OLDNL

16th October 2009: Another update from the Book Case: Glyn Hughes, Anne Lister and the Independent on Sunday

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We'd like to remind you about the launch of Glyn Hughes's important new book, Life Class, at Artsmill, Linden Mill, Linden Road, at 4pm on 18th October. The book', a 5000-word autobiographical poem, is beautifully produced, and Glyn says is the "product of a lifetime's mistakes and reflections". Stock is currently on its way to The Book Case.

An appeal: the film company who are producing a programme about eccentric land-owning lesbian Anne Lister of Shibden Hall for BBC2 would like to interview "ordinary people" who enjoyed reading the books of her diaries, I Know My Own Heart and/or No Priest But Love. If that's you, please get in touch! We have I Know My Own Heart in stock and are waiting for the other one. Our webpage about Anne Lister is at http://www.bookcase.co.uk/lister_3.htm

And we're told that a list of The Book Case's recommendations will feature this Sunday in the Independent on Sunday's Hitlist! We based our choice on a mixture of bestsellers over the last few months but it was a hard decision!

9th October 2009: More News from the Book Case

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

New into stock is Juliet Barker's big new historical book, Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417-1450. The story of "what happened after Agincourt" has never been properly covered and in this new book, Juliet again combines her gift of bringing history to life through everyday details with painstaking scholarship: for example, "Robert Stafford who complained that it was impossible for him to defend his fortress since his sole gunner was absent, the only cannon was in need of repair and there was just one crossbow left in the armoury – and that had no string." See Juliet's account of how she came to write it at http://julietbarker.co.uk/books/conquest.html

Also new in from locally-based writer, curator and design historian Lesley Jackson is a big colourful new book, Shirley Craven and Hull Traders: Revolutionary Fabrics and Furniture 1957-1980, about the gifted textile designer who specialised in big bold abstracts. Hull Traders were based at Trawden, and the accompanying exhibition will be visiting Bankfield Museum in Halifax. More info at http://www.hulltraders.co.uk/ . Lesley Jackson decided to move to this area after hearing Ted Hughes speak at Lumb Bank.

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Coming up on 22-25 October is this year's Ted Hughes Festival:

Helen Broderick, the cataloguer of the Hughes Archive at the British Library, will be talking about her experiences at the Erringden Room at 7.30pm on 22 October. You can find her blog at http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/ted_hughes_archive/

Friday 23 Oct: Children from local schools will read their favourite Ted Hughes poems at St Michael's Church Hall at 4pm and comic poet John Hegley will perform at the Ted Hughes Theatre at 7pm.

Saturday 24 Oct: Ursula Holden Gill will tell stories for young children at Mytholmroyd Library at 10am; Donald Crossley will lead a guided walk up Crimsworth Dean, starting in Hardcastle Crags car park at 2pm; junk sculptor Mick Kirkby-Geddes will run a junk modelling workshop at St Michael's Church Hall, 2-4pm; and author Jackie Kay will read from her own work and present the Elmet Poetry Prize at the Ted Hughes Theatre at 7.30pm

You can download a brochure and booking form at http://www.theelmettrust.co.uk/

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This year's Man Booker winner, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, is selling briskly and hurrah for a Booker winner that people actually want to read.

T S Eliot has emerged as the nation's current favourite poet, according to an online poll, the runners up being John Donne, Benjamin Zephaniah, Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats and Dylan Thomas.

And Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's poem for National Poetry Day, "Atlas", can be found here.

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Meanwhile we have even more splendid bargain books in than we mentioned in our last newsletter - including Kate Fox's entertaining Watching the English (£3.99), Annie Proulx's Shipping News (£2.99), Doris Lessing's Mara and Dann (£3.99), more from the Dalai Lama, and now in stock, Eckhart Tolle's popular Power of Now (£3.99). Lots more on and under our centre table and around the shop.

Best wishes from your local independent bookshop.

OCTOBER 2009

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

You'll probably have gathered from the radio that October is a big month for books, with the main publishers' releases, and the Booker Prize winner announced on 6th October. There's also National Bookstart Day on 9th October - see below for details. This year's theme is rhymes.

It's a big month for us in Hebden Bridge too as major local authors Juliet Barker and Glyn Hughes have new books out! See below for details.

As well as the beginnings of our big "Christmas present" book selection, we also have some excellent bargain books new in - including J G Ballard (SF), Jon Ronson (Them), House at Riverton, Mao, Reading Lolita in Tehran and Vikram Chandra's chunky and powerful tour-de-force Sacred Games: modern India through the eyes of a cop and a top gangster. These are all at prices from £2.99 to £4.99 while stocks last. We're also expecting bargain copies of Eckhart Tolle's popular Power of Now.

These bargain books are fighting for space on the central table with our splendid selection of calendars and diaries, which are selling briskly.

We regret that we will be closing on Tuesdays until the end of November. We will then open on Tuesdays in the run up to Christmas.

A reminder that you can find our Facebook page here!

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: Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives - David Eagleman (£9.99). Named as one of the best spiritual books of 2009 and also welcomed by atheists, a thought-provoking series of stories about alternative versions of the after-life. The title is the Latin for "I am".

Adult non-fiction: Earthbound: A Rough Guide to the World in Pictures (£20). A sumptuous hardback of eyecatching photographs from all over the world. Better than your average.

Children: New and Collected Poems for Children - Carol Ann Duffy. This beautiful edition of poems brings together work from four award-winning collections for children, and sprinkles in a generous helping of new poems to match. From her dazzlingly debut "Meeting Midnight" through to her newest, brightest poems, Carol Ann Duffy's writing for younger readers has always bubbled with wit and humour, intelligence and affection. Ages: 8+ yrs (£9.99)

CD: The History of English Poetry - Peter Whitfield, read by Derek Jacobi (Naxos, 7 CDs), £19.99. this accessible history introduces the listener to countless masterpieces, including all the old favourites and some lesser-known gems. We also have in stock The History of English Literature and The History of English Theatre (Naxos, 4 CDs each), £16.99 each.

NEWS

Local Author

Conquest: The English Kingdom of France 1417-1450 - Juliet Barker (£20.00)
Author of the best-selling AGINCOURT, Juliet Barker now tells 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. Yet despite her victories, her influence was short-lived: Henry VI had his coronation in Paris six months after her death and his kingdom endured for another twenty years. When he came of age he was not the leader his father had been. It was the dauphin, whom Joan had crowned Charles VII, who would finally drive the English out of France.

Life Class - Glyn Hughes (£12.50)
From the prize-winning local author, a 5,000 line autobiographical poem absorbing two years of writing. an autobiographical poem covering the narrator’s beginnings as a worshipper of nature, later an organic gardener (before this was fashionable), living in cottages on the Pennines, and also some years in Greece. It covers his rural working-class roots and three marriages. The result is a magnificent poem by a major poet, one that is notable for its keen attention to the natural world and accounts and circumstances of a life lived to the full. The book will be launched at Artsmill on 18th October at 4pm and all are welcome.

Sing Shenandoah for Me - John Sugden (£9.95)
The author, a prize-winning poet, was originally from Huddersfield and this nicely produced novel is set in 1960s West Yorkshire. As long as his patients don't trouble him Jack has a secure future as a psychiatric nurse. When his reputation as a ladies' man brings him and Linda together, how much better could life get?
Angel Try - Alice Bell (£9.99)
From a Mytholmroyd author, a novel that's part family history saga, part ghost story, telling the tale of a West Yorkshire clan pulling itself up by its bootstraps. Set in the Calder and Aire Valleys and beginning before the Industrial Revolution, when it was a treat to afford treacle for your porridge! Local publisher.
From Where I Was Standing : A Liverpool Supporter's View of the Heysel Stadium Tragedy - Chris Rowland (£9.99)
An eyewitness account and analysis of the Heysel Stadium disaster of May 1985 as the 25th anniversary year approaches. The author lives in Mytholmroyd/Hebden Bridge.

Local Interest

Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty (£9.95)
In this fascinating and personal insight, Steve Murty looks at the history of the Calder Valley and the surrounding area over the centuries covering, amongst many other topics, hand-loom weaving, child labour and domestic fashions. Born and brought up in the Township of Stubb, Mytholmroyd, he focuses on the development of this ancient hamlet, its people and properties, within the context of the events that took place around the valleys.

Gone Walkabout- Anna Carlisle, new ed. (£6.95)
The bestselling book of local walks now out in a substantially rewritten and updated edition, with new maps.

A Dales High Way companion - Tony and Chris Grogan (£9.99)
A 90 mile walk across the glorious high country of the Yorkshire Dales, from Saltaire to Appleby - explore its rich history, geology, wildlife and culture, and return with a breathtaking train ride along England's most beautiful railway. Lots of colour photographs.

Jimmy Mac, Prince of Inside Forwards - Dave Thomas (£17.95)
The story of Burnley and Northern Ireland icon Jimmy McIlroy. Profusely illustrated book telling the story of this "magic" footballer. To be launched on 23rd October at Burnley's Turf Moor Ground.

Local Events

Well-known historian Jill Liddington will be talking about Rebel Girls, her acclaimed book about the forgotten suffragettes of the North of England - She leads a guided walk from Huddersfield station at 6.30pm today, 1st October (01484 221965), and will be speaking at Leeds Metropolitan University at 1.10pm on 7th October. We have Rebel Girls in stock, price £14.99.

National Book News

National Bookstart Day 2009 is fast approaching on Friday 9 October. The theme this year is ‘My Favourite Rhyme’, the perfect opportunity to share your favourite rhymes, learn new ones and even dress up as nursery rhyme characters! More info at http://www.bookstart.org.uk/Family-activities/National-Bookstart-Day with events, recommended reads and a page about the history of rhymes and why they're important.

The Booker Shortlist 2009

Winner to be announced 6th October, and the shortlist is below, with prices reflecting our usual £2 discount on hardback fiction. We have the Mantel and Waters in stock, and can usually order the others overnight. Find out more at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

The Children's Book - A S Byatt, £16.99
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel, £16.99
The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds, £10.99
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters, £10.99
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer, £14.99
Summertime - J M Coetzee, £14.99

NEW TITLES

October sees the publishers putting out the books they hope will prove big Christmas sellers, which on the whole are non-fiction. There's also a torrent of history publishing this month after a bit of a lull.

Amongst the month's hardback fiction are John Irving, Terry Pratchett and Ruth Rendell. Paperback fiction includes Susan Hill, Janice Galloway, Kamila Shamsie, Max Aub, Annie Proulx, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ken Follett, Louis de Bernieres, Alexander McCall Smith and Arnaldur Indridason, among others, plus a new series retelling the stories of the Mabinogion for the 21st century. Lots of reissues including Bunyan, Sterne, Emily Bronte, Rodenbach, Zane Grey, M R James, Elizabeth Taylor, Neville Shute, Shirley Jackson, Raymond Carver, Beryl Bainbridge, Robert Harris, Jean Plaidy and Cormac McCarthy. Click here for the full list.

October's Non-fiction includes:

Marginalia, paper collage work, Japanese textile design, West Riding Architecture and how to paint in Art, Craft Design and Architecture
Pepys, the Wellington family, Waugh, Wainwright and Tomy Benn in Biography
the Ukrainians in Current Affairs
River Cottage Sustainability, being cheaply low-carbon and down-shifting in middle age in Environment
River Cottage and making country wines in Food & Drink
Ting Tang Tommy, Montague Blister and Brain Games in Games
Twelve Treasured Flowers, Monty Don, Mr Middleton, raising goats and gardening and planting by the moon in Gardening & Smallholding
great cities, the long walk of 1066, medieval seafarers, visiting the 14th century, the English kingdom of France in the 15th century, Matthias Corvinus and his library, Dickens and the fallen women, the 19th century in photographs, Andrew Marr and John O'Farrell on Modern Britain, the WWII secret agent's pocket manual and the history of a North Yorkshire plot of land in History
the wit and wisdom of the North, Tommy Cooper, Private Eye, the Oldie, Christmas for Atheists, Mots d'Heures: Gousses Rames, the Daily Mash, scorn, Dumb Britain, Alan Bennett, Pam Ayres, Molesworth (hurrah!) and Simon's cat in Humour
designers' and celebrities' best dresses and Woodstock paper dolls in Lifestyle
P D James on Detective Fiction, Susan Hill on neglected books, the writer-artist relationship, illustrated children's books and a dictionary of proverbs in Literature and Language
babies, alcohol, smoking, massage, Wild Love, angel cards, Cosmic Ordering, a moon planner, a witches' almanac and Old Moore in MBS
The Sound of Music (pop-up), Top Gear, Match of the Day, Come Dancing, The Archers, Torchwood and Only Fools and Horses in Media
The Wire on modern music in Music
pigs, woodland, the Atlantic salmon and stargazing in Nature, Animals and Wildlife
the Eagle comic in Nostalgia
ancient philosophers on modern living in Philosophy
Beowulf on CD-rom, half-forgotten school poetry, love poems, bird poems, moon poems, poems on the underground, Paul Durcan, Islamic mystical verse and the RSC in classic Shakespearean performances in Poetry & Drama
anarchism in Politics
the Dark Night of the Soul in Religion
New Scientist's latest collection, complexity, Popular Mechanics, biological rebels, essential maths, curious maths, forgotten school maths and technology writing in Science and Maths
North better than South, migrants' front rooms, the British obsession with interiors and WWII demob in Society
Dalrymple in India, the golden age of exploration, Lonely Plant travel writing, Rough Guide world in pictures, haunted Britain, China, walking in West Yorkshire, Good Hotels and Good Pubs in Travel
combines, trucks and a lifetime in transport in Transport
and pussycat with owl, practical cats, Carol Ann Duffy and a baby brought up in a graveyard 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.
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What you've been buying: SEPTEMBER's bestsellers at The Book Case

Our September bestsellers showed a strong interest in local history, with two local walking guides also popular. Two thought-provoking adult books were also in demand, and young people were keen to find out what happened to Torak in the final Chronicle of Ancient Darkness.

1. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
Back at the top, a very readable account of our area through the ages by a well-known local author. Published by Royd Press.

2. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty (£9.95)
From the Super-Truck King and Hebden Bridge Literary & Scientific Society history section vice-president, a well-illustrated history of the Calder Valley and surrounding area. He focuses especially on the development of the ancient hamlet of Stubb, and the wonderful old pictures come from his own collection, the Alice Longstaff collection, the HBLHS and elsewhere.

3. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives - David Eagleman (£9.99)
Named as one of the best spiritual books of 2009 and also welcomed by atheists, a thought-provoking series of stories about alternative versions of the after-life. The title is the Latin for "I am".

4. A Book of Silence - Sara Maitland, £8.99
Over the past five years, the author has spent periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Australian bush, and the Isle of Skye. She interweaves her experiences of silence in different places with the history of silence. Its second month in the Top Ten.

5. A Cotton-Fibre Halo - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £7.95
A gritty and graphic eyewitness report of life and work in the Manchester area in 1849. Royd Press.

6. Ghost Hunter - Michelle Paver, £10.99
The sixth and final adventure in Torak's quest to vanquish the terrifying Soul-Eaters in the bestselling Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series for young people, set in the Stone Age.

7. Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle, £9.99
This well-researched book from the author of Yorkshire Cotton is an illustrated account of all the mills that once stood in today’s beauty spots, with info about the firms, child labour, and hand-loom weavers’ riots plus details of the buildings, the machinery in them and their power sources. Royd Press

8. Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin, £6.95
Life and work in the Yorkshire textile districts in 1849, through the eyes of energetic young journalist Angus Reach. Royd Press.

9. Hebden Bridge Town Trail, £2.00
This well-illustrated guide to the town continued to sell well.

10. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.95
The bestselling book of local walks now out in a substantially rewritten and updated edition, with new maps. From Hebden Bridge publishers Pennine Pens.

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

"A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life." - Susan Hill, Howard's End is on the Landing

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11TH SEPTEMBER 2009

Another bookish update: walkers, John Siddique and inspirational journals

A quick update to say that the new edition of Gone Walkabout by Anna Carlisle is now in stock, ready for the Walkers are Welcome weekend, in which The Book Case is a participating shop.

Locally based poet John Siddique will be launching a new series of pieces entitled "From a Seed to a Flower" tomorrow Saturday 12th at the Whitworth Art Gallery, along with Jackie Kay. The poems look at the lives of immigrants in Manchester, and you can find them online at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/writersgallery/commission.html

And we now have in our usual lovely selection of inspirational calendars, diaries and undated journals from Brush Dance and Amber Lotus.

10TH SEPTEMBER 2009

Steve Murty's New Book, Gone Walkabout, the Booker Shortlist and a correction

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We're delighted to announce a new book from Steve Murty, well-known for his famous and terrifying motor stunts and also as vice-president of the history section of Hebden Bridge Literary & Scientific Society. Steve was born and brought up in the township of Stubb, Mytholmroyd, and in Summat a' Nowt, he gives a well-illustrated history of the Calder Valley and surrounding area. He focuses especially on the development of the ancient hamlet of Stubb, and the wonderful old pictures come from his own collection, the Alice Longstaff collection, the HBLHS and elsewhere. The book costs £9.95 and is available now at The Book Case.

Due very soon is the new, updated edition of the bestselling walking book Gone Walkabout by Anna Carlisle (£6.95) It's substantially rewritten, with new maps. Hebden Bridge is hosting a Walkers are Welcome weekend this Saturday and Sunday - click here for details.

The Booker Shortlist for 2009 is out, as follows. Prices shown below reflect our usual £2 discount on hardback fiction. We have the Mantel and Waters in stock, and can usually order the others overnight.

The Children's Book - A S Byatt, £ 16.99
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel, £16.99
The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds, £10.99
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters, £10.99
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer, £14.99
Summertime - J M Coetzee, £14.99

And finally apologies for the mistake in our recent newsletter: the title of Margaret Atwood's new novel, which is our Fiction Book of the Month, is of course The Year of the Flood.

Best wishes from your local bookshop, The Book Case

SEPTEMBER 2009

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

We hope you enjoyed your summer holidays, if any, and welcome back to autumnal life! After a bit of a lull, local interest titles are burgeoning - see below.

Our impressive selection of calendars and diaries is now almost complete and on display. Some we can reorder, some not, so get in early! We have a range of Moleskine diaries in various sizes, as well as the perennial favourites We'Moon, John Muir Trust, Earth Pathways and Sacred Journeys diaries. Next year's lovely Amber Lotus and Brush Dance calendars are expected soon, and the big Pomegranate selection is already in.

From the end of September, we regret that we will be closing on Tuesdays until the end of November. We will then open on Tuesdays in the run up to Christmas.

Congratulations to local artist Sue Lawty, who's being interviewed by BBC World Service for Chinese radio, and whose World Beach Project was recently featured in the Telegraph. We have in stock two of her books, and packs of postcards.

A reminder that you can find our Facebook page here!

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 Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood (£16.99 at The Book Case). The Waterless Flood has finally happened, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it. By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful and uneasily hilarious, Atwood at her most effective.

Adult non-fiction: The Virginia Monologues by Virginia Ironside (£12.99) Twenty reasons why growing old is great! You're more confident, and if your memory's going, at least you forget the bad times ...

Children: The Bride’s Farewell by Meg Rosoff (£10.99). A haunting, romantic novel. On the morning of her wedding, Pell Ridley creeps out of bed in the dark, kisses her sisters goodbye and flees to escape a future that offers nothing but hard work and sorrow. Ages 12+

CD: The Jane Austen Collection read by Joanna Lumley, Belinda Lang, Anna Massey and Harriet Walter (£25.00). 12 Audio CDs in a box read by an impressive line-up of actresses; the novels are all abridged, but "The Watsons" short story is in full, with some early writings.

NEWS

Local Authors

Timmy the Tug - Ted Hughes & Jim Downer, £12.95

A children's poem lost for over fifty years. Written in the mid-1950s to accompany his friend Jim Downer's story about Timmy the Tug, the poem recounts Timmy's escape from his moorings and subsequent adventures on the high seas.

A Place Like This - Jill Robinson, £6.95
The long-awaited third book of the popular Berringden Brow series, set not too far from Hebden Bridge. Heroine Jess is helping to run a neighbourhood advice centre, where the clients include asylum-seekers, a trafficked young woman, a heart-broken husband, and a man with evil spirits in his house. Jess tries valiantly to help everyone, while contending with the erratic life-style of her son, who has embraced freevarianism and plastered Hebden Bridge with graffiti. Friends also need her support - but who will help Jess? Meanwhile, why is widowed Norah living in a dog kennel, who has stolen the aspidistra, and will Jess's colleague Nick really be sent to prison for conspiring to make a false passport?

Albert's Ark - Frederick A Crampton, £11.99
From a Holywell Green author, a first novel set in 2014 - a mercenary and his wife convert a redundant oil tanker into a small-holding and run it with a group of like-minded people to get away from the corruption of modern-day living.

John Kettley's Extreme Weather, £17.00
Todmorden-born weatherman John Kettley looks back on many varieties of extreme weather ranging from the atrocious winter of 1963 through to massive floods and scorching summers. His personal involvement with the 1987 hurricane fiasco features extensively.

Building with Straw Bales: A Practical Guide for the UK and Ireland - Barbara Jones, 2r.e. (£12.95)
From the Todmorden-based straw bale pioneer, a fully revised and updated edition of this practical book. Straw bale building is a radically different approach to the process of building.

Books and CDs from Dr Eden P Fazel: Dr Eden Fazel, who is based in Hebden Bridge, is the founder of Survive and Thrive. These books are for anyone who wants to take their physical and emotional health into their own hands. See http://www.surviveandthrivecoach.org.uk/

Books: Anger: A Very Healthy Emotion - £6.99; Anxiety: A Very Vital Emotion - £5.99; DIY Coaching: Drawing Your Life Plan - £6.99; Emotional Wisdom: Understanding Natural Emotions - £8.99; Free Emotional Expression: The Art of Openness - £3.99; Growing From Weakness To Strength - £6.99; Growing Out Of Guilt - £4.99; Growing Out Of The Blues - £3.99; Healing Emotional Injuries - £3.99

Audiobooks : Anger: A Very Healthy Emotion - £14.99 (3 CDs); Anxiety: A Very Vital Emotion - £11.99 (2 CDs); DIY Coaching: Drawing Your Life Plan - £12.99 (2 CDs); DIY Psychology: Taking Charge Of Your Emotional Health - £14.99 (3 CDs); Emotional Wisdom: Understanding Natural Emotions - £8.99 (1 CD); Free Emotional Expression: The Art Of Openness - £8.99 (1 CD); Growing From Past Hurt Towards Future Harmony - £14.99 (3 CDs); Growing From Weakness To Strength - £9.99 (1 CD); Growing Out Of Guilt - £8.99 (1 CD); Growing Out Of The Blues - £8.99 (1 CD); Growing Out Of The System - £8.99 (1 CD); Making Love Bigger Than Fear: Growing Healthy Relationships - £11.99 (2 CDs); The Art Of Jumping The Leaps Right - £11.99 (2 CDs)

Local Interest

Darwin in Ilkley - Mike Dixon; Gregory Radick (£12.99)
In 1859 Charles Darwin “took the water cure” in Ilkley and wrote to his friend T. H. Huxley 'I am here hydropathising and coming to life again after having finished my accursed book'. Over the next weeks, in between fresh-air walks, cold-water baths, and time with his family, he began to prepare for the publication of "On the Origin of Species".

Haworth through Time - Steven Wood and Ian Palmer, £12.99
Nicely presented then-and-now photographs with brief information. It's hoped there'll be a Hebden Bridge equivalent.

By Hazel Wheeler, £12.99 each - The Milliner's Apprentice: Girlhood in Edwardian Yorkshire; Living on Tick: Tales from a Huddersfiield Corner Shop between the War; The Diary of a Young Wife, 1953
From the author of Half a Pound of Tuppeny Rice, three more illustrated books on life in Deighton and Huddersfield in times past.

Yorkshire Murders and Misdemeanours - Stephen Wade, £12.99
Major crimes in Yorkshire alphabetically presented, from the Middle Ages to 1961. Stephen Wade recently took part in a Hebden Bridge Library authors' event, and will be at Todmorden's Fielden Centre this weekend - see below.

The Burnley FC Miscellany - David Wiseman, £12.99
Burnley Football Club come from the smallest town ever to win League Division One and the FA Cup. But this book is mainly about Burnley 'off the record'. Here you can read some of the odd, quaint and quirky things that have been part of the past 125 years of Clarets history.

Local Events

Writers' Roadshow, Fielden Centre, Todmorden, Saturday 5 September, 9.30 onwards

Calderdale Libraries are hosting another Writers' Roadshow in Todmorden on Saturday 5th September. Authors include Craig Bradley, Mark Illis, Jean Fullerton (long-listed for the 2009 Romantic Novel of the Year), Louise Armstrong, Joolz Denby, Gaia Holmes and June Francis, with Linda Green, Glyn Hughes, Anne Caldwell, Stephen Wade and Kate Walker. For details see:

http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/readers/writers-roadshow/fieldencentre-roadshow.html

Well-known historian Jill Liddington will be talking about Rebel Girls, her acclaimed book about the forgotten suffragettes of the North of England - she'll be in Pocklington on 16th September (phone 01759 303832) and at the Portico Library, Manchester on 22nd September, 7.30pm (0161 236 6785). Jill leads a guided walk from Huddersfield station at 6.30pm on 1st October (01484 221965), and will be speaking at Leeds Metropolitan University at 1.10pm on 7th October. We have Rebel Girls in stock, price £14.99.

Local Publisher

Royd Press at The Book Case is delighted to announce the latest collection of quirkyand prose from Chris Aspin. In Albert, the Lion and the Monkey (£4.99), Albert finally gets the better of the lion, Simple Simon dispenses wisdom, and other strange happenings abound! The cover cartoon was especially drawn by Dick Graham, ex-editorial cartoonist for the Manchester Evening News.

NEW TITLES

As usual, September's hardback fiction features big names, including Margaret Atwood, Sebastian Faulks, William Trevor, Alice Munro, Philippa Gregory and Iain Banks. There's also Anthea Bell's translation of a Siegfried Lenz novella. Paperback fiction includes P D James, Susan Hill, Sophie Hannah, Paul Torday and Robert Bolano, among others. Reissues include a Victorian SF novel, John Buchan, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Angela Carter and John Berendt. Click here for the full list.

In September's Non-fiction we were offered many collections of English idioms, most of which we resisted, and also a great deal in the style of the 1940s. Publishers evidently think the country needs more nostalgia. Anyway, what we actually selected includes:

Modern Art in Art
Darwin in Ilkley, Conan Doyle, Edward Carpenter, William Golding and Humphrey Lyttelton in Biography
straw bales in Environment
the new Good Food Guide and Good Beer Guide, preserves & pickles, the River Cottage Family Cookbook, Richard Mabey's Wild Cooking and traditional bacon curing in Food & Drink
Sissinghurst, self-sufficiency and the joy of gardening in Gardening & Smallholding
the origin of pub names in History
Clarice Cliff, Airfix and card tricks in Hobbies
the Virginia Monologues, grumpy old drivers, evil cats, "Have I Got News for You", QI on banter and a Yorkshire headmaster in Humour
delight in small things (Priestley), Mitch Albom, Eileen Caddy, Buddhist prayers, being happy, cosmic ordering and self-acceptance in MBS
the Archers in Media
the landscape, the night sky, weather and cats in Nature and Animals
Wittgenstein in Philosophy
Betjeman, Eunoia and Jenny Joseph in Poetry
Amnesty International on Women's Rights and Kapuscinski on the Other in Politics
the new Oxford Companion to Eng Lit, the new Brewer's, the new Collins English Dictionary, Excel and Word Made Easy and a Quick Medical Reference Guide for Use on the Ward in Reference
Islam in Religion
modern science writing, quirky home experiments, fractals and statistics in Science and Maths
the Northern wilderness and traders round the world in Travel
and Eric Carle buggy cards, a stick man, astrosaurs, the third exciting Inheritance title, a new Ted Hughes title and a romantic novel set in Victorian times 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: AUGUST's bestsellers at The Book Case

The Book Case’s August customers wanted to find out about the local area, keep their children entertained, enjoy some fiction and reflect on the experience of silence.

1. Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle, £9.99
New from the author of Yorkshire Cotton and Royd Press, an illustrated account of all the mills that once stood in today’s beauty spots, with info about the firms, child labour, and hand-loom weavers’ riots plus details of the buildings, the machinery in them and their power sources.

2. A Book of Silence - Sara Maitland, £8.99
Our Non-Fiction Book of the Month. Over the past five years, the author has spent periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Australian bush, and the Isle of Skye. She interweaves her experiences of silence in different places with the history of silence.

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
This account of our area through the ages by a well-known local author continues popular. Published by Royd Press.

4. Where’s Wally? - the Wonder Book - Martin Handford, £2.99
This little book has a magnifying glass to help you find Wally and friends hiding in each detailed scene.

5. Hebden Bridge Town Trail, £2.00
This illustrated guide to the town continued to sell well.

6. Deaf Sentence - David Lodge, £7.99
This moving and entertaining novel is about a retired professor who’s going deaf, annoyingly for his family: and there’s further trouble in store.

7. Funny Faces : Millie Moo - Roger Priddy, £2.99
These bargain chunky board books have proved very popular with our younger customers. Less so with the staff because they’re rather noisy!

8. LeCardo, £5.99
Normally a good seller in midwinter, wet weather must have helped this entertaining strategy game involving compound words!

9. The Other Queen - Philippa Gregory, £7.99
An exciting historical novel involving Mary Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick.

10. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.99
Still popular, the exciting locally-based children’s book about the Cragg Vale Coiners, published by Royd Press.

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 entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting." - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

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AUGUST 2009

Yorkshire Dales Textiles Mills, and Guardianwork event

We're delighted to announce the publication of George Ingle's new book, Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills, price £9.99. It's the result of over fifty years’ research into the textile mills of the Yorkshire Dales, in the days when large mills employing considerable workforces – especially children – stood in popular beauty spots like Malhamdale and Aysgarth. The book gives the background to the development of over seventy mills in the Dales - which are described from their foundation to their demise - and explains how they frequently changed from spinning one fibre to another. There are over 70 illustrations. George gave an entertaining talk to Hebden Bridge Local History Society on the subject earlier this year.

More good news is that author Ian Carpenter will be talking about his book Guardianwork, at 7.30pm on 29th July at The Hole in t'Wall pub by the Old Bridge, before he goes on to appear at Edinburgh.

Ian Carpenter was a 34-year-old property manager in Basildon when he found himself facing redundancy. He was looking at the recruitment pullout of the Guardian newspaper, and wondered: why don't I apply for every job here? So that's what he did, and along the way broadened his scope by applying to be the English football manager and head of the Liberal Democrats. It took him six months to apply for every job in that one issue of the Guardian, and in the end, he didn't get a job - not even an offer. So he decided to do what any sensible person would do in that situation - he has set up a second hand bookshop in Southend, from where he is continuing his absurd campaign to find a job. The book Guardianworkreveals the comic underbelly of the recruitment process. Entry is free and the book is on sale at The Book Case, price £7.99. Hope to see you there!

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Hebden Bridge Arts Festival is well under way - the Virginia Ironside event sold out, and with lots still to come - see below for details.

On Sunday 5th July, Hebden Bridge Library is hosting a Calderdale Writers Roadshow including Jill Liddington and other well-known local authors - see below for details.

We're also looking at the possibility of an event in late July at The Hole in the Wall with Ian Carpenter, author of the humorous book Guardianwork - we'll keep you informed.

We'll be stocking books from the new publishing house Reportage Press, founded by ex-BBC World Service correspondent Rosie Whitehouse. It specialises in books on foreign affairs and each of their books has a charity, chosen by the author, to which a donation is made from proceeds. Subjects include Iraq, South Sudan and India.

The Penguin mugs have been going nicely, and we're expecting some Ladybird bike mugs soon.

Not sure whether to mention this, given that summer has only just reached us, but we have next year's colourful We'moon Diaries and calendars in already, as well as the attractive Earth Pathways diary from Moonshare Cooperative.

Just in are the latest SageWoman and PanGaia magazines from the States.

None of you are saying which books you're enjoying or otherwise on our Comments board. I'm giving up on you.

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 Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (£7.99). In 1946 author Julia Ashton receives a letter from a Guernsey man and they begin a correspondence. A funny and moving account of life in Guernsey under the German occupation. Sadly the author died earlier this year.

Adult non-fiction: A Beginner's Guide to Acting English - Shappi Kharsandi (£11.99). Has been compared to Gerald Durrell's "My Family and Other Animals" or Nancy Mitford's "Pursuit of Love" but featuring an eccentric Iranian family getting used to English life in the 1980s. Shappi Kharsandi is appearing at the Festival.

Children: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them / Quidditch through the Ages - J.K Rowling (£4.99). Two Harry Potter companion books. As fans will know, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is a set text on the reading list for first year Hogwarts students, and Quidditch Through The Ages was a favourite read of Harry's in Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. Age 8+

CD: This month, for those long car journeys, we’re featuring a range of classic children’s audiobooks including the Winnie the Poohs read by Alan Bennett, the Just So Stories read by Johnny Morris and some of the Naxos audiobooks for children.

NEWS

Local Interest

Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle, £9.99
It's mostly forgotten these days that there was a thriving textile industry in the Yorkshire Dales from the late 18th century onwards. George Ingle, the author of "Yorkshire Cotton", has located and describes over seventy textile mills in the Dales, with many illustrations. George gave a talk to Hebden Bridge Local History Society on the mills of the Dales earlier this year. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

Mary Towneley Loop Guide, 2e

Full colour photos and relevant local information within this comprehensive pocket-sized book of the Loop ensure it is an appropriate guide for horse riders, cyclists and walkers alike. Second edition has a couple of minor alterations.

Local Authors

The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin's Legacy - Fern Elsdon-Baker, £12.99

Dawkins has used his position to publicly attack 'unreason', in the form of organised religion, pseudo-science, or new age folly. This polarised representation of science is potentially fuelling the feud between Darwinism and Creationism. Hebden Bridge-based author Fern Elsdon-Baker, a rational pro-science atheist and specialist in the history and communication of evolutionary theory, finds Dawkins' influence distinctly worrying. She argues that Dawkins is publicly misrepresenting science as a whole and asks - is Dawkins really acting to popularise science or to popularise Richard Dawkins?

Yelp! - Liz Almond, £9.99

From the Hebden Bridge-based poet, a collection of poems about regeneration, recuperation, reclamation and retreat, in which the poet reflects on visits, both literal and virtual, to remote parts of Greece, Andalucia and Southern India. Rituals of travel are at the heart of Liz Almond's work; and travel, in her poems, can start anywhere: through a computer screen offering access to a satellite view of continents, to a pencil hovering like a bee at the start of a poem about a zoo for husbands. Departures and arrivals, free exchanges of words at the border controls of language - all these feed into poems that embody a rich and sensual sense of cultural difference, an understanding of the scale and fragility of our planet.

They're All Foreigners Abroad! - Stuart Wright, £7.99

From an ex-Halifax author, now resident in Spain, a light-hearted inventory of Brits on holiday abroad. Let's be honest, we Brits are not difficult to take the mickey out of whilst on our hard-earned holidays!

Landscapes in Watercolour - Paul Talbot-Greaves, £7.99

From the well-known local painter and writer, the latest of his instruction books on watercolour painting. This practical and inspirational guide, in a handy sketchbook format, is aimed at the practised beginner. By working with just a few materials and focusing on the key techniques it is possible to achieve successful, realistic landscape paintings in no more than half an hour. And for those artists who already have a little painting experience, learning to work more quickly enables them to free up their style and paint more spontaneously.

Congratulations to local author and publisher Kevin Duffy, whose humorous novel about hippies moving into the upper Calder Valley in the 1960s, Anthills and Stars, has been chosen by Exclusively Independent for their August book of the month!

Local Publishers

Stone Tree - Gyrthir Eliasson, trans. Victoria Cribb, £7.95

Published by Mytholmroyd publishers Comma Press, and translated from the Icelandic, a collection of stories set on the shores or in the lava fields and mountains of Iceland, each one a study in self-exile.

Hebden Bridge Arts Festival - book-related events:

4 July
A puppet show for small children, based on Polly Dunbar's Flyaway Katie, at the Little Theatre

Katie Fforde and Eleanor Moran - literary lunch at Moyle's and appearance at Artsmill, 4.30-5.30pm

7 July
Carol Ann Duffy & Jan Fortune-Wood at the Little Theatre - sold out!

8 July
Shappi Kharsandi at the Picture House, 8.30-10.30pm (her new book Beginner's Guide to Acting English is just out)

10 July
Stage adaptation of Carol Ann Duffy's World’s Wife at the Little Theatre, 7.45-9pm

11 July
A L Kennedy at the Little Theatre, 8-9pm

12 July

Ian Marchant, 8pm at Moyle’s

The Festival website is at http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/festival/2009/

Calderdale Writers Roadshow, Sunday 5th July, Hebden Bridge Library

Whether you want to write history, autobiography, poetry, short stories or romantic fiction, or just learn how the professionals do it, well-established writers will be offering guidance, advice and workshops. On hand will be Jill Liddington, John Siddique, Mark Illis, Anne Caldwell, James Nash, Gaia Holmes, Gareth Durasow, Louise Armstrong, Glyn Hughes, Stephen Wade, Kate Walker and John Baker. For gull details go to

http://www.calderdale.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/readers/writers-roadshow/hebdenbridge-roadshow.html

Richard & Judy Summer Reads 2009

The last one ever. Our bestseller by far of them all was Dave Boling's Guernica.

JULY 1st: The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee (£6.99)
'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'. In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences.

NEW TITLES

July’s hardback fiction will include works from Salley Vickers, Alexander McCall Smith and Robert Twigger; and paperback fiction has Alexander McCall Smith, Maeve Binchy, Irvine Welsh, Garrison Keillor, Alan Drew, Sergei Lukyanenko, and crime and thrillers from Patricia Cornwell, David Baldacci, Edward Marston and Michael Dibdin. Reissues include books by Franz Kafka, Hans Fallada, David Guterson, Robert Holdstock (Mythago Wood), Maggie Gee and Nawal el-Sadaawi.

And in Audio, there are all the Jane Austens abridged onto 12 CDs and read by Joanna Lumley et al, and Martin Jarvis reading Wodehouse. Click here for the full list.

July's Non-fiction includes:

British buildings, drawing musical instruments and geometric colouring books in Art, Design and Architecture
Dawn French, Julie Walters, Sheila Hancock and Shappi Kharsandi in Biography
Jam, preserves & chutneys, Rosie Lovell and students cooking in Food
Guardian crosswords and Sudoku in Games & Hobbies
Pompeii, the year 1000, America, John Murray, the building of Ribblehead Viaduct, Priestley’s 1934 journey through England, living history as it was and the Sixties in History
Danny Wallace’s old friends in Humour
Arabic in Languages
Babies with Toddlers and a modern mystic in MBS
Ducks winning lotteries and other faulty logic and Nietzsche being extreme in Philosophy
Liz Almond and Christopher Reid mourning his wife in Poetry
Dawkins as fraud and over-achievers in Science
Bikes in Sport & Outdoor Activities
and lots of road atlases, the Dales, the Lakes, Sicily, Poland and travel with children inTravel and Outdoor Activities

The new Hardcastle Crags DVD and the start of Hebden Bridge Festival both made their mark on The Book Case’s bestsellers in June. Also selling well were two local history books, a novel and a book of poems by Hebden Bridge authors, and two other novels.

1. Hardcastle Crags Past and Present (DVD) - Ray Riches and Peter Thornton, £12.99
The lovely new 90-minute DVD about our local beauty spot takes us all round the Crags and investigates their history.

2. No! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club - Virginia Ironside, £6.99
Virginia Ironside spoke to a sell-out Festival audience at Little Theatre about the joys and trials of old age. This novel is a fictional diary about growing old disgracefully.

3. Tender - Mark Illis, £8.99
This new novel from Hebden Bridge author Mark Illis tells the story of an ordinary family trying to cope with life and each other. Mark will be taking part in the Hebden Bridge Library event on Sunday 5th July.

4. What’s Going On? - Mark Steel, £7.99
Undeservedly, since he’s cancelled his Festival appearance at short notice!

5. The Mixenden Treasure - John Billingsley, £6.00
A true story of a motley crew of priests, commoners, a "cunning-man" and gentlemen who set out on a nasty February night to claim the Mixenden Treasure from its daemon.

6. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
From the early struggle for survival on the bleak hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival. Peter Thomas is a well-known local author.

7. Home - Marilynne Robinson, £7.99
The Orange Prize winner. An almost sequel to Gilead - the story of a prodigal son who has come home to make peace with his preacher father.

8. Rapture - Carol Ann Duffy, £8.99
A book-length love-poem from the new Poet Laureate who will soon be visiting Hebden Bridge for the Festival.

9. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer, £7.99
Enjoyable novel about cultural survival during the German wartime Occupation of Guernsey as a fictitious club gets together.

10. Recital - John Siddique, £12.99.
A new book of verse on love, loss and hope from the Hebden Bridge-based poet, now returned from LA. John will be taking part in the Hebden Bridge Library event on Sunday 5th July.

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

"Reading's a quiet, private pleasure. At best literature reimagines the world, lets you understand your life from beyond your own life. The power of story and the pleasure of language are two of the best things about being human."

- Peter Florence, founder of Hay Literary Festival in Amnesty Magazine May-June 2009

JUNE 2009

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

The end of this month will see the renowned Hebden Bridge Arts Festival and authors attending will include Simon Armitage (musically), Ruth Padel, A L Kennedy, Ian Marchant, Katie Fforde, Virginia Ironside, Eleanor Moran, David Armstrong, Jan Fortune-Wood, Shappi Kharsandi and Polly Dunbar, plus comedian Mark Steel. The books will be available at The Book Case and the Festival Shop, and at some of the events. The Festival website is at http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/festival/2009/

Before all that, there's the launch of the new DVD about Hardcastle Crags at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre, 2pm, this Saturday 6th June. We have the DVD on view in the shop and on sale.

The launch of John Siddique's Recital and Mark Illis's Tender at Little Theatre was a lively and enjoyable event, and so were the first Valley Food Festival and Big Green Weekend - congratulations to all!

The Book Case has started stocking a selection of Penguin-cover related items - we have some of the eye-catching mugs based on the classic dust jackets and can order many others in a day or two, £8.95. And we've also got some upmarket notebooks with Penguin-related covers from Wild and Wolf: you can see some images of them on our Facebook page. And also some nice new giftwrap consisting of an old-fashioned map of Europe - use it as a poster if you prefer.

We're continuing to learn how to use our Facebook page: we'll use it to announce events and happenings of interest in the shop (on the Wall tab), and we've put up some photos from events in years gone by. These are all accessible by non-Facebook people. If however you're on Facebook yourself, we'd be delighted if you'd become a Fan!

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 Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (£7.99). "The publishing phenomenon of the decade" - a French bestseller about the relationship between a concierge who’s a secret intellectual, a rebellious 12-year-old and a cultured Japanese man.

Adult non-fiction: Real England by Paul Kingsnorth (£7.99). "The battle against the bland" - a disturbing critique of the destruction of our environment, culture and heritage, while there is still time to save it.

Children: The Museum's Secret - Henry Chancellor (£6.99). An irresistible ride through a world of dust, insects, stuffed animals, magic potions and missing jewels; a gothic adventure that young readers will lose themselves in. Ages: 9+ yrs

CD: Stevie Smith - The Spoken Word (£9.99). Stevie Smith was a consummate performer of her own work and believed that only she could do justice to the qualities of humour and irony inherent in her witty, wry and often disturbing poems. This CD collects 50 poems and songs recorded for the BBC over the period 1956-1968.

NEWS

Local Interest

Hardcastle Crags, Past and Present - Ray Riches* and Peter Thornton*: DVD, £12.99

Hardcastle Crags has been a major tourist attraction for over a century and remains one of the jewels in the National Trust's crown. This film captures the Crags' majesty beauty through the seasons, and tells the fascinating story of the Crags through old photographs and interviews, offers a tour of Gibson Mill and shows some of the NT activities such as Bluebell Walks and Foraging for Fungi. To be launched at 2pm at the Little Theatre on 6th June and now in stock at The Book Case.

Cool Canals - Slow Getaways and Different Days, £14.99
Different, eco and budget-conscious things to do on the inland waterways, including a chapter on Hebden Bridge.

Local Authors

Last Mad Surge of Youth - Mark Hodkinson, £8.99

From the locally-based national sports writer, a novel about a washed-up alcoholic rock star who after a string of humiliating public incidents summons an old friend to ghost write his autobiography. Together they reflect on fame, addiction, girls and everything that ever went wrong. Published by Pomona of Hebden Bridge. Now in stock.

Not Ready Yet! written and illustrated by Tamsin Walker, £5.99
Cheerful picture book with a rhyming story about a little boy who has an exciting time going camping with his mum and her partner Fran - but he's always too busy doing something to do the next thing! Hebden Bridge-based author and illustrator.

Recital by John Siddique
Now available in paperback at £8.99.

Orange Prize Winner 2009

Home - Marilynne Robinson, £7.99
An almost sequel to Gilead - the story of a prodigal son who has come home to make peace with his preacher father.

Richard & Judy Summer Reads 2009

The last one ever so enjoy it while you can.

JUNE 3rd: Mr Toppit - Charles Elton
When the author of The Hayseed Chronicles, Arthur Hayman, is mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, his legacy passes to his widow, Martha, and her children - the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalised as Luke Hayseed, the central character of his father's books. But others want their share, particularly Laurie.

10th: The Great Lover - Jill Dawson
In the summer of 1909, seventeen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact.

17th: Mystery Man - Bateman
A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the crime caper. He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases.

24th: The Senator's Wife - Sue Miller
Love came late to Meri, but in a rush: she met Nathan at thirty-six, he moved in a month later, and they married a month after that. Now they are exchanging their comfortable mid-western existence for life in a college town in New England, a house of their own, a more responsible teaching job for Nathan - a new life that Meri is not sure she even wants.

JULY 1st: The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee (£6.99)
'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'. In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences.

NEW TITLES

There's a new hardback novel from Sarah Waters in June, and paperbacks include David Lodge, Toni Morrison, Bernard Cornwell, Paul Auster, Adam Thorpe, Will Self, Sue Townsend, Anita Shreve and many more. Reissues from Noel Streatfeild and Duncan Williamson and Dick Barton and Alan Bennett as audiobooks. Click here for the full list.

May's Non-fiction includes:

Faber's book jackets in Art
Confucius, Diana Mosley/Mitford, a Palestinian woman and a Yorkshire bobby in Biography
Palestine, Tibet and the suppression of free speech in the US in Current Affairs
Bees in Environment
a cook's pocket bible in Food
posh puzzles in Games & Hobbies
organic compost and a gardener's pocket bible in Gardening
Homo Sapiens, money, Tom Paine, Simon Bolivar, Hitler, and forgotten heroes and heroines in History
Austin Mitchell, Humphrey Lyttelton and the Guardian recruitment section in Humour
the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and Tariq Ali in Literature
cancer, caring, baby names, difficult eaters, Wicca, metaphysics, astrology and angelsin MBS
screenwriters in Media
fear of Stockhausen in Music
Roger Deakin, corvids, the sounds of mammals, horses and pigs in Nature
a fictional Philosophical journey
the Aeneid, Stevie Smith, Robert Graves, Adrian Mitchell and bicycles in Poetry
Terry Eagleton and a clean and happy camel in Religion
mazes and more in Science & Maths
debt in Society
Cricket in Sport
Stephen Fry, Mexican bandits, narrow boats, Cool Camping in Scotland and Wales (& Cool Cooking while Camping), Connemara, the Hebrides, Lonely Planet, olives, French canal boats and new guides to Corfu, Sicily, Yorkshire, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin in Travel and Outdoor Activities
and shopping, Obelix and the final Inkheart in Children's Books

There was quite a range of popular titles at The Book Case in May. A launch at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre put two new books by local authors into the top ten; two non-fiction books about Hebden Bridge sold well and so did our Non-Fiction Book of the Month about resilience; and a children’s book, three novels (one set in Hebden Bridge) and a book from the new Poet Laureate made up the remainder.

1. Discover Hebden Bridge - the Town Centre Trail, £2.00
This colourful guide to a 45-minute walk around the town, giving details of points of interest and photographs of the same scenes in times gone by, was popular with visitors.

2. Tender - Mark Illis, £8.99
This new novel from Hebden Bridge author Mark Illis tells the story of an ordinary family trying to cope with life and each other. Launched at the Little Theatre along with John Siddique's new book of poems.

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
From the early struggle for survival on the bleak hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival. Peter Thomas is a well-known local author.

4. Resilience - Boris Cyrulnik, £9.99
"How your inner strength can set you free from the past." Resilience is not just about resisting - it is about learning to live. Our non-fiction Book of the Month.

5. God’s Own Country - Ross Raisin, £7.99
A debut novel set in the Yorkshire Dales made our number one spot in April. Sam Marsdyke tends his sheep alone on the moors resentfully watching ramblers and offcomers - until a new family arrives, with their daughter.

6. Recital - John Siddique, £12.99.
Both this new book of verse on love, loss and hope, and John’s earlier book The Prize sold well. Recital's launch at the Little Theatre was accompanied by the Melati String Quartet.

7. Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian - Rick Riordan, £10.99 at The Book Case
The latest adventure of the lad who keeps getting mixed up in Ancient Greek mythology.

8. Rapture - Carol Ann Duffy, £8.99
A book-length love-poem from the new Poet Laureate.

9. 10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green, £6.99
Light-hearted novel set in Hebden Bridge, from a Todmorden-based author.

10. Guernica - Dave Boling, £7.99
An epic of love, family, and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. A Richard & Judy Summer Read.

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

"Would there be any point in leaving home if bookshops were made extinct? I've spent more hours than I care to admit searching them out, inhaling their aroma and leaving with bundles of new friends under my arm. Let's hope this is a pleasure still available to children and grandchildren."

Andrew Marr, Observer, 24 May 2009, "How intolerable life would be without books and bookshops"

7th May 2009

Sorry for bothering you again - it's a busy month for books!

Richard and Judy’s Summer Reads were announced just as our May newsletter went out: here they are. We have them all in stock and they're all £7.99 except the last one.

MAY
13th: Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes
Damian Baxter is old, rich and dying. Concerned about who to leave his fortune to, he sets about investigating whether he ever sired a child.
20th: Guernica - Dave Boling
In 1935, Miguel Navarro finds himself in conflict with the Spanish Civil Guard and flees to make a new start in Guernica, the centre of Basque culture and tradition. In the midst of this isolated bastion of democratic values, Miguel finds someone to live for.
27th: Palace Council - Stephen L. Carter
Summer, 1952. Twenty powerful men gather in secret and devise a plot to manipulate the President of the United States. Soon after, writer Eddie Wesley leaves a party hosted by affluent and influential members of black society, and discovers a body.

JUNE
3rd: Mr Toppit - Charles Elton
When the author of The Hayseed Chronicles, Arthur Hayman, is mown down by a concrete truck in Soho, his legacy passes to his widow, Martha, and her children - the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalised as Luke Hayseed, the central character of his father's books. But others want their share, particularly Laurie.
10th: The Great Lover - Jill Dawson
In the summer of 1909, seventeen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact.
17th: Mystery Man - Bateman
A superbly gripping and blackly funny mystery by the king of the crime caper. He's the Man With No Name and the owner of No Alibis, a mystery bookshop in Belfast. But when a detective agency next door goes bust, the agency's clients start calling into his shop asking him to solve their cases.
24th: The Senator's Wife - Sue Miller
Love came late to Meri, but in a rush: she met Nathan at thirty-six, he moved in a month later, and they married a month after that. Now they are exchanging their comfortable mid-western existence for life in a college town in New England, a house of their own, a more responsible teaching job for Nathan - a new life that Meri is not sure she even wants.

JULY
1st: The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee (£6.99)
'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'. In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences.

The other bit of news is that our Facebook page is now online (better late than never), and we'd love to hear from you!

FIND US ON FACEBOOK!

6th May 2009

A quick reminder about the launch tomorrow night at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre on Thursday 7th May at 7.00pm of books by Hebden Bridge-based authors Mark Illis and John Siddique. To begin and end the event, the Leeds-based Melati String Quartet will be playing two new pieces of music based on poems from John Siddique's new book Recital - "Birch Moon" and "Ash Moon". Mark Illis's book is the novel Tender (which is already reprinting but we have stock!)

And two further items of local interest: Hebden Bridge-based Peter Devine interviewed the legendary historian and broadcaster Studs Terkel in 2005, and The Final Interview: Studs Terkel is available at The Book Case at £5.00. Studs Terkel died last autumn at the age of 96.

- and I forgot to mention that we're now stocking postcards of some of Alice Longstaff's extraordinary collection of historical photographs of the area, 35p ea.

MAY 2009

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Hebden Bridge-based authors Mark Illis and John Siddique are launching their latest titles at Hebden Bridge Little Theatre on Thursday 7th May at 7.00pm. After the launch both authors will be reading from their work, and there'll be some specially composed music. It promises to be an exceptional event, and there is no charge.

Mark Illis is an ex-Arvon director, and his novel, Tender, is the story of the Dax family over thirty years.

John Siddique is about to take off for his posting as The British Council's Los Angeles Writer in Residence 2009. His new book of poems, Recital, takes the lunar cycle as its central theme and offers a journey from the depths of longing to the London Bombings.

The Book Case has just joined Facebook! We're still finding out how it works, but we hope to be able to put forthcoming events up there, as well as photos of past ones, and we expect to discover further delights.

The results of our Big Easter Favourite Book Competition: Congratulations to Elanor Ludlam, aged 10, from Hebden Royd school who has won the Book Case Big Easter Favourite Book competition, with her review of Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome.

Other winning entries were from:
Phoebe Wilson, age 11 from Riverside school, who reviewed Stargirl by Jerry Spinnelli;
Jess Corne, age 9 from Midgley school, who reviewed The Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams;
Lila Nicholson, age 10 from Riverside school who reviewed The Lady Grace Mysteries: Deception, by Grace Cavendish
And a special mention for our youngest entrant, Ella Jancovich, age 5 from Stubbings School, who reviewed St Clare’s by Enid Blyton
They all won an Easter gift, and a voucher to spend at The Book Case. Well done and thank you to everyone who took part. We really enjoyed reading your recommendations and they are on display in our children's section. There's also a board in the children's section for you to write your recommendations!

The first Valley Food Festival kicks off today, and we'll be having special displays of books on beer, wild food, bread, compost and food generally. You can find links to the programme and Happy Valley Food here.

Peter Pan needs a new front cover, say Vintage publishers. If you are between 7 and 12 yrs old, you can visit www.vintage-classics.info/peterpan to design your own book cover and have it published! Book prizes.

We're now stocking Juno magazine - it promotes a natural approach to family life with lots of ideas and articles. It seems a natural for Hebden Bridge!

The new issue of Permaculture magazine is just in.

We're pleased to see our Comments board back in use. People have enjoyed From the Mull to the Cape - Richard Guise, Scoop - Evelyn Waugh, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon, The Other Hand - Chris Cleave, At My Mother's Knee - Paul O'Grady and How Not to Murder Your Mother - Steph Calman. Not enjoyed was Michael Parkinson's autobiography Parky, which is said to be boring ...

Carol Ann Duffy (who has visited The Book Case on occasion) is our new Poet Laureate, and the first woman to do so. Congratulations to her!

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 Rider on the White Horse by Theodor Storm (£8.99). Vivid stories from 19th-century rural Germany. The title story involves a ghostly rider on the North German coast and one man’s lifelong struggle to keep the North Sea from flooding his village. Published by the New York Review of Books.

Adult non-fiction: Resilience by Boris Cyrulnik (9.99). "How your inner strength can set you free from the past." Resilience is not just about resisting - it is about learning to live.

Children: Fever Crumb - Philip Reeve (£12.99). One of the most eagerly awaited children's fiction titles of the year. It is the fantastically imagined prequel to the Mortal Engines quartet, set a generation before, when cities are just beginning to devour each other. Ages: 12 + yrs

CD: Pigs Could Fly with New London Children's Choir (Naxos £5.99). While children’s voices have been heard in church music for centuries, music specifically composed for young choristers is a relatively recent, and most welcome, development. As the attractive and diverse music by the fourteen composers represented on this delightful recording shows, children’s choirs now have a wealth of outstanding repertoire to delight, challenge and initiate them into the world of music.

NEWS

Local Interest

All Points North - Simon Armitage, £8.99

A welcome return (revised and expanded) for this account of growing up in the north of England.

Yorkshire Geology - Paul Ensom, £22.50
A big colour illustrated hardback account of the 540 million years of Yorkshire's geological past.

Footpaths for Fitness: West Yorkshire - Peter Young, £7.99
20 graded circular routes, ranging from just over a mile to 8 miles in length, and including the Hebden bridge area.

Birdwatching Walks in the Yorkshire Dales - Brendan Threlfall, £7.95

Well designed walks is set in gorgeous countryside where there is also every chance of seeing some of the birds which abound in the area. Both novice and experienced birders can enjoy the dippers at Aysgarth, or great spotted woodpeckers in Grass Woods, as well as the rarer black grouse, wood warbler, pied flycatcher and nightjar, to name but a few. With helpful guide maps, interesting bird and habitat information, travel hints and a bird reference section.

Local Authors

Congratulations to local author Anna Barford and her co-authors Daniel Dorling and Mark Newman: their Atlas of the Real World (Thames and Hudson, 2008, £29.95) has won the Geographical Association's Gold Award, "given for materials associated with geography in schools and colleges which are considered to make a significant contribution to geographical education and professional development". The book is subtitled "Mapping the Way We Live" and contains 366 cartograms illustrating a wide range of topics.

Congratulations too to Stephen May, whose first novel, TAG, is on the "Welsh Booker Prize" longlist.

The Adventures of Molly - Mary Nevins, £9.50

From a Halifax author, a children's book aimed at 4-7-year-olds, about a little girl who feeds a robin through the cold winter and learns the importance of nature.

Local Publishers

This Artistic Life - Barry Hines, £8.99

From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona, an anthology of essays and stories by the author of "A Kestrel for a Knave" (Kes). They cover Hines' love of sport along with his reflections on his home town of Hoyland Common, near Barnsley, both its landscape and the colourful characters that people it.

Local Music Shop!

The Last Shop Standing - whatever happened to record shops? - Graham Jones, £12.95
This "journey through an industry in turmoil" tells the story of the industry's sad decline, blighted by corporate greed - 540 record shops have closed in the last four years - and pays tribute to the gallant independent survivors - including Sid Jones of Muse Music in Market Street, Hebden Bridge, pictured outside his shop. Lots of wry anecdotes about rock stars and figures along the way.

Orange Prize Shortlist 2009

We have all the books on display and the winner to be announced 3rd June.

Scottsboro - Ellen Feldman, £8.99
In Alabama, 1931, a posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and as fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up.

The Wilderness - Samantha Harvey, £12.99
Jake is sitting in a small plane, being flown over the landscape that has been the backdrop to his life - his childhood, his marriage, his work, his passions. Now he is in his early sixties, and he isn't quite the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer's.
The Invention Of Everything Else - Samantha Hunt, £7.99
A chambermaid cleaning rooms at the New Yorker Hotel finds a man living permanently in room 3327, which he has transformed into a scientific laboratory. Brought together by a shared interest in the pigeons that nest in the hotel, Louisa discovers that the mysterious guest is the brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla.
Molly Fox's Birthday - Deirdre Madden, £7.99
Dublin, Midsummer: While absent in New York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house to a playwright friend, who is struggling to write a new work. Over the course of this, the longest day of the year, the playwright reflects upon her own life, Molly's, and that of their mutual friend Andrew, whom she has known since university.

Home - Marilynne Robinson, £7.99
An almost sequel to Gilead - the story of a prodigal son who has come home to make peace with his preacher father.

Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie, £11.99
In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders. August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki: Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation.

20th Galaxy British Book Award Winners 2009

All in stock except the Faulks - the paperback's due at the end of the month.

Richard & Judy's Best Read of the Year: When Will There Be Good News – Kate Atkinson, £7.99

Author of the Year: White Tiger – Aravind Adiga, £7.99

Biography of the Year: Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama, £8.99

Crime Thriller of the Year: Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson, £7.99

Popular Fiction Award: Devil May Care – Sebastian Faulks

Popular Non-Fiction Award: Suspicions Of Mr Whicher – Kate Summerscale, £7.99

Newcomer of the Year: Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith, £7.99

Children's Book of the Year: Breaking Dawn 4 - Stephenie Meyer, £12.99

Found in Translation

This booklet of the best translated fiction from Booktrust has caused a lot of interest, so we've ordered more stocks. The recommended books are:

The Book of Chameleons - Jose Eduardo Agualusa (Portuguese)
The Yacoubian Building - Alaa Al Aswany (Arabic)
Russian Short Stories from Pushhkin to Buida - ed. Robert Chandler (Russian, obviously)
Love in a Fallen city - Eileen Chang (Chinese)
Agamemnon's Daughter - Ismail Kadare (Albanian/French)
Out - Natsuo Kirino (Japanese)
Nada - Carmen Laforet (Spanish)
Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson (Norwegian)
The Engineer of Human Souls - Josef Skvorecky (Czech)
Wizard of the Crow - Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Gikuyu)
The Collector of Worlds - Iliya Troyanov (German)
The Informers - Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Spanish)

NEW TITLES

May has some high-profile hardback fiction in store, including books from A S Byatt, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ursula le Guin. In paperback fiction, we'll have Sebastian Faulks's "Bond" novel, Will Self, Ali smith, Marilyn Robinson, Conn Iggulden, C J Sansom, Mark Mills and Stephenie Meyer amongst others, "an epic novel from an authentic Aboriginal voice" and reissues from Eric Ambler and Italo Calvino. Click here for the full list.

May's Non-fiction includes:

Papercraft and drawing horses and fairies in Art and Craft
Janice Galloway, Jane Tomlinson, Simon Armitage, Mark Rowlands and his wolf, Michael Parkinson and Richard Hammond in Biography
Pakistan in Current Affairs
Preserving and Waste in Food
a garden on a Welsh mountain in Gardening
trade, America before the Pilgrims, Elizabeth I, the Foreign Legion, cartoonists, China and communist jokes in History
John Peel and Jeremy Clarkson in Humour
low-cost living, soapmaking, girl stuff and card games in Lifestyle
readings for funerals, the menopause, your joints, negative thinking, Confucius and attracting money in MBS
Simon Armitage and record shops in Music
hens and bees in Nature, Farming and Smallholding
Ted Hughes in Poetry
the Writer's Handbook and some new dictionaries in Reference
beautiful experiments, symmetry and impossible physics in Science & Maths
debt in Society
Boycott's Best XI in Sport
Highways and Byways, Theroux back out east, gypsies, float-travelling, wild swimming, cool camping and new guides to Andalucia, France, Italy, the USA, Wales, The Lake District and Great Britain and Cycling Britain and France inTravel and Outdoor Activities
and vanishing forest, pigs, museums and cannibalistic cities 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: APRIL's bestsellers at The Book Case

There was quite a change in book-buying habits at The Book Case in April and popular books included novels, local interest, bad science, textile design, folk songs and Middle England.

1. God’s Own Country - Ross Raisin, £7.99. A debut novel set in the Yorkshire Dales made our number one spot in April. Sam Marsdyke tends his sheep alone on the moors resentfully watching ramblers and offcomers - until a new family arrives, with their daughter.

2. The Mixenden Treasure - John Billingsley, £6.00. A true story of a motley crew of priests, commoners, a "cunning-man" and gentlemen who set out on a nasty February night to claim the Mixenden Treasure from its daemon.

3. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99. From the early struggle for survival on the bleak hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival. Peter Thomas is a well-known local author.

4. Bad Science - Ben Goldacre, £8.99. Dr Ben Goldacre dispenses free and powerful relief from scaremongering journalists, pill-pushing nutritionists, flaky statistics and evil pharmaceutical companies.

5. City of Lists - Brigid Rose, £8.99. From a Todmorden author, a novel set in a dystopian future where contemplation is illegal. Eckhart Tolle's ideas feature.

6. Walking the Block - Jane Weir, £16.99. A late report from March’s events at Hebden Bridge Library. This beautifully illustrated book poetical biography of the creative lives of two highly respected twentieth century textile designers, Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher.

7. English Folk Songs - Ralph Vaughan Williams and A L Lloyd, £4.99. Vaughan Williams was working on this classic collection when he died and it was completed by the well-known folk-singer and song-collector A L Lloyd. With words and music, it’s one of Penguin’s new "English Journeys" collection.

8. Adventures of Tom Leigh - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. One of Phyllis Bentley’s locally-based historical novels for young people. This one, set in the 18th century, is about the theft of cloth from tenters on a Calder Valley hillside.

9. Adventure on the High Teas - Stuart Maconie, £11.99. The author of "Pies and Prejudice" goes in search of Middle England.
10. Damned Utd - David Peace, £7.99. This novel about the world of football manager Brian Clough in the 1970s is now a film.

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

George Orwell's "1984" was the most common book for UK residents to have pretended having read when they hadn't, according to a World Book Day poll.

APRIL 2009

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Younger readers are invited to enter our Big Easter Favourite Book Competition this month! School-age youngsters are asked to write a review of their favourite children's book, max. 150 words, to be handed in to the Book Case by Friday 17th April. The winner will be announced on Friday 24th April. The prizes include a Book Case book voucher to spend in the shop and an Easter egg, and the winning review will feature on the books page of the Scallymag magazine. Kate says: "You need to include your name, age, phone number, and school, as well as the name and author of the book you are reviewing. Tell us why it is your favourite book! Your review could include points like what age you would recommend it for, and your favourite character, for example."

The lovely restored library is now well and truly open, and we took the opportunity of Elvin Carter's illustrated talk there to restock with his book Before the Mast, which reproduces the logbooks and photos of Mytholmroyd-born Geoffrey Sykes on his tall ships voyages in the 1930s. A selection of the photos is currently displayed around the library.

And Heptonstall Museum has an exhibition of splendid local historical photos from the Calderdale Museums collections from 10th April to 1st November - the museum is open weekends and Bank Holidays.

Local author Linda Green signed copies of her new novel "Ten Reasons Not to Fall in Love" - set in Hebden Bridge! - for enthusiastic readers, and was March's bestselling author.

We hope to have a launch later this month for John Siddique's and Mark Illis's new books - see below. Details to follow.

From tomorrow, Friday, we'll be able to enrol you as a friend of another beautiful local building, Hebden Bridge Town Hall, under the auspices of the Hebden Bridge Community Association. The plan is to make it a hub of the local community, and for £10 you get standard membership, a certificate and a mug! (There are cheaper options for those on low incomes, and also a Gold member option.)

Times being hard, you'll be pleased to know that in 2008, the average price of a book sold in Britain was the lowest since 2001! (£7.49 since you ask.) What a thrifty way to spend your money! And to make it easier for you, we'll be opening again on Tuesdays from 14th April.

We'll be getting fresh supplies in of Melvyn Walker's moody Zazouk cards, as well as the period book dust-jacket cards from the Bodleian Library, and we'll be starting a new line of Bizarre Books greetings cards from Jarndyce - look forward to "Correctly English in Hundred Days", "The Radiation Recipe Book" and "Invisible Dick" amongst others.

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: A Darker Domain by Val McDermid (£6.99). A classic Val McDermid with a background of the 1984 Miners’ Strike and a moving but unsentimental picture of a strained and riven mining community.

Adult non-fiction: The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better - Richard G. Wilkinson; Kate Pickett (£20). Topical and groundbreaking book attracting a lot of attention - based on thirty years' research, it 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: Queste (Septimus Heap) - Angie Sage (£6.99). No. 4 in a series that has been gaining popularity: Septimus faces a perilous quest to find Nicko and Snorri, who have been trapped back in time. Described in The Times as "a real discovery". Ages: 9+ yrs

CD: "Vintage Beeb" CDs from the 1970s (£5.99 ea.) - including Paddington Bear, Willo the Wisp, Ivor the Engine and Fawlty Towers!

NEWS

Local Interest

The Mixenden Treasure - John Billingsley, £6.00.
From the well-known local historian and folklorist, a true tale of magic in 16th-century Yorkshire when a motley crew of priests, a cunning-man, commoners and gentlemen set out on a nasty February night to claim the Mixenden Treasure from the daemon that was sitting on it.

Two new books from Jean Brown, author of We'll See the Cuckoo, about life at Currer Laithe Farm near Keighley - We'll Trace the Rainbow and We'll Blow with the Wind (£17 each)

Local Authors

Recital - An Almanac - John Siddique, £12.99

"On love, loss and hope, these poems are imbued with a beautiful, tender melancholia." John Siddique will be Los Angeles Writer in Residence this year.

Tender - Mark Illis , £8.99

A new novel from Hebden Bridge author Mark Illis, telling the story of an ordinary family trying to cope with life, and each other, revisiting the family on key occasions over thirty years and seeing things from different points of view.

We'll be having a joint launch of "Recital" and "Tender". Details to follow.

Pearls of Light - Julie Rose Clark, £5.95

Words and pictures to enlighten us and guide us toward the new consciousness of love and light.

Shafted: The Media, the Miners' Strike and the Aftermath - ed. Granville Williams, £9.99

From the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a look back at the miners' strike and in particular at the media and the miners. Authors include locally-based Peter Lazenby, President of the Trades Club and Industrial Correspondent of the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Reichian Growth Work: melting the blocks to life and love - Nick Totton & Em Edmondson, £12.99

Revised and updated edition of this body psychotherapy classic. Nick Totton has written a number of books on psychotherapy and lives in Mytholmroyd.

Local Publisher

The Richard Matthewman Stories - Ian McMillan and Martyn Wiley, £8.99
From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona, the stories of a Yorkshire miner who has moved south. The stories were originally broadcast as a series on Radio 4 and a new instalment has been written specially for the book. Ian McMillan is well known as a broadcaster and performer.

20th Galaxy British Book Awards, 2009

The shortlists for this event - "the Oscars of the book world" - are now out and listed below. We have a selection displayed on our centre table. The awards will be presented on Sunday 5th April.

Richard & Judy's Best Read of the Year

19th Wife - David Ebershoff, £7.99
Bolter - Frances Osborne, £8.99
Brutal Art - Jesse Kellerman, £7.99
Cellist Of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway, £7.99
December - Elizabeth Winthrop, £7.99
Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson, £7.99
Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite – Beatrice Colin, £7.99
Netherland – Joseph O'Neill, £7.99
Suspicions Of Mr Whicher – Kate Summerscale, £7.99
When Will There Be Good News – Kate Atkinson, £7.99

Author of the Year

Audacity Of Hope – Barack Obama, £8.99
Breaking Dawn 4 - Stephenie Meyer, £12.99
Road Home – Rose Tremain, £7.99
Secret Scripture – Sebastian Barry, £7.99
Somewhere Towards The End – Diana Athill, £7.99
White Tiger – Aravind Adiga, £7.99

Biography of the Year

Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama, £8.99
Miracles Of Life – J G Ballard, £7.99
Hardback only:
That's Another Story – Julie Walters, £18.99
At My Mothers Knee – Paul O'Grady, £18.99
Coming Back To Me - Marcus Trescothick, £18.99
Dear Fatty – Dawn French, £18.99

Crime Thriller of the Year

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith, £7.99
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson, £7.99
No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay, £7.99
Revelation - C J Sansom, £12.99
When Will There Be Good News – Kate Atkinson, £7.99
Hardback only:
Business – Martina Cole, £18.99

Popular Fiction Award

Azincourt – Bernard Cornwell, £18.99 (paperback due May)
Devil May Care – Sebastian Faulks, £18.99 (paperback due May)
Outcast - Sadie Jones, £7.99
Thanks For The Memories - Cecelia Ahern, £6.99
Things I Want My Daughters To Know - Elizabeth Noble, £6.99
This Charming Man – Marian Keyes, £7.99

Popular Non-Fiction Award

Ascent Of Money – Niall Ferguson, £25.00 (paperback due June)
Call The Midwife – Jennifer Worth, £6.99
History Of Modern Britain – Andrew Marr, £8.99
Mighty Book Of Boosh - Julian Barratt, £19.99
Stephen Fry In America - Stephen Fry, £20.00 (paperback due May)
Suspicions Of Mr Whicher – Kate Summerscale, £7.99

Newcomer of the Year

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith, £7.99
Inside The Whale – Jennie Rooney, £7.99
Loving Frank – Nancy Horan, £7.99
Marriage Bureau For Rich People – Farahad Zama, £7.99
Mudbound – Hillary Jordan, £7.99
One Of Us – Melissa Benn, £7.99

Children's Book of the Year

Artemis Fowl & The Time Paradox 6 – Eoin Colfer, £6.99 paperback due April
Breaking Dawn 4 - Stephenie Meyer, £12.99
Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People – Dav Pilkey, £4.99
Dinosaurs Love Underpants – Claire Freedman, £5.99
Horrid Henry Robs The Bank – Francesca Simon, £4.99
Tales Of Beedle The Bard – J K Rowling, £6.99

Found in Translation

The independent charity Booktrust has produced a little booklet of the best translated fiction, available from The Book Case centre table with a selection of the books mentioned, which are as follows:

NEW TITLES

There's a new hardback novel from Paulo Coelho for April and in paperback fiction, we'll have P D James, Maeve Binchy, Philippa Gregory, Victoria Hislop, Christopher Brookmyre, Linda Grant, Henning Mankell, Damon Galgut, Sarah Paretsky, Val McDermid and Andrew Martin amongst others, with reissues from Gladys Mitchell, Flannery O'Connor, Rose Tremain and Mikhail Bulgakov. Click here for the full list.

We'll have some Vintage Beeb CDs including Fawlty Towers, Ivor the Engine, Willo the Wisp and Paddington Bear to make you feel all nostalgic.

April's Non-fiction includes:

Penguin English Journeys - a nice new series with great covers including classics of folklore, music, poetry, gardening, nature, food, and canals, as well as travel. £4.99 each.
Margaret Drabble, V S Naipaul, Haruki Murakami, a son with a skunk habit and a father with bipolar depression in Biography
the social toll of inequality, "integrated diversity", Gaza and Palestinian refugee camps, Chechnya, the credit crunch and Britain today (by Mark Steel)in Current Affairs & Society
Morville Dower House garden in Gardening
human fulfilment in 16th-18th century England and the 1848 Arab-Israeli war in History
libraries (Manguel) in Literature
personal reaction to disaster and happiness in MBS
the Proms, the Tenor and memories of pop and rock 1960s-1990s in Music
more sheep and fishing in Nature
Andrew Motion and Why poetry matters in Poetry
how Jesus became a Christian in Religion
a very readable history of the universe, Bad Science and the quantum theory debate in Science
the meaning of work in Society
the Playfair Cricket Annual in Sport
Russia, British canals, outdoor swimming, walking the British coastline and riding round Italy on a Vespa in Travel and Outdoor Activities
and a kitten, gardening, a wizard's apprentice and time-travelling in 18th-century London in Children's Books

March’s bestsellers at The Book Case reflected the month’s literary shenanigans! Two national novelists had book-signing sessions, and World Book Day brought in crowds of youngsters keen to spend their £1 book vouchers. Of the remaining books, five were of local interest, and two novels made up the rest.

1. 10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green, £6.99
A novel set in Hebden Bridge, from Todmorden-based author Linda Green. Jo, a local TV news reporter, returns to work, only to find that her new boss is her ex. Then she meets Dan, an enigmatic man who lives on a canal boat ... Linda was at The Book Case on Saturday 7th March signing copies of her book.

2. Winnie to the Rescue! - Laura Owen and Korky Paul with: Yuck's Rotten Joke - Matt and Dave, £1.00
This was the most popular of the World Book Day £1 Specials for children, closely followed by the others.

3. Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris, £7.99.
Popular author Joanne Harris came to Hebden Bridge to open the Library, and signed books for buyers. This sequel to "Chocolat" was the most popular of her books on this occasion.

4. Q&A - Vikas Swarup, £7.99
The book on which the film "Slumdog Millionaire" was based. Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammed Thomas is in prison after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have arrested him, convinced that he has cheated his way to victory.

5. The Mixenden Treasure - John Billingsley, £6.00
A true tale of magic in 16th-century Yorkshire from the well-known local historian and folklorist. Stand by for an exciting tale of treasure, demons, Oberon and a motley crew of priests, commoners, a "cunning-man" and gentlemen who set out on a nasty February night to claim the Mixenden Treasure from the daemon that was sitting on it!

6. Cheers! A History of Hostelries in the Upper Calder Valley - Issy Shannon, £6.95
Lavishly illustrated book about all the pubs between Colden and Luddenden with photos past and present, fascinating facts and gory details.

7. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95
This historical novel for young people tells the story of a boy who gets involved with the Cragg Vale Coiners - while his father is helped by the invention of the flying shuttle. A Royd Press publication.

8. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas (£5.99)
From the early struggle for survival on the bleak hilltops through the growth of the woollen industry and move down to the valley bottoms and Fustianopolis, up to the area's decline and revival. Peter Thomas is a well-known local author.

9. God’s Own Country - Ross Raisin, £7.99
A celebrated Yorkshire-based debut novel which tells the story of solitary young farmer, Sam Marsdyke, and his extraordinary battle with the world.

10. Growing Up in Sowerby ... and more - Jean Illingworth, £9.99
Still in the top ten is Jean Illingworth’s lovely illustrated history of the ancient hilltop village.

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 are) two sorts of people in the world: those who had We're Going on a Bear Hunt read to them as a child and those who had an unhappy childhood."

- interview with Children's Laureate Mike Rosen in Metro, 31 March 2009

More News from The Book Case (5 March 2009)

... and it really is World Book Day today! Apologies for the mix-up of dates on the newsletter sent Tuesday (which was originally going to be sent out today ...)

Keighley-based Joy Howard will be presenting three contributing poets from the popular "Twist of Malice" anthology as part of the Hebden Bridge Library celebrations. New in is her book of poems, Exit Moonshine - Coming Out and Carrying on - "ten years in the life of a lesbian-come-lately", £6.50. And we also now have a book of poems by older women, Second Bite, from the West Yorkshire group of Second Light, a national network of older women poets, £3.00. We have leaflets available at the shop about the Grey Hen Poetry Competition, 2009: women poets over 60 are invited to enter.

Meanwhile don't forget to enjoy the children's and adult World Book Day promotions at The Book Case, and the exciting events at Hebden Bridge Library from 21st March - we have a display of the works of the authors involved on our centre table.

Dear Book Case customer or friend,

Peter's recovery is coming on well, and he's up and about much sooner than expected. He claims to be bored with resting.

There's a lot of book-related excitement coming up this month! This Saturday, March 7th, we are hosting a signing session for local author Linda Green - her new novel "Ten Reasons Not to Fall in Love" is set in Hebden Bridge so we expect a lot of interest. Linda will be at The Book Case from 11am, so come along and meet her!

Hebden Bridge Library is having a grand re-opening on Saturday 21st March with popular author Joanne Harris and lots of activities over the following week - see below for details.

World Book Day is Thursday 5th March, and we'll have a display of the special £1 books for children - see below.

We're going to keep our file of Guardian's excellent lists of and comments on "1000 novels everyone must read" on permanent display for customer reference. They are broken down into the following categories:Love, Crime, Humour, War & Travel; Family & Self; State of the Nation. Feel free to add your own recommendations to the sheet before each section.

Readers' Opinions. In February, customers reported enjoying: John O'Farrell's Impartial History of Britain, Scarlett Thomas's End of My Y, Barbara Nadel's Pretty Dead Things ("extremely well-written and very moreish") and J G Farrell's Singapore Grip. Again, no complaints!

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 White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (£7.99). Meet Balram Halwai: servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer. Balram, the White Tiger, was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop, crushing coal and wiping tables, but nurses a dream of escape. Booker winner.

Adult non-fiction: Living with Teenagers: It's One Hell of a Bumpy Ride (from the anonymous Guardian column). (£6.99) An unflinchingly honest look at what it's like to watch your children grow up into classic teenagers. They may shout at you, lie to you and hurt you...but they'll always be your flesh and blood, your grown-up babies.

Children: Dragon Horse - Peter Ward (6.99). 'A quite extraordinary début'- Books For Keeps. Set in the vibrant world of the Ancient Chinese Great Silk Road, this is a tale of two brothers who join a centuries-old struggle against the Shadow-without-name. As his brother is pushed towards the darkness, Rokshan must travel far to learn the innermost secrets of the dragons... A thrilling fantasy adventure based on real myths and legends. Ages 9+ yrs

CD: Tavener: Ex Maria Virgine (£5.99) The Naxos top bestseller of which the BBC Music Magazine said: ''The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge is secure and precise, delivering the text with excellent diction ….. strong direction from Timothy Brown.'' John Tavener composed the music in celebration of the wedding of HRH the Prince of Wales and HRH the Duchess of Cornwall.

NEWS

Local Interest

An Artist in the Dales - Keith Melling, £19.50

From landscape painter Keith Melling, a hardback book of glorious paintings, drawings and wood engravings of scenes of the Yorkshire Dales and further afield, including the well-known painting of Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike.

Local Authors

10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green, £6.99

A novel set in Hebden Bridge, from the Todmorden-based author of "I Did a Bad Thing". Jo, a local TV news reporter, returns to work after a lengthy maternity leave, only to find that her new boss is her ex. Then she meets Dan, an enigmatic man who lives on a canal boat ... Linda will be signing copies of her book at The Book Case on Saturday 7th March from 11am.

City of Lists - Brigid Rose, £8.99

From a local author, a novel set in a dystopian future where contemplation is illegal. Big anxious Neeve and beautiful withdrawn Valentine struggle to shake off their state-imposed psychological fetters with the help of unrepentant law-breaker Lol. One of the novel's themes is the threat posed to shallow capitalist society by Eckhart Tolle's ideas.

Hebden Bridge Library Reopens, Saturday 21st March

Saturday 21 March:

10:30 – 11:30am and 3:00 – 4:00pm

Performance Storyteller: Jan Blake - one of Europe’s leading storytellers who specialises in traditional stories from West Africa and the Caribbean. Please phone the Discover team on 01422 392638 to reserve your free place(s).
1.30– 2.30pm
Grand Opening with Joanne Harris. One of our favourite authors, Joanne Harris, will open the new Hebden Bridge Library. Joanne, whose books include international bestsellers Chocolat, Blackberry Wine and Lollipop Shoes, will talk about the importance of libraries and what they mean to her.

Sunday 22 March - 2.00-4.00pm

Make a Mask – drop-in session in the new children's area for children aged between 3 and 7, accompanied by an adult

Monday 23 March

10:00-11:00am and 1:30-2:30pm - Creative Craft in the new children's area for children aged between 3 and 7, accompanied by an adult
7.30 -9.00 - Reads Like Teen Spirit with Melvin Burgess and Sherry Ashworth. Tickets £2/£1.50
Two writers for young adults talk about what it's like to write for teenagers - and the audience are invited to ask questions on any related subject. Manchester-based Sherry Ashworth teaches creative writing and her latest book is "Close-up". Melvin Burgess is the author of acclaimed and controversial fiction for teenagers, including "Junk". His latest book is "Sara's Face".

Tuesday 24 March - Writing for Radio workshop

6.30 – 9.30 (first of four sessions, £40/£30 for all four) - Writing for Radio workshop with Char March who has awards for her radio drama.

The following workshops are Tues 31st March 6.30-9.30pm; Tues 7th April 6.30-9.30pm; Tues 21st April 6.30-9.30pm

Wednesday 25 March
2.00 – 3.00 - Anne Perry
Anne Perry‘s phenomenal writing career began with the "The Cater Street Hangman" in 1979. Over forty novels later, Anne is now an international and New York Times bestselling author, with over 24 million sales worldwide. Come and meet this top crime writer and hear her read from her latest novel, "Execution Dock".
Crime writing workshop with Anne Perry
4.00 -6.00, Tickets £5/£3.50. Fancy having a go yourself? Come and pick Anne’s brains and learn the low down on how to be a crime writer.

4:00-5:00pm - Steve Weatherill and The Baby Goz Show. Meet the popular children’s author Steve Weatherill and watch the Baby Goz Show! Find out about writing stories and creating characters. This session is suitable for the whole family. Please phone the Discover team on 01422 392638 to reserve your free place(s).

Thursday 26 March

7.30 – 9.00 - Jane Weir on Walking the Block - a poetical biography (Tickets - £2/£1.50)
Jane Weir talks about her poetical biography of the creative lives of Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher, the highly respected twentieth century textile designers. The book is beautifully illustrated, and the book brings together art, poetry and textiles. A fantastic opportunity to hear this author talk in the heart of the textile industry landscape.

Friday 27 March
7.30 – 9.00 Elvin Carter on Before the Mast, with photographic display Tickets £2/£1.50
Mytholmroyd-born Geoffrey Sykes Robertshaw was an able seaman on the tall ships during the 12,000 mile voyage between Australia and Falmouth more than seventy years ago. Elvin Carter has edited and produced this book, Before the Mast, from diaries that Robertshaw kept at sea, and it is illustrated with amazing photographs of daily life on a square rigger taken by Robertshaw himself.

Saturday 28 March
11:00-11:40am and 1:00-1:40pm - Shaggy Dog Storytellers

Join local storytellers, Christine McMahon and Rod Dimbleby for an enjoyable session of stories from many cultures and from all over the world suitable for the whole family. Please phone the Discover team on 01422 392638 to reserve your free place(s).

1.45 – 2.30Poetry Afternoon: A Twist of Malice
A Twist of Malice is a collection of work by 36 contemporary poets exploring the darker side of the female imagination. Here are poems that disturb and disconcert but also gleam with humour and delight in subversion.
2.30 – 3.00 Refreshments
3.00 - 3.45 Julia Deakin.
Julia 's articles and reviews have appeared in Mslexia, The Observer and The Times Educational Supplement and more recently as a poet in numerous magazines including Stand, The Rialto and The North. Today she will read from her acclaimed first collection, "Without a Dog".

The Daily Mail Book Club

This month's choice is Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith (£7.99). In Stalin's Soviet Union, the mere suspicion of disloyalty to the State, the wrong word at the wrong time, can send an innocent person to his execution. Officer Leo Demidov, an idealistic war hero, believes he's building a perfect society. But after witnessing the interrogation of an innocent man, his loyalty begins to waver. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

Richard and Judy Book Club

The Richard and Judy books continue to be popular. They are now on Watch TV (Sky 109, Virgin TV 104). The series will culminate in the Galaxy British Book Awards 2009.

4th March: Netherland - Joseph O'Neill, £7.99. Outstanding novel of 2008 about a friendship and cricket in the New York of 9/11.

11th March: Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite - Beatrice Colin, £7.99. Lilly is born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned. Showcases all the glitter and splendor of the brief heyday of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of Hollywood to its golden age.

18th March: December - Elizabeth Winthrop, £7.99. Eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken in nine months, and as December begins the situation is getting desperate. Her mother has stopped work to devote herself to her daughter's care. Four psychiatrists have already given up on her, and her school will not take her back in the New Year.

25th March: Cellist Of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway, £7.99. Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know who among his friends he can trust. A bestseller.

World Book Day, 5th March 2009

To celebrate World Book Day, we have a display on the centre table of the £1 books for children, exchangeable for the special WBD vouchers handed out to schools. The £1 books are:

Picture book - The Tyrannosaurus Drip songbook - Julia Donaldson and David Roberts

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

Age 5+ flip book - Winnie to the Rescue! - Laura Owen and Korky Paul
with: Yuck's Rotten Joke - Matt and Dave

Age 7+ flip book - Mr Gum and the Hound of Lamonic Bibber - Andy Stanton
with: Beast Quest: Sephir the Storm Monster - Adam Blade

Age 9+ flip book - Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades - Rick Riordan
with: Horrible Histories: Groovy Greeks (WBD edition) - Terry Deary illus Martin Brown

Age 9+ flip book - Interception Point - Mark Walden
with: The Spook's Tale - Joseph Delaney

Age 11+ flip book - An Episode from Mates Dates: The Secret Story - Cathy Hopkins
with: Ten Stations - Jenny Valentine

World Book Day for adults:

Books to Talk About Shortlist

The "Spread the Word" initiative is tied in with World Book Day, and we have most of the shortlist of ten (http://www.spread-the-word.org.uk/pages/books-2009/book_top-ten.asp) on display. You're invited to vote for the winner on the website.

Quick Reads

Quick Reads are short, exciting, bite-sized reads for avid readers wanting a short, fast book through to people who struggle with reading. Whatever your reading habit, once you pick up a Quick Read, you won't want to put it down! We're stocking Quick Reads by Ian Rankin, Kate Mosse and Gervase Phinn and "101 Ways to Get Your Child to Read" by Patience Thomson. £1.99 each.

NEW TITLES

New in hardback fiction for March is Alexander McCall Smith with another Mma Ramotswe novel. In paperback fiction, we'll have the Booker winner "White Tiger", Doris Lessing, Paulo Coelho, Peter Carey, Fay Weldon, Anne Donovan, Anne Enright, Amitav Ghosh, Ismail Kadare, Niall Williams and much more including a 19th-French detective and a Cathar-related historical novel. Reissues range from the medieval romance Parzival and Theodore Storm's "Rider on the White Horse", through more Gothic tales and English short stories and Virginia Woolf to Barbara Trapido and Lionel Shriver. Click here for the full list.

March's Non-fiction includes:

English churches, Lancastrian buildings and African Textiles in Art, Architectureand Design
Mary Wollstonecraft, Dorothy Wordsworth, Edmund Gosse, Janet Frame, Che Guevara, Jenni Murray, Julian Barnes, Roger Protz and a Japanese gangster's daughter in Biography
inequality in Britain, Robert Fisk, world slums and the NHSin Current Affairs
an uncivilised solution in Environment
a Rough Guide to Food
quite a lot in Gardening as is seasonally appropriate - practical advice about veg, gardens and allotments and also the head gardeners of Victorian and Edwardian times
Druids, Edward I, living in the middle ages, washing, British identity, the Victorians and recorded voices of the great in History
tattoos in Lifestyle
babies, toddlers and teenagers, decision-making, prayer, fractal time, the menopause, angels and the grimoires in MBS
human achievement via six kinds of Music
birdsong, herbs and chickens in Nature & Livestock
overheard conversations in Plays
a new Chambers, a new Russian gem and the Life in the UK test in Reference
bizarre D-I-Y experiments in Science
Middle England, Jeffrey Moffatt, Dales walks, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, British waterways, British cycle routes, new guides to Spain, England and Portugal, climbing, walking and rescuing people by helicopter in Travel and Outdoor Activities
and an egg, a witch, Percy Jackson, the Great Silk Road and an 17th-century servant girl in Children's Books

There was quite a change in book-buying habits at The Book Case in February, with novels being the popular choice, a pattern we saw last year too. But a book about Sowerby got the top spot, a colourful book about local pubs also sold well, and Barack Obama’s autobiography, a locally-based children’s historical novel and a teen read made up the remainder.

1. Growing Up in Sowerby ... and more - Jean Illingworth, £9.99. Jean Illingworth’s engaging history of the ancient hilltop village has been boosted back to the top by a mention in The Dalesman - orders have been coming in from all over the country and further afield!
2. Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry, £7.99. Costa Book of the Year. Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. She talks with her psychiatrist and her story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character.
3. Dreams from my Father: a story of race and inheritance - Barack Obama, £8.99. Barack Obama’s black African father walked out on the family when his son was only two. The adult son set out to learn the truth of his father's life and reconcile his divided inheritance.
4. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates, £7.99. The story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple whose empty suburban life is held together by the dream that greatness is only just round the corner. Now a successful film.
5. Cheers! A History of Hostelries in the Upper Calder Valley - Issy Shannon, £6.95. Lavishly illustrated book about all the pubs between Colden and Luddenden with photos past and present, fascinating facts and gory details.
6. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley, £5.95. This historical novel for young people tells the story of a boy who gets involved with the Cragg Vale Coiners - while his father is helped by the invention of the flying shuttle. A Royd Press publication.
7. Q&A - Vikas Swarup, £7.99. Aka "Slumdog Millionaire"! Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammed Thomas is in prison after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have arrested him, convinced that he has cheated his way to victory.
8. One of Us - Melissa Benn, £7.99. A leading journalist and a woman meet at a London cafe in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. Anna Adams has a story she is burning to tell, one that goes right to the top of the Cabinet. Daily Mail Book of the Month.
9. When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson, £7.99. A Richard & Judy choice. In rural Devon, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.
10. Twilight - Stephenie Meyer, £6.99. The first in the phenomenally successful romantic vampire Twilight Saga series for young people.

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

"We have had more than enough of strident professions of certainty. Let's read some Wordsworth instead."

- Larry Elliott, "The art of economic recovery", Guardian Weekly, 20 Feb 2009, referring to Richard Bronk's book The Romantic Economist. (This is about the lessons economists can learn from the Romantic movement.)

The Richard and Judy books continue to be popular. They are now on Watch TV (Sky 109, Virgin TV 104). The series will culminate in the Galaxy British Book Awards 2009.

4th February: Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson, £7.99. The narrator is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward. He feels his life is over - until a sculptress of gargoyles reveals a shared past in medieval times.

11th February: When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson, £7.99. In rural Devon, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.

18th February: 19th Wife - David Ebershoff, £14.99 (hardback only at present). The world of the Mormon Church, a historical crusade to end polygamy, and a modern murder mystery.

25th February: Bolter - Frances Osborne, £7.99. Idina Sackville scandalised 1920s society with her multiple divorces and abandonment of her child. She was fictionally portrayed as "The Bolter" by Nancy Mitford and was the "high priestess" of Kenya's bed-hopping Happy Valley in "White Mischief".

4th March: Netherland - Joseph O'Neill, £7.99. Outstanding novel of 2008 about a friendship and cricket in the New York of 9/11.

11th March: Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite - Beatrice Colin, £16.99 (hardback only at present). Lilly is born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned. Showcases all the glitter and splendor of the brief heyday of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of Hollywood to its golden age.

18th March: December - Elizabeth Winthrop, £7.99. Eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken in nine months, and as December begins the situation is getting desperate. Her mother has stopped work to devote herself to her daughter's care. Four psychiatrists have already given up on her, and her school will not take her back in the New Year.

25th March: Cellist Of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway, £7.99. Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know who among his friends he can trust. A bestseller.

Costa Book Awards Shorlist

The Costa Book of the Year is Sebastian Barry's Secret Scripture, now in stock at The Book Case, £7.99. Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. She talks often with her psychiatrist and refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.

First Novel Award: The Outcast by Sadie Jones, £7.99. Small-town hypocrisy in the south of England in 1957.

Children's Book Award: Just Henry by Michelle Magorian, £6.99. Henry, the son of a war hero, is disgusted that he's been put in a school project group with the son of a man who went AWOL, and Pip, who was born illegitimate; but he's about to learn that tolerance and friendship are more important than social stigmas.

Biography Award: Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill, £7.99. Diana Athill, now aged ninety, reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age brings, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death.

Novel Award: The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, £7.99

Poetry Award: The Broken Word by Adam Foulds, £10 - a close contender for Book of the Year. This poetic sequence illuminates a period in British colonial history. Tom has returned to his family's farm in Kenya for the summer vacation between school and university when he is swept up by the events of the Mau Mau uprising.

This "Spread the Word" initiative is tied in with World Book Day, and the long-list of 50 has now been reduced to a shortlist of ten as follows (http://www.spread-the-word.org.uk/pages/books-2009/book_top-ten.asp). We have most of them in stock and a display on the shelf by the stairs. You're invited to vote for the winner on the website.

Bad Traffic - by Simon Lewis, £7.99: Inspector Jian, a Chinese cop from the Siberian border, thinks he’s seen it all. But when his student daughter phones him frantic for help, he is pitched into an alien and frightening world – the mean streets of rural England. He needs to hunt down a gang of ruthless people traffickers and he needs to do it fast, but he has two problems: no English and no cash.

Catch a Fish from the Sea (Using the Internet) by Nasreen Akhtar, £12.99:  Insightful and gripping, this is the true story of the realities of searching for a lifetime partner using the internet. It is the powerful memoir of a thirty-something British Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who embarks upon a remarkable journey of the self, society, soul and love.

Random Deaths and Custard by Catrin Dafydd, £7.99. Sam Jones is a perfectly ordinary Valleys girl. Except for the random deaths, that is. Random deaths she only just manages to avoid. Narrowly escaping decapitation by the kitchen cupboard, concussed by a fall on the bus, then saved from choking on a fish finger by a complete stranger on her doorstep, she begins to see her life as a succession of near misses.

Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert, £6.99.  The haunting story of a man who gets drawn into the mysterious world of two beautiful witch sisters who are practitioners of the lost, ancient Art of Memory.

The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum, £10.99.  Emily, a successful young Manhattan attorney, should be overjoyed when her boyfriend seems on the verge of proposing. Instead she finds herself abruptly ending her happy relationship for reasons she can’t even explain to herself and her world gradually starts to unravel.

Vicky Had One Eye Open - by Darryl Samaraweera, £7.99. Chronicles how a patient, Vicky, and her family deal very differently with her lapse into a coma. Vicky’s Sri Lankan family struggles to cope with the traditional closeness of their family unit, made increasingly claustrophobic by the confines of the NHS. Tensions amongst the waiting family rise, whilst Vicky openly invites the reader into her mind.

Wild by Jay Griffiths, £8.99. A journey to find a childhood view of wilderness. The author's search took her from the freedom fighters of West Papua to icebergs where polar bears slept, from kindly cannibals to sea gypsies, and finally it yielded the knowledge that “what is savage is in the deepest sense gentle, and what is wild is kind”.

The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets by Sophie Hannah, £7.99.  Already well known for crime fiction and award-winning poetry, the author serves up these contemporary tales of the unexpected with a relish reminiscent of Roald Dahl.

Imagine This by Sade Adeniran, £10.  Lola is a nine-year-old child who is wrenched from all that is familiar and thrust into village life in Nigeria, a culture so alien and removed from her childhood in Kent, that she is left bereft and adrift.

Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction by Alison MacLeod, £8.99
Lovers, would-be lovers and lovers gone wrong in all sorts of settings.

The Daily Mail Book Club

This month's choice is Inside The Whale by Jennie Rooney (£7.99). Against a WWII background, Stephanie Sandford, recently widowed, must tell her family the truth. But the past is indistinct and complicated. The Book Case will accept Daily Mail National Book Tokens against one-half of the cost of this month's recommended title.

February: One Of Us - Melissa Benn (£7.99 )
March: Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith (£7.99)

Richard and Judy carry on their book club on Watch TV (Sky 109, Virgin TV 104) as follows, to culminate in the Galaxy British Book Awards 2009. How many people can get Watch TV around here, I don't know, but there are some good books amongst them and we'll be carrying the paperbacks.

21st January: Brutal Art - Jesse Kellerman, £7.99. A struggling New York art dealer takes advantage of an unexpected treasure trove of art, with unwanted results.
28th January: Suspicions Of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale, £7.99. A real-life Victorian family murder, and the investigations of an early detective.
4th February: Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson, £7.99. The narrator is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward. He feels his life is over - until a sculptress of gargoyles reveals a shared past in medieval times.
11th February: When Will There Be Good News - Kate Atkinson, £7.99. In rural Devon, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.
18th February: 19th Wife - David Ebershoff, £14.99 (hardback only at present). The world of the Mormon Church, a historical crusade to end polygamy, and a modern murder mystery.
25th February: Bolter - Frances Osborne, £7.99. Idina Sackville scandalised 1920s society with her multiple divorces and abandonment of her child. She was fictionally portrayed as "The Bolter" by Nancy Mitford and was the "high priestess" of Kenya's bed-hopping Happy Valley in "White Mischief".
4th March: Netherland - Joseph O'Neill, £7.99. Outstanding novel of 2008 about a friendship and cricket in the New York of 9/11.
11th March: Luminous Life Of Lilly Aphrodite - Beatrice Colin, £16.99 (hardback only at present). Lilly is born to a cabaret dancer and soon orphaned. Showcases all the glitter and splendor of the brief heyday of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of Hollywood to its golden age.
18th March: December - Elizabeth Winthrop, £7.99. Eleven-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken in nine months, and as December begins the situation is getting desperate. Her mother has stopped work to devote herself to her daughter's care. Four psychiatrists have already given up on her, and her school will not take her back in the New Year.
25th March: Cellist Of Sarajevo - Steven Galloway, £7.99. Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know who among his friends he can trust. A bestseller.

Costa Book Awards Shorlist

The category winners will be announced on 6th January, and the Costa Book of the Year on 27th January.

First Novel Award
The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams
The Outcast by Sadie Jones, £7.99
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Inside the Whale by Jennie Rooney

Children's Book Award
Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray, £5.99
The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd, £6.99
Just Henry by Michelle Magorian, £6.99
Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine, £5.99

Biography Award
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
Bloomsbury Ballerina by Judith Mackrell
If You Don't Know Me By Now: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton by Sathnam Sanghera
Chagall by Jackie Wullschlager

Novel Award
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
A Partisan's Daughter by Louis de Bernieres
Trauma by Patrick McGrath

Poetry Award
For All We Know by Ciaran Carson
The Broken Word by Adam Foulds
Sunday at the Skin Launderette by Kathryn Simmonds
Salvation Jane by Greta Stoddart

There are currently 50 books on the list - by public vote the list will be reduced to a shortlist of ten in early 2009.

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Yorkshire Dales Textiles Mills, and Guardianwork event