The same door you open to a friend today
He might be closing to lock you out tomorrow
Careful what you say to him about a brother
He might make you an enemy to another
News & Events
A round-up of book signings, author interviews, news and events.
Do Not Ask What Moves Me So Profoundly
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s reputation as one of the great German poets has grown steadily since her death in 1848. An examination of the considerable work she completed during her short life reveals a fascinating mind and an exceptional talent, yet one which defies attempts to define or categorise.
This is the third book on Droste-Hulshoff’s work by Marion Tymms, in succession to God’s Sorely-Tested Child (2012) and The Wild Muse (2013) This Volume focuses on her narrative poems, a genre in which Droste-Hülshoff excelled, although this was scarcely recognised during her lifetime. The poems have at their core stories told with drama and passion, and tell of the capacity of the human heart and mind to endure and accept the sharpest pain. The book includes the author’s translations of the works discussed.
A Private Reason
At the heart of this closely-woven tale of love and human frailty lies the quiet, enigmatic figure of Christina Mansfield. It is wartime London and no one’s future is secure. Little Christina has her family all around her but to her they seem as cruel and unpredictable as the rest of the world – her brother is a solitary figure, her sister is brash but priggish, her mother vague.
As for her father…
From the 1940s to the early years of the twenty-first century, from the West Indies to West Sussex, Christina’s story unfolds, partly in her own words, partly through the observations and perceptions of those about her – as an artist, she becomes a woman with an extraordinary passion for life. But has she really escaped from her family, from the secrets that have been kept, the picture they have painted of themselves? Now Christina’s illegitimate daughter Eleanor is here, struggling to find her place in the world. Is there still time for the greatest deception of all to be exposed?
“Dazzling. A cross between Faulkner and Mary Shelley – gothic and thrilling”
Laura Kasischke, author of ‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
How Not To Write A Book – Mereo Books
How NOT to Write a book: 200 Mistakes to avoid at all costs if you ever want to get published. There’s a whole industry set up for those writing books and offer sound advice on how to write well. This is not one of those books.
On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid – at all costs if you ever want your novel published.
“What do you think of my fiction writing?” the aspiring novelist asked. “Well,” the editor replied, in turn. “I can’t publish your novel in the state that it’s in! It is full of what we in the business call ‘really awful writing.'”
“But how can I improve the story line? I’ve already read just about every book available on how to write well and get published!” The writer replied. “It might help,” said the editor, helpfully, “to think about how NOT to write a novel, so you might avoid the very thing!”
In How Not to Write a Book, authors Chris Newton and Antonia Tingle distil their 30 years combined experience in publishing, editing, writing, marketing and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter.
Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious “bad examples” to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they’ll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, story line, plot and anything else that needs attention
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The Iceland Watch
With a population of just 329,000 (barely more than Nottingham), Iceland is the most thinly-populated country in Europe, and 80% of it is uninhabited. Despite this, in the 1100 years since humans first settled there, the Icelanders have built a remarkably resourceful, diverse and robust community – and they have never had to go to war. In fact, in 2013 the United Nations ranked Iceland the 13th most developed country in the world.
Professor Gisli Thorsteinsson is Professor of Education in Reykjavik, while Dr David Whittaker is a retired academic specializing in geopolitics. The two authors have written this book to record and explain Iceland’s history and its many achievements and to introduce readers who may not be familiar with the country to the range and vitality of Icelandic thinking and achievement.
Edith and the Stolen Fans
Edith Arneau may be in her sixties, but her unruly behaviour makes her the despair of the staff in the home where she lives in retirement. However, her resourcefulness, her background as an actress and her remarkable climbing skills come in handy when her valuable cabinet of antique fans, collected during her years on the stage, is mysteriously stolen from her room. Helped by the assistant matron, Maree, and their male companions, she sets out for France in the hope of tracking them down. But it is not long before Edith herself disappears…
A charming ‘whodunnit’ set in England and the South of France.
Memento
Sally Leiper was born in Aberdeen in 1935 and has lived north of the border all her life. From thoughts beside a much-missed dog’s graveside and the joys of shepherding to the perils of modern communication technology, the wisdom of Granny’s proverbs and the unpleasantness of milk pudding, her charming and often very witty poems and stories reflect a long and happy rural life. They will delight readers of all ages.
Adopted: A Mother’s Love
Adopted: A Mother’s Love is the story of Gwenllian Annie Morgan, a Cardiff woman who, back in the years after the Second World War, adopted a three-month old baby at the age of 40 after his natural mother, who was still a teenager, was forced to give the child up for adoption; the father was a US serviceman who refused to have anything to do with the baby, and the mother’s family refused to support the child.
That baby grew up to become Terry Morgan, the author of this book. Nearly seventy years on, he has delved into the past to unearth in detail the story of his adoptive mother, the selfless, devoted woman who gave him a lifetime of love and care, the community she lived in and the people who formed Terry’s life.
The story of a courageous woman, her family and her community
Through The Gate
Jean Meyer is an accomplished painter who has spent most of her adult life in Italy, but she grew up in a terraced suburban house in the Wirral, within the sound of the great ships of Liverpool and a ferry crossing away from the club where four mop-topped musicians were preparing to take the world by storm. Through the gate is a beautifully evocative memoir of those years which has been written as an imaginary voyage around her childhood home, focusing in turn on the events associated with each part of the house and garden.
“With the idea that people leave their joys and tragedies in the fabric of the rooms they have inhabited, I have divided the story into the rooms of the house, each acting as the catalyst for remembering the things that took place there.”
Cover painting by the author – www.jeanmeyer.co.uk
A Soldier’s Oath
Fred Oldenburg joined the Army in 1988 as an adult soldier. After basic training he joined his parent unit, 2nd Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment, where he served 23 years of his 24-year military career. He served on tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, as well as exercises and training in the USA, Canada,
Norway, France, Kenya, Brunei, Belize, Bermuda, Jamaica, Poland, Jordan, Cyprus, Germany and the UK.
After rising through the ranks to Warrant Officer Class Two (WO2) he left the military to become Training Warrant Officer with the Bermuda Regiment. He retired from that regiment in October 2013 and now lives with his wife in Gloucestershire, England.