "Twins at St Clare's" and "Black Diamonds" (about a Yorkshire coal palace) by Catherine Bailey. Not enjoyed were "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini (two people), "Midnight" by Jacqueline Wilson and Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist".

This month's Literary Quiz was selected with an eye to the recent unseasonal weather: it's on Rain. See below.

We're delighted to be stocking a selection of the eye-catching Photosphere cards from Greenwich Landscape Artists: breathtaking all-round spherical views of well-known landscapes.

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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, a children's book and a CD.

Adult fiction: A Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (£16.99 at The Book Case). The vast sweep of this historical adventure spans the lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China, and is centred on an old slaving ship manned by sailors, stowaways, coolies and convicts. From the author of "The Glass Palace".

Adult non-fiction: Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams, £8.99. "How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything". The knowledge, resources and computing power of billions of people are self-organising into a massive new collective force. An Economist and Financial Times Book of the Year.

Children: Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo. From the former Children's Laureate, this is a bittersweet tale of a champion greyhound's journey through life, from owner to owner. When Patrick saves a litter of greyhound puppies from the canal, he begs his parents to let him keep one. They become best friends, until Best Mate is kidnapped by a greyhound trainer and begins a new life as a champion racer. . "From the first sentence of a Michael Morpurgo book, you know you are in the hands of a natural storyteller."Guardian. Ages: 8-12 yrs (£5.99)

CD: Discover Chamber Music. Includes music by Gabrieli, Corelli, J S Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Stravinsky, Bartok, Crumb and others. 2 CDs and booklet, £10.99.

Growing Up in Sowerby ... and More by Jean Illingworth (£9.99). This engaging history weaves Jean's own memories with the recollections of others in her local community to reveal a rich and detailed picture of the life and character of this ancient hilltop village. Numerous photos are included of people and places as they were. To be published later this month.

Historian Jill Liddington will be visiting Whitby and Pickering with her immensely successful book on northern suffragettes, Rebel Girls to mark the 80th anniversary of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act in 1908: 15 June - Whitby (01947 606202); 16 June - Pickering (01751 475372)

Huddersfield Narrow Canal: a towpath guide - Dr Bob Gough (£4.99)

Nicely produced, sturdy and colourful guide to what you might see along the towpath of Huddersfield Narrow Canal. From Huddersfield Canal Society. Spiral bound.

Local Authors

Ndae's Promise - Jill Hopkins (£5.99)

This book for children by Halifax-based journalist Jill Hopkins was tested on the pupils of Heathfield School, Rishworth, and their enthusiastic reviews appear on the back cover. The story is about a swallow who migrates across Africa and to the Island of Smoke.

The Daily Mail Book Club

June's Book of the Month is Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson (£8.99) "How Two Million Women Survived without Men After the First World War." In 1919, a generation of young women discovered that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round, and the statistics confirmed it. After the 1921 Census, the press ran alarming stories of the 'Problem of the Surplus Women - Two Million who can never become Wives...'. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

July: Ghost by Robert Harris (£7.99)

Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, 2008

The Road Home by Rose Tremain - a wise and witty look at the contemporary migrant experience, as we follow the story of Lev, newly arrived from Eastern Europe and looking for work. In stock in hardback at £14.99 - paperback due next month.

LITERARY QUIZ: this month's quiz from Betsey and Geoffrey Parker is on Rain in literature. To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

The answers to last month's quiz on Song are: 1. A Passage to India (1924) - E M Forster; 2. Elidor (1965) - Alan Garner; 3. "The Dead" from Dubliners (1914) James Joyce; 4. Othello Act 4 Sc 3 - William Shakespeare; 5. The Catcher in the Rye (1957) - J D Salinger

And if anyone else would like to send in a set of five quotations on any theme to make a literary quiz, please email them in!

NEW TITLES

June's hardback novels include Susan Hill and Amitav Ghosh, and amongst paperbacks, we'll have Don Delillo, Terry Pratchett, Salley Vickers, Armistead Maupin, Haruki Murakami, Irvine Welsh, Kate Morton, Ali Smith, Christopher Brookmyre, Jonathan Coe, Joan Smith, Scarlett Thomas, Esther Freud, Maggie Gee, John Grisham, Bernhard Schlink and Sergei Lukyanenko. You know where to find your summer reading!

Amongst reissues are the "Arabian Nights", stories by Jack London, Sherwood Anderson and Washington Irving, "Ulysses" (Joyce), "We" (Zamyatin), Patrick O'Brian, extreme fantasy, crime comics, four more Dostoyevskys, two Kiplings, four Woolfs, Poe and a Conrad. Click here for the full list.

Non-fiction:

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: MAY 2008's bestsellers at The Book Case

May saw four adult books of local interest selling well at The Book Case - two of them by the same author! The Green Weekend made an impact, two children’s books were especially popular (one of them locally based), and swimming wild plus Andrew Marr on Britain today made up the remainder.

1. The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed - Andrew Bibby and John Morrison (Was £12.00, now £14.99). This illustrated hardback on the Pennine watershed by local author and journalist Andrew Bibby with photos by ex-HB photographer and author John Morrison continues to sell. Andrew and John will be discussing the book at the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival.

2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99. This illustrated history of the town and area shows how we have changed over the centuries. A Royd Press publication by a well-known local author.

3. A Century of Stars: Hebden Royd Red Star AFC 1908-2008 - Peter Thomas, £4.00. Peter Thomas scores again! Hebden Royd Red Star AFC, under its various names, is the oldest continuously-existing club in the Halifax League and celebrates its centenary in October this year. This colourful new book is full of memories, interviews, anecdotes and photographs

4. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley, £5.00. This well-researched and illustrated history of watermills in the area continues to sell steadily.

5. How to Live Off-Grid: Journeys Outside the System - Nick Rosen, £7.99. People who live without mains water, power or phone line vary widely, but all are outside or in-between the criss-crossing lines of power, water and phone that delineate the civilised world.

6.The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience - Rob Hopkins, £10.95. We live in an oil-dependent world. This manual will guide communities to begin an 'energy descent' journey.

7. Wild Swimming - Daniel Start, £14.95. All the practical information you need to enjoy 150 magical swims across the UK in Britain's rivers, lakes and waterfalls.

8. Bog Baby - Jeanne Willis, £5.99. Picture book about two little girls who find a new playmate - but they have to let him go!

9. History of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr, £8.99. Our May Non-Fiction Book of the Month - tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification.

10. Ned Carver in Danger - Phyllis Bentley, £5.99. A 13-year-old boy starts work at a Calder Valley cropping shop in 1812 just as his friend's mill-owning father introduces the cropping frames that will put his skilled companions out of work. The second locally-based historical novels for young people by Phyllis Bentley we’ve published.

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

Amongst the objects taken in by London Transport Lost Property Office last year were 32,268 books - the most commonly forgotten item. They didn't say if the readers had finished them or if they had to go and buy another copy.

The Upper Calder Valley is a magnet for talent! No fewer than three locally-based authors have nationally-published books out this month - see below under "Local Authors". Peter Thomas has added a new book - about Hebden Royd Red Star AFC - to his current bestselling "History of Hebden Bridge", and Jill Liddington will be taking the nationally best-selling Rebel Girls on the road around Yorkshire again.

Oxford University Press has been relaunching its Worlds Classics series (the ones with the useful notes in the back), and we're taking the opportunity to restock. We've tried to make it a bit easier to get at our pre-20th-century fiction section by moving a card stand (space is always a problem at The Book Case), and the Greeks and Romans are where they usually are (unless of course they are in Philosophy).

New to Hebden Bridge is Piers Cross who has a range of CDs with magical stories for relaxation and sleep for children. We found them very soothing when we played them in the shop!

You've been a bit reticent about what books you're enjoying, but we do have acclaim for Philip Roth's Plot Against America, Scarlett Thomas's End of Mr Y, Barry Unsworth's Ruby in Her Navel and Anita Amirrezvani's Blood of Flowers. No one reports not enjoying anything. Buck up there!

There's another great Literary Quiz this month from Betsey and Geoffrey Parker, this one on Song. See below.

Just into stock are the latest issues of our US spiritual magazines, Sagewoman - celebrating the Goddess as the Queen Hera; Pan Gaia - on planetary change; and New Witch - featuring Raven Digitalis.

We've heard from New Zealand that Rabbit has temporarily gone AWOL again - but was eventually found in an old microwave oven in a shelter at the bottom of the garden. Jo comments: "We have borrowed a phrase that Rabbit the Rabbit learned when he attended your Harry Potter midnight book launch, and will hencerforth maintain constant vigilance over Elliot's selection of hiding places."

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: Alfred and Emily - Doris Lessing (£14.99 at The Book Case). The first book after Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize takes her back to her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. 'I think my father's rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without.’

Adult non-fiction: A History of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr (£8.99). Confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification.

Children: Whale Gets Stuck - Karen Hayles. (£5.99) When Whale gets stuck on an ice floe, will his friends be able to rescue him? Wonderful illustrations by Charles Fuge help tell this story of friendship with a gentle ecological theme Ages: 2+ yrs.

CD: Joaquin Rodrigo: a Portrait (£10.99). A representative selection of the prolific composer's music, including the celebrated Adagio from the Concierto de Aranjuez. A Naxos bestseller.

Price Promotions

A Little Princess; Little Women; The Secret Garden; The Wind in the Willows; Black Beauty; The Wizard of Oz; Treasure Island; Just So Stories; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Oliver Twist; and The Call of the Wild.

A Century of Stars: Hebden Royd Red Star AFC 1908-2008 - Peter Thomas (£4.00)
Hebden Royd Red Star AFC, under its various names, is the oldest continuously-existing club in the Halifax League and celebrates its centenary in October this year. This colourful new book is full of memories, interviews, anecdotes and photographs, and due out 1st May!

To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act in 1908 when women over 21 finally won the right to vote, and the centenary of the Edwardian suffrage caravan tour when a horse-drawn caravan set off from Whitby harbour to take the Votes for Women message out to the remotest Yorkshire dales and market towns in 1908, Jill Liddington and her bestselling Rebel Girls book will be touring Yorkshire over the summer, starting in June. We'll keep you posted, and the book is still selling well at The Book Case. It includes local heroine Lavena Saltonstall.

Foul Play - Tom Palmer (£5.99)
Danny is obsessed with two things: football - especially City Football Club - and investigating crimes. So when England and City footballing hero Sam Roberts is reported missing the day after Danny saw him being taken, blindfolded, into the bowels of the City FC stadium late at night, he's determined to get to the bottom of it. But is Danny getting into something he can't handle? From the Todmorden based writer and reader-developer, an exciting new story for young football fans, published by Puffin.

In Search of Thinking: Reflective Encounters in Experiencing the World - Richard Bunzl (£10.95)
What are our memories and feelings? What are ideas? What is the nature of time? How do our thoughts connect with the world at large? Is freedom of thought an illusion, or a possibility worth striving for? Hebden Bridge-based writer and musician Richard Bunzl addresses some of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical questions. Published by Rudolf Steiner Press and to be launched Sunday 8th June at the Rudolph Steiner centre, Macpelah.

The Scent Trail: A Journey of the Senses - Cecilia Lyttleton (£7.99)
Follows one woman's journey across the world as she explores the magic and history behind the ingredients of her own bespoke perfume. Sold well in hardback and now out in Bantam paperback. The author lives in Hebden Bridge.

British Orchids: A Site Guide - Roger Bowmer (£12.99)
A handy reference to the locations of the 51 species of wild orchid native to the British Isles; each one is covered individually, with a brief description of its habitat and natural history, and an explanation of its botanical name, with two colour photographs, and artworks provide details of specific points of interest. A full listing of sites gives national grid references for easy location, and there are complete listings of the relevant Wildlife Trusts responsible for each site. The author lives in Littleborough.

Galaxy British Book Awards 2008

Book of the Year and Author of the Year: On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan - £6.99

Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year: A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - £11.99

Children's Book of the Year: Horrid Henry & The Abominable Snowman - Francesca Simon - £4.99

Newcomer of the Year: What Was Lost - Catherine O'Flynn - £8.99

Popular Fiction Award: The Memory Keepers Daughter- Kim Edwards - £7.99

All the above are in stock at The Book Case. We'll wait for the paperbacks on the others.

The Daily Mail Book Club

May's Book of the Month is Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (£7.99). In 1792 the Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving London, jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution. Their neighbour is the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

June: Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson (£8.99)

July: Ghost by Robert Harris (£7.99)

LITERARY QUIZ: another great quiz to intrigue and delight, from Betsey and Geoffrey Parker - this month it's on Song in literature. To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

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

And if anyone else would like to send in a set of five quotations on any theme to make a literary quiz, please email them in!

NEW TITLES

May's hardback novels include Doris Lessing and Ismail Kadare, and amongst paperbacks, we'll have Alexander McCall Smith, William Trevor, Matthew Kneale, Barry Pilton, an archaeological dig, a camel bookmobile, a Venetian glassblower, the Great Hunger and a thriller set in the 1930s .

Reissued are Dumas (including the little-known Last Cavalier), two Dostoyevskys, Turgenev, "East Lynne" ("Coward! Sneak! May good men shun him, from henceforth!"), lots of Wodehouse, two WWII novels and a Daphne du Maurier.

Click here for the full list.

Non-fiction:

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99. Back at the top, this illustrated history of the town and area, showing how we have changed over the centuries. A Royd Press publication by a well-known local author.

2. Milltown Memories: the Upper Calder Valley Captured on Camera, £2.50-£2.80. We’re now selling back issues of this well-illustrated quarterly journal featuring aspects of local history and old photographs, and they’re going well!

3. The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed - Andrew Bibby and John Morrison, £12.00 at The Book Case. Lovely illustrated hardback by local author and journalist Andrew Bibby who walks the route of the Pennine Watershed exploring its history, ecology, geography and culture, with photos by ex-HB photographer and author John Morrison.

4. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley, £5.00. Now permanently in our bestseller list, this well-researched and illustrated history of watermills in the area.

5. Engleby - Sebastian Faulks, £7.99. Mike Engleby says things that others dare not even think and is devoid of scruple or self-pity. Yet beneath the disturbing surface of his observations lies an unfolding mystery of gripping power. Daily Mail Book of the Month.

6. Know Your Sheep - Jack Byard, £4.99. Colour photographs of and notes on the 41 breeds of sheep most likely to be found on British farms. There can’t be an unlogged sheep in the district by now. Tractors following soon!

7. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95. Our first publication still selling well, reporting on the textile workers of West Yorkshire in 1849, with lots of graphic detail and interviews. Royd Press.

8. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. The exciting 1968 locally-based children’s classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners. The second in our Tales from the Tops series, "Ned Carver in Danger", about the a boy who joins the Halifax Luddites for the 1812 assault on a mill, is just out. Royd Press.

9. Pies and Prejudice - Stuart Maconie, £6.99. Entertaining love letter to the North, finding out where the cliches end and the truth begins. Hebden Bridge gets a mention!

10. Narrow Dog to Indian River - Terry Darlington, £12.99 at The Book Case. The couple who took their whippet to Carcassonne by narrow boat are now in the south-east of the USA, navigating their English narrowboat from Carolina to Florida.

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

"No form can hold down what a novel can do because once within its walls, its borders are open."

Robert Colls, "England's history boy" (Melvyn Bragg) in Prospect, May 2008.

Good news for those of you missing the Literary Quiz is that the reigning champions, Betsey and Geoffrey Parker, have sent in a splendid collection for your delight, and they'll be unveiled over the coming months, starting with a lovely one on Wind. See below.

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 Blood of Flowers - Anita Amirrezvani (£6.99) Set in seventeenth-century Iran, the story of a village girl whose dreams of marriage end on the death of her father. She and her mother are reduced to servitude until she reveals a talent for designing carpets. Lots of fascinating detail about traditional carpet-making.

Adult non-fiction: The Gough Map - the Earliest Road Map of Great Britain? - Nick Millea (£25.00) Illustrated hardback about the Bodleian Library treasure, the earliest surviving map to show routes across Britain and show recognisable coastlines 650 years ago.

Children: Snakehead - Anthony Horowitz (£6.99): Now finally in paperback, Alex Rider’s latest adventure sees him on a secret mission in South East Asia. Another page-turning extravaganza from the master of action-adventure. Ages: 9+ yrs

CD: Elgar - Part Songs (Naxos, £5.99). A wide-ranging selection featuring twenty of Elgar's finest songs, including "My Love Dwelt in a Northern Land". Currently Naxos's best-selling CD.

Price Promotions

In addition to our special price on Andrew Bibby's Backbone of England (£12), we still have a few copies of Ted Hughes's Letters at £5.00 off, and we're continuing to promote children's classics, with a 3-for-2 offer on the following "Friends for Life":

See the colourful display at the back of the children's section!

Ned Carver in Danger - Phyllis Bentley (£5.95)
The second of our reprints of the respected Halifax novelist's exciting historical novels for young people - a 13-year-old boy starts work at a Calder Valley cropping shop in 1812 just as his friend's mill-owning father introduces the cropping frames that will put his skilled companions out of work. Ned's sympathies are with the Luddites who plot violence.

A Century of Stars: Hebden Royd Red Star AFC 1908-2008 - Peter Thomas (£4.00)
Hebden Royd Red Star AFC, under its various names, is the oldest continuously-existing club in the Halifax League and celebrates its centenary in October this year. Full of memories, interviews, anecdotes and photographs, and hopefully out later this month.

Milltown Memories - back issues (£2.50 or £2.80 each)

We're delighted to have in stock copies of the Upper Calder Valley quarterly magazine featuring aspects of local history and old photographs: a list of contents can be found at http://www.milltownmemories.org.uk/. We don't have issue 2. Milltown Memories ran from 2002 to 2006

Facsimile Mill Rules poster of 1851 from Waterfoot Mill, Haslingden, £1.00

21 rules laid down for the Hands, covering lateness, untidiness, damage, Talking, behaviour in the Necessaries, Oaths and insolent language, Smoking and especially personal cleanliness: “The Masters would recommend that all their workpeople Wash themselves every morning, but they shall Wash themselves at least twice every week, and any found not washed will be fined 3d for each offence.”

Farewell Britannia: A Family Saga of Roman Britain - Simon Young
From brilliant young ex-Hebden Bridge historian a multi-generational family, part Roman, part Celtic (invaders intermarrying with natives) to tell the dramatic story of 400 years of Roman rule in Britain. Now in paperback. (£8.99)

World Book Day

Went with a swing! - Where's Wally was the most popular of the £1 special books. Local schools liked the new arrangement whereby we supplied a range of books direct to the schools for the children to choose from.

Spread the Word: Books to Talk About

Boy A by Jonathan Trigell was voted the Book to Talk About - Jack has spent most of his life in juvenile institutions, to be released with a new name, new job, new life.

Ishq & Mushq by Priya Basil, about a Sikh family who come from Uganda to England, and Salt And Honey by Candi Miller, about a tribal girl in South Africa, were the runners up. However we had several customers comment on Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson - a girl in America's Deep South finds her future threatened by an event from her youth. All in stock at The Book Case, £7.99 each.

http://www.worldbookday.com/spreadtheword/

Richard and Judy Book Club 2008

Stand by for the Galaxy British Book Awards on 9th April! We have a selection from the various shortlists and a free magazine on our centre table. Click here (Nibbies) or here (Guardian) for the full shortlists and we'll be displaying (most of) the winners.

The Daily Mail Book Club

April's Book of the Month is Engleby by Sebastian Faulks (£7.99). Mike Engleby says things that others dare not even think and is devoid of scruple or self-pity. Yet beneath the disturbing surface of his observations lies an unfolding mystery of gripping power. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

May: Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (£7.99)
June: Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson (£8.99)
July: Ghost by Robert Harris (£7.99)

LITERARY QUIZ: hurrah for Betsey and Geoffrey Parker who have supplied us with a wonderful new collection of quizzes to keep us all happy for months. This month it's a real corker on Wind in literature. To find it online, click here: http://www.bookcase.co.uk/competition.htm

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

And if anyone else would like to send in a set of five quotations on any theme to make a literary quiz, please email them in!

NEW TITLES

April's hardback novels include Salman Rushdie and Will Self, and amongst paperbacks, we'll have Sebastian Faulks, Isabel Allende, Blake Morrison, Primo Levi, Nick Hornby, Niall Griffiths, Joanne Harris, Tolkien and Andrew Martin amongst a good range of others - click here for the full list.

Non-fiction:

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: MARCH 2008's bestsellers at The Book Case

The Book Case’s last month’s bestseller, A History of Hebden Bridge, was nudged aside by the Pennine Watershed, with a further four books of local interest also appearing in the top ten. There were also three enjoyable novels, and of course the £1 children’s specials from World Book Day.

1. The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed - Andrew Bibby and John Morrison, £12.00 at The Book Case: Local author and journalist Andrew Bibby walks the route of the Pennine Watershed exploring its history, ecology, geography and culture - photos by ex-HB photographer and author John Morrison. There was a very successful launch at the Little Theatre and we still have copies of the book at a very special price.

2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99: From ancient times to the present day, an illustrated history of the town and area, showing how we have changed over the centuries. A Royd Press publication.

3. World Book Day Special: Where’s Wally? £1.00: This was the most popular of the World Book Day Specials, and the other "Where’s Wally?" books are also selling well (as is "Where’s Bin Laden?" for the adults).

4. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley, £5.00. The fame is spreading of this colour-illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alternative Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area - people from afar come in and ask for it!

5. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95: Our first publication, reporting on the textile workers of West Yorkshire in 1849, with lots of graphic detail and interviews. Royd Press.

6. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95: The exciting 1968 children’s classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners. The second in the series, "Ned Carver in Danger", about the local Luddites, is just out. Royd Press.

7. Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka, £7.99: A field of strawberries in Kent ...And sitting in it two caravans - one for the men and one for the women. The residents are from all over. But these days England's not so pleasant for immigrants.

8. Mister Pip - Lloyd Jones, £7.99: On a small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific, a reclusive white man introduces the children to Dickens as war encroaches. Booker shortlisted and one of Richard and Judy’s Best Reads of the Year.

9. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.00: The ever-popular book of local walks - the weather must be improving!

10. Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith (£12.99 at The Book Case) When Precious Ramotswe she receives a threatening anonymous letter, she is compelled to reconsider her belief in a kind world and good neighbours. But there are very few troubles that cannot be solved with kindness. Hardback.

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

"There was ... no other furniture and no pictures or ornaments. But the room did not need them because of the books, that stood there upon the shelves breathing out a friendliness that seemed to furnish and ornament the room ... Maria had no doubt that the loving usage that had turned the books into living creatures was Old Parson’s."

Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse, ch. 7, 1946. To be released as a film this year, but apparently with a race-against-time quest in place of the book’s message to slow down and adapt to local rhythms.

Pennine Backbone, Literary Underpants and the Kiwi Rabbit, 19 March

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

A reminder about tomorrow's launch of Andrew Bibby and John Morrison's splendid new book, The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed.

The Book Case is hosting a launch at the Little Theatre, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, on Thursday 20th March at 6.30pm.

The book's now available for purchase in the shop at our special price of £12.00 and of course it will also be available at the launch where Andrew will sign copies.

The famous Book Case Literary Quiz has been revived by Betsey and Geoffrey Parker who have sent a selection of Literary Underpants. Answers next month!

And Rabbit the Rabbit is now back home in New Zealand, thanks to Mike and Christine from Russell Dean; see photos of the reunion with Elliott here.

MARCH 2008

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

It's an eventful month for books! On 6th March is World Book Day. £1 Book Tokens have been distributed to all school children in the UK and Ireland and can be redeemed from 3-30th March 2008 inclusive. See below for the list of £1 specials for all ages and the "Spread the Word - Books to Talk About" for adults.

Well-known Hebden Bridge author and journalist Andrew Bibby collaborated with ex-Hebden Bridge photographer John Morrison to produce a splendid new book on "Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed", entitled The Backbone of England. This will be launched at the Little Theatre, Holme Street, Hebden Bridge, on Thursday 20th March at 6.30pm. Entry is free, and the book, normally £20, will be at an astonishing special price of £12.00 while stocks last.

It’s been a month or so since we reported on our Opinions board and we now have a fine collection. Being enjoyed were Ursula le Guin’s Farthest Shore, John Hillaby’s Journey through Britain, Robert MacFarlane’s Wild Places (twice), Sri Karunamayi’s Blessed Souls, Robert Luhr’s Skakanstantomaten, James Morris’s Venice, Carla van Raay’s God’s Call Girl, James Robertson’s Last Testament of Gideon Mack, C. Nicholl’s The Lodger - Shakespeare on Silver Street, Roger Deakin’s Waterlog and Wildwood, Rose Tremain’s Restoration, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveller’s Wife, Christopher Rus’s Will, Jonathan Bagley’s All my Ghosts, Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother, Frank McManus’s March and Muster, Kressman’s Address Unknown and Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor. Not being enjoyed were Margaret Atwood’s Blind Assassin, Germaine Greer’s Shakespeare’s Wife, Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley (does anyone?), David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten and Nabokov’s Ada or Ardor (by the same person who reported enjoying it).

Marianne Goss in Chicago is setting up a site promoting upbeat novels at www.positivelygoodreads.com - a cousin for our nice novels page which lists among other things books where "characters overcome obstacles and have the will to live and to celebrate life"

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: Child 44 – Tom Rob Smith (£10.99 at The BookCase). KGB Officer Leo is blindly faithful to the Party line – until he is ordered to arrest his own wife. Ridley Scott has bought the film rights. There is a connection to an ex-organiser of Hebden Bridge Arts Festival!

Adult non-fiction: Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99) This very readable history of the area by local author Peter Thomas takes you from early times to the present day. Illustrated.

Children: Collected Poems for Children - Ted Hughes (£10.99) Now available in paperback, this collection brings together the poems Ted Hughes wrote for children throughout his life. They are arranged by volume starting with those for the very young and moving up to the ones aimed at older children. Beautifully illustrated throughout by the award-winning Raymond Briggs.

CD: John Milton - The Great Poets (Naxos £8.99). This collection of John Milton's finest poetry marks the 400th anniversary of the poet's birth. Read by Samantha Bond and Derek Jacobi, it brings together his brilliant early poems, including Il Penseroso, L’Allegro and Lycidas, as well as some of the finest and most touching works of his maturity, such as On His Blindness and Methought I saw my late espoused saint, with extracts from Comus and Samson Agonistes.

Price Promotions

Children are in for another treat in March - Puffin are relaunching their excellent classics imprint, and while stocks last, we will be selling the following, with splendid new covers, 3 for 2:

We've had two more big deliveries of good books at silly prices - see our centre table (until they get pushed off by World Book Day) and around the shop.

NEWS

Local Interest

The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed - Andrew Bibby, photos John Morrison (£20)
To be launched, later this month. Hebden Bridge-based journalist Andrew Bibby walks the route of the watershed in England that separates the water flowing westwards to the Irish Sea and the Atlantic from the water heading towards the North Sea and explores various aspects of the area's history, ecology, geology and culture, and meets many of the people whose lives are shaped by the landscape. Ex-Hebden Bridge John Morrison supplies atmospheric colour photos. To be launched in Hebden Bridge just before Easter - see above.

Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
As Royd Press, we're delighted to be publishing an updated and revised version of a very readable history of the area first written by local author Peter Thomas back in the 1970s. Now in stock and selling briskly.

Local Authors

Collected Poems for Children - Ted Hughes
Now in paperback version. The book is presented by reading age, beginning with poems for younger readers and working up to Hughes's material for young adults. Illustrated by Raymond Briggs. (£9.99)

One Autumn: work, family life and Rugby League in the 1990s - Geoff Lee (£9.95)
Last in a series of four novels on the general theme of Northern working-class life in the Rugby League heartlands in the second half of the twentieth century, from a former Halifax draughtsman. 1992 and 1993 were tough years in the south Lancashire town of Ashurst.

Local Publishers

Arc Press of Todmorden have published an unusual book, Speech with Humans, in which American poet and jazz drummer Clark Coolidge and Leeds-born surrealist cartoonist Glen Baxter collaborate in a quirky combination of text and pictures. £9.99 at The Book Case.

Local Book Events

There's a fascinating exhibition of Tenniel's work, "Looking in Wonderland" at the Piece Hall, Halifax, till 9th March. Prints from the original wooden blocks for "Alice" are on display, along with interesting explanatory comments.

The Todmorden Library event with Stella Duffy and Paul Magrs was a great success, with Stella Duffy's new hardback novel making it into our bestsellers. We have a couple of signed copies ....

National Book Events

World Book Day

This year's £1 specials for children are as follows, available at The Book Case:

Paddington Rules the Waves by Michael Bond, 2+
Princess Poppy: The Fancy Dress Party by Janey Louise Jones, 3+
Magic Kitten: A Very Special Friend by Sue Bentley, 6+
Adventure According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney, 6+
Where's Wally? by Martin Hanford, 7+
Jane Blonde - The Perfect Spylet by Jill Marshall, 7+
Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets by Dav Pilkey, 7-12
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman, 10+
CHERUB: Dark Sun by Robert Muchamore, 11+

Spread the Word: Books to Talk About

In conjunction with World Book Day, an appeal was made for "hidden gems" and "books to spark discussion" for adults, and the shortlist is as follows - all in stock at The Book Case. The winner will be announced on 6th March. Find out more at http://www.worldbookday.com/spreadtheword/

Before I Die - Jenny Downham, £10.99
Boy A - Jonathan Trigell, £7.99
Death Of A Murderer - Rupert Thomson, £7.99
Gods In Alabama - Joshilyn Jackson, £6.99
In Cold Daylight - Pauline Fathom Rowson, £6.99
Ishq & Mushq - Priya Basil, £7.99
Lint - Steve Aylett, £7.99
One Night At The Call Centre - Chetan Bhagat, £6.99
Playing With The Moon - Eliza Graham, £7.99
Salt And Honey - Candi Miller, £7.99
Speaking Of Love - Angela Young, £7.99

Richard and Judy Book Club 2008

It's the last month for the current run of Richard and Judy titles. The book club forms the shortlist for the Best Read award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2008. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on the 9th April.

March 5th - Blood River - Tim Butcher- £7.99. When "Daily Telegraph" correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H. M. Stanley's famous expedition - but travelling alone.

March 12th - Welsh Girl - Peter Davies - £7.99. In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour.

The Daily Mail Book Club

March's Book of the Month is Resistance by Owen Sheers (£7.99). It is 1944, Germany has invaded Britain, and a group of Welsh farmers' wives wake up to discover that their husbands are gone. A portrait of a community under siege. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

April: Engleby by Sebastian Faulks (£7.99)

May: Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (£7.99)
June: Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson (£8.99)
July: Ghost by Robert Harris (£7.99)

NEW TITLES

February's hardback novels include Louis de Bernieres, Alexander McCall Smith, Paulo Coelho and Tom Rob Smith, and amongst paperbacks, there are Marina Lewycka, Anne Enright, Robert Harris, Nicola Barker, Paulo Coelho, Fay Weldon, Iain Banks, Nicci French and more. Reissues include Maupassant, Gaskell, Alcott and a Naxos audio version of E. Nesbit's Enchanted Castle.

Non-fiction:

sketching, pastels and textiles in Art
Dorothy Wordsworth, Elizabeth Gaskell, a teenage girl imprisoned by Stalin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wangari Maathai and a Turkish Armenian grandmother in Biography
Iraq, Monbiot, a Jewish-Arab friendship, Chechnya, radical Islam, religion, Adam Smith, Lisa Jardine, 42 great thinkers, Zizek and Derrida in Current Affairs & Discussion
living off-grid, the transition from oil, how to help and damage to the planet in Environment
smallholding with no land, salad and veg in Gardening
the writing of the Bible, filth, noise and stench in 17th & 18th-century England, the Russian revolution in postcards, young British air bombers, post-war Britain, a 1938 flying manual, people's history and the wellsprings of Europe in History
April Fool's Day and being a good husband or wife in the 1930s in Humour
being retired and being single again in Lifestyle
grieving children, difficult relatives, massage, yoga, spirit guides, telepathy with animals and cosmic ordering in MBS
Bob Dylan in Music
woods, hedges & leafy lanes and recognising sheep in Nature
Simon Armitage on conflict and Gawain & the Green Knight and Shelley's and Wordsworth's works on CD in Poetry
modern science writing and probability in Science
walking the coast, the Tropic of Capricorn, Ray Mears in the Outback, Festivals, the Lakes, Basra, the Earth, Rotherham as Everytown and new guides to the USA, S E Asia, Marrakesh, Japan and Europe amongst others in Travel
and Dr Seuss's Horton, Ted Hughes, Garth Nix, Puffin Classics and Neil Gaiman in Children's books

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.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

What you've been buying: FEBRUARY 2008's bestsellers at The Book Case

Six local interest titles made The Book Case’s top ten in February - four of them from our own stable. A library event produced good sales of a hardback novel, and Khaled Hosseini and Patrick Gale emerged as our Richard & Judy winners.

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99. From ancient times to the present day, an illustrated history of the town and area, showing how we have changed over the centuries. A Royd Press publication.

2. A Cotton-Fibre Halo - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £7.99. Companion volume to Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents, covering the textile workers of Manchester and the surrounding area in 1849. Young journalist Angus Reach revolutionised investigative reporting but sadly died at 36. Royd Press.

3. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. The exciting 1968 children’s classic by the popular Halifax author about the Cragg Vale Coiners. Our next Phyllis Bentley reprint will be "Ned Carver in Danger", about the local Luddites. Royd Press.

4. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95. Our first publication, reporting on the textile workers of West Yorkshire in 1849, with lots of interviews. Royd Press.

5. Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy, £14.99
Author Stella Duffy appeared with Paul Magrs at a Calderdale Libraries event at Todmorden Library. We a couple of signed copies of this new novel, set in south London.

6. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini, £7.99. In 1970s Afghanistan, twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon. Now a film.

7. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini, £11.99. From the author of "The Kite Runner", a gripping drama of beauty, destruction, sadness, and suspense, a chronicle of the last thirty years of Afghan history, and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, and the salvation to be found in love. A Richard and Judy choice.

8. Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale, £7.99. When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies painting obsessively in her attic studio, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up. A Richard and Judy choice.

9. The Forest of Bowland: with Pendle Hill and the West Pennine Moors - Andrew Bibby, £7.99. A Freedom to Roam guide from the local author and journalist, produced in association with the Rambers’ Association.

10. Pies and Prejudce - Stuart Maconie, £5.95. Exiled Northerner tours the North (including Hebden Bridge) to find his own Northern soul ... He approves of John Morrison’s Milltown writings! Now in a mass market edition.

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

"What matters to me is that every time that book [Catcher in the Rye] and I get together, it's like being in the best company ever. Fine: dazzle your pals with your (wafer-thin) grasp of why Middlemarch is the greatest English novel. But this is a delight that will last only seconds; reading Middlemarch will give you hours (and perhaps a lifetime) of deep satisfaction."

Rachel Cooke, "Is reading really just about making you look cool?", The Observer, 2 December 2007. She is commenting on Pierre Bayard's book How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read.

Spelling-binding Saturday Play by local author

Local playwright and poet Amanda Dalton's adaptation of Francis Beeding's 1927 murder mystery The House of Dr Edwardes, upon which Hitchcock's film Spellbound was based, will be broadcast as this week's Saturday Play on Radio 4 from 14.30-15.30. Staff at Landry House in North Yorkshire are anticipating the arrival of Dr Murchison, who is to replace the retiring head, Dr Edwardes. The rather odd new doctor arrives and forms an unlikely but seemingly strong immediate bond with new trainee Dr Constance Sedgewick.

And our newest publication, A Cotton-Fibre Halo - Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 by Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, is now in stock, price £7.99. Journalist Angus Reach, who died in his thirties, didn't mince his words in describing what he saw around Manchester, and his reports were described as "an unparalleled exploit in journalism":

“The heat, the stink, the flying dust were almost overpowering. … The boy … was covered from head to foot with the clinging fibres of floating wool.”
“I know a child that has been so treated [with opium] at once; it looks like a little old man or woman.”
“The public-houses and gin-shops were roaring full. Rows, and fights, and scuffles were every minute taking place within doors and in the streets. The whole street rung with shouting, screaming, and swearing, mingled with the jarring music of half-a-dozen bands.”

FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We have two pieces of good news - we didn't get flooded recently despite Market Street being under water (Anna had the clever idea of putting the sandbags on the edge of the pavement so the bow-wave of speeding cars didn't have room to tsunami) and Lost Rabbit is going home! The forlorn toy rabbit that has been gracing our shelves over the past year turns out to be a Kiwi, and we were astonished to get a call from New Zealand claiming him for four-year-old Elliott who has been missing him badly. He made the local press (Halifax Courier, Hebden Bridge Times) and now has his own webpage.

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: Independent People - Halldor Laxness (£8.99) Superb, darkly funny Icelandic novel, telling the story of a stubborn and grim sheep farmer determined to be independent, come what may. The author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955.

Adult non-fiction: A Cotton-Fibre Halo: Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£7.95) A highly readable collection of reports on life and work in Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Egerton, Macclesfield, Middleton and Saddleworth in 1849 with many interviews and accounts of home and mill conditions, reading habits and the drugging of babies with opium. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case. Due in soon.

Children: The Diamond of Drury Lane - Julia Golding (£5.99). Cat Royal is an orphan who lives at the back of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. She mingles with the high and low of society, from the actors onstage to the lords and ladies in the stalls to the barrow boys in the grimy marketplace. A reissue of the multi award winning novel, available now for the first time in paperback, Set in 1790s Covent Garden, it's packed with local colour and authentic detail. Ages: 9-12 yrs.

CD: Enkelit (£12). From the sensational locally-based upper-voice group who performed so memorably at Square Chapel last year, their first CD. They sing contemporary vocal music primarily from Finland, strongly influenced by folk traditions and characterisd by beauty and melancholy. The powerful title track tells the moving and terrifying story of the experience of a woman who loses her twin babies. The leader, Richard Pomfret, is Todmorden-based.

Price Promotions

Things are a little dishevelled in the shop at present owing to stock taking; it's all there but not necessarily in the right place. We're still selling Ted Hughes's Letters at £5 off, and a big display of bargain books on the centre table.

NEWS

Local Interest

A Cotton-Fibre Halo: Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£7.95)
Companion to our "Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents" which covered the West Yorkshire textile districts, Angus Bethune Reach's graphic reports on Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Egerton, Macclesfield, Middleton and Saddleworth with many interviews, accounts of home and mill conditions, reading habits and the drugging of babies with opium. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

We are delighted that our publication Phyllis Bentley's "Gold Pieces", about the Cragg Vale coiners, has been selected by the magazine Northern Life as their Book Club choice.

Moves to have a plaque on the White Lion commemorating Liszt's breakfast there were unfortunately scheduled at the same time as the Council discussion of Garden Street carpark. The breakfast is commemorated in Chris Aspin's book of light verse, The Jingle Book, £4.99 at The Book Case.

And a reminder to everyone of Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion, a highly informative website packed with information and trivia about Calderdale. Contributions welcome!

Local Authors

Two Marriages by Glyn Hughes (£7.00)

From the prize-winning local author, a long autobiographical poem in two sections, the first of Hughes’s books to be illustrated by the writer himself who began his career at art school. NOW IN STOCK.

Poetry in the Making - Ted Hughes (£9.99)
A reissue of his 1967 publication which accompanied his broadcasts to schools. The purpose throughout is to lead on, via discussion of the poems, to some direct encouragement to the children to think and write for themselves. He makes the whole venture seem enjoyable, and somehow urgent.

The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security - ed. Geoff Tansey; Tasmin Rajotte (£18.99)
The first wide-ranging guide to the key issues of intellectual property and ownership, genetics, biodiversity and food security - "the best single summary of the political choices facing food and agriculture policymakers that has been written in this decade". Hebden Bridge-based writer and consultant Geoff Tansey is working for a fair and sustainable food system.

Local Music

Enkelit CD (£12)

From the sensational locally-based upper-voice group who performed so memorably at Square Chapel last year, their first CD. They sing contemporary vocal music primarily from Finland, strongly influenced by folk traditions and characterisd by beauty and melancholy. See their website at http://www.enkelit.org.uk/. The leader, Richard Pomfret, is Todmorden-based.

Local Book Events

Calderdale Libraries at hosting an event on February 16th 11.30am-2pm at Todmorden Library, with authors Paul Magrs and Stella Duffy.

National Book Events

Richard and Judy Book Club 2008

As usual, Richard and Judy have been making their mark on the bestsellers. The book club forms the shortlist for the Best Read award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2008. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on the 9th April.

February

6th - Notes from An Exhibition - Patrick Gale - £7.99 - A Richard and Judy choice. When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies painting obsessively in her attic studio, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up.

13th - We Came To The End- Joshua Ferris - £7.99 - Office colleagues spend their days - and too many of their nights - at work. A book about sitting all morning next to someone you cross the road to avoid at lunch.

20th Feb - Visible World- Mark Slouka- £7.99 - To a boy growing up in New York, his parents' memories of their Czech homeland seem to belong to another world; it's only when he visits Prague as an adult it all begins to make sense.

27th Feb - Mister Pip- Lloyd Jones - £7.99 - A reclusive white man reopens the school on a Pacific island, planning to introduce the children to Dickens. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences. An unforgettable tale of survival by story.

March:

5th - Blood River - Tim Butcher- £7.99

12th - Welsh Girl - Peter Davies - £7.99

Costa Book Award 2007

The winner was A L Kennedy's fifth novel Day, the story of a former RAF prisoner-of-war returning to Germany to confront his demons. On sale at The Book Case at £5 off.

The Daily Mail Book Club

January's Book of the Month is The Editor's Wife by Clare Chambers (£10). When aspiring novelist Christopher Flinders drops out of university to write his masterpiece, his family is sceptical. But when he is taken up by the London editor Owen Goddard and his wife Diana, it seems success is just around the corner; but then, on the brink of realising his dream, he makes a desperate misjudgement which results in disaster. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

Oneword Radio

We were sorry to hear of the demise of the books digital radio station, Oneword Radio. The station, which could be accessed through broadband as well as digital receivers, was devoted to serialised readings of classics and discussions about books.

NEW TITLES

February's hardback novels include Joanna Trollope and Peter Carey, and amongst paperbacks, there are Ian Rankin, Tracy Chevalier, Alexander McCall Smith, Jane Gardam and David Nobbs and more. Reissues include a Dostoevsky and a splendid Naxos audio version of The Sword in Stone.

Non-fiction:

Aung San Suu Kyi, J G Ballard, Ray Davies and Linda Smith in Biography
the latest terminology and ideas in Current Affairs
a warning about global warming in Environment
Fair Trade, Delia cheating and vitamin murders in Food and Drink
Monty Don, the 2008 Yellow Book, gardens natural and tiny and more in Gardening
the Inquisition, the bombing of Hamburg, isolated young mothers of the 1930s and a popular new "life series" from Sutton in History
daring girls and Su-doku in Hobbies
diabetes, high blood pressure, Trickster, Mohammed the Messenger, bringing up boys and teenagers, Raphael's Ephemeris and brain workouts, plus a reissue of some classics in MBS
towpath wildlife in Nature
love poems, Louis MacNeice and Ted Hughes in Poetry
a Northern exile, eco travelling, exile in NZ, Mongolian life and too many new guides to list in Travel
and pants, Mr Gum, Drury Lane and a boy thief 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.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

What you've been buying: JANUARY 2008's at The Book Case

Richard and Judy have exerted their usual spell at The Book Case, so there are an unusual number of novels in our top ten, with four books of local interest

1. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley, £5. This colour-illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alternative Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area is back at the top. There is an accompanying DVD and/or CD.

2. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan, £6.99. A honeymoon couple at a seaside hotel in 1962. A story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

3. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini, £11.99. A Richard and Judy choice. From the author of "The Kite Runner", a gripping drama of beauty, destruction, sadness, and suspense, a chronicle of the last thirty years of Afghan history, and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, and the salvation to be found in love.

4. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. Our reprint of the exciting 1968 children’s classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners. Our next Phyllis Bentley reprint will be "Ned Carver in Danger", about the local Luddites.

5. Mr Pip - Lloyd Jones, £7.99. A Richard and Judy choice. A reclusive white man reopens the school on a Pacific island, planning to introduce the children to Dickens. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences. An unforgettable tale of survival by story.

6. Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead, £7.99. We’re delighted this account of strange and incredible events from the Calderdale area is again available and selling strongly.

7. Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale, £7.99. A Richard and Judy choice. When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies painting obsessively in her attic studio, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up.

8. Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid, £30 (£25 at The Book Case) This selection begins when Ted Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of his resolutely private life. Critics’ choice for 2007. In the same spot as last month.

9. Kite Runner - K Hosseini, £7.99. In 1970s Afghanistan, twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon. Now a film.

10. Folktales from Calderdale Vol. 1 - John Billingsley, £7.50.
The Witches of Eagle Crag, the Cliviger Boggart, the Bride Stones, the Eve Stone, Stoodley Pike, Great Rock, Tom Bell's Cave, the Miller's Grave and Churn Milk Joan are included. The first edition is nearly sold out!

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 best storage system we have is the book. Few artefacts have lasted as enduringly - and few will. If you dropped Chaucer into the middle of Oxford Street today he wouldn't have a clue what was going on, but if you took him to a bookshop he'd know exactly what they were, even be able to find his own work." - John Sutherland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7178598.stm

JANUARY 2008

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We hope you had a good Christmas break, and if it was rather too good, many of January's books aim to help you detox and become fit, lissom, calm and positive - see our MBS section below, or the full version at http://www.bookcase.co.uk/new_title_bc.htm

We have been sorry to hear of several deaths during December: that of author and journalist Shelley Rohde - Lowry's biographer and publisher of the Lowry card games; Beryl Williams, known to many and who worked at the Book Case in the 1980s, and Rita Collier, a customer who had been with us since the beginning, much liked by the staff. They will all be missed.

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: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (£6.99) Now into paperback, the bestselling Booker-shortlisted novel about an unhappy honeymoon at a seaside hotel.

Adult non-fiction: The Death of Woman Wang by Jonathan Spence (£7.99) A vivid picture of provincial China in the late 17th century. Against an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry and heavy taxation, a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands.

Children's: Airman by Eion Colfer (£9.99). Conor Broekhart was born flying. For him flight was more than just a dream, it was his destiny. In one dark night on the island of Great Saltee, a cruel and cunning betrayal destroyed his life and stole his future. Now Conor must win the race for flight, to save his family and to right a terrible wrong... 10+.

Price Promotions

We continue to offer Ted Hughes's Letters at £5 off, and we finally have room to display some of our selection of bargain books on the centre table, with more in the MBS section.

Twenty More Parish Poems - Geoffrey Whiteley (£4.00)
From a local author and ex-English teacher, more poems inspired by memories, local scenes and Biblical references.

Local Music

From Open Mic Surgery based at the Stubbing Wharf pub, Hebden Bridge, a commemorative CD in tribute to Josh Phillips and Rob Armstrong, on sale at The Book Case, price £7.00.

National Book Events

Richard and Judy Book Club 2008

The nation’s favourite book club returns in 2008 with 10 new reads to keep us entertained through January to March. The book club will once again form the shortlist for the Best Read award at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2008. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on the 9th April.

January:

9th - Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - £11.99 - From the author of “The Kite Runner”, a gripping drama of beauty, destruction, sadness, and suspense, a chronicle of the last thirty years of Afghan history, and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, and the salvation to be found in love.

16th - Random Acts Of Heroic Love - Danny Scheinmann - £7.99 - Leo Deakin wakes up in a hospital somewhere in South America, his girlfriend Eleni is dead and Leo doesn't know where he is or how Eleni died. Moritz Daniecki is a fugitive from a Siberian POW camp separated him from his village and his sweetheart. The author paints a dramatic portrait of two men sustaining their lives through the memory of love.:p>

23rd - Rose Of Sebastopol - Katharine McMahon - £6.99 - Quiet Mariella leaves Victorian London to search for her surgeon fiance and her headstrong cousin Rosa in the shattered landscape of the Crimea

30th - Quiet Belief In Angels - R J Ellory - £6.99 - A new crime thriller from the author of Candlemoth and City Of Lies

February

6th - Notes from An Exhibition - Patrick Gale - £7.99 :p>

13th - We Came To The End- Joshua Ferris - £7.99 :p>

20th Feb - Visible World- Mark Slouka- £7.99 :p>

27th Feb - Mister Pip- Lloyd Jones - £7.99

March:

5th - Blood River - Tim Butcher- £7.99 :p>

12th - Welsh Girl - Peter Davies - £7.99

The Daily Mail Book Club

January's Book of the Month is In My Father's House by Miranda Seymour (£7.99). The first "posh misery memoir" - an extraordinary account of Miranda Seymour's father George, and his relationships with her, her mother and his male lover. A beautifully written and heart-wrenching story of misplaced love and its devastating consequences. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

February's choice is Editor's Wife by Clare Chambers.

NEW TITLES

2008 starts with some good new novels, including Garrison Keillor and Bernard Schlink in hardback fiction, and amongst paperbacks, Ian McEwan, Doris Lessing, Thomas Keneally, Jim Crace, Fred Vargas, Andrea Camilleri and Boris Akunin, plus two about Chinese immigrants, one translated from the Armenian and more. Reissues include Sweeney Todd, classic horror stories and Victorian/Edwardian crime stories.

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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