We have just taken in a couple of hundred books on yachting - from the design of boats to the techniques of sailing to narratives of exploration - including a number of classics, BUT, while all those precious Reader's Digest books, Roget's Thesaurus, Crossword Dictionaries and BBC Tie-ins were safely immured in the study, the Sailing Collection was shelved with the Baot itself, - IN THE GARAGE. At least they were not piled on the concrete floor (fatal in one winter), but the damp brieze-block wall has mildewed many of the covers - so you may find some good titles at low prices, reflecting their condition. We have been sneered at for shelving among our stock books in less than "VG" condition, but I have always prefered to offer interesting material at a low price than not at all.
June and July were so hectic with events - book launches and signings, Independent Booksellers' Week and Celebrating Cromford (The Village Fete) that none of these were mentioned here. August should be busy in the shop, providing the weather is suitably wet, but events really recommence in September.
Today, 2nd. April 2008, Dave will be attending the funeral of
First Loves is a collection of very short stories woven around the Victorian dolls that Miss McCrea collected. She claimed to have collected the stories too but, if so, she transmuted them into a classic shape. Had they not been so powerful, we would not have published a volume so far from our usual local studies area. Using contemporary colour and black-and-white illustrations, we produced the book in the format of an 1890's slim hardback with coloured-illustrated unlaminated paper-covered boards, as if Printed in Bavaria by chromolithography.A very few copies remain in stock here at £10. We may post something more on Lilian's life and works at some stage. In the meantime, First Loves is a sleeper awaiting discovery and due celebration.
Meanwhile, on the revived publishing front, Professor Keith Sherwin's updated work on Human-powered Flight entitled Pedal Powered Planes is now available from ourselves or other booksellers at £8.95. Walk the Peak with Rod Dunn our new and spectacular photograpic celebration of the Peak, with fascinating route/natural history/climbing/history text by Rod arrived, weighed in at one and a quarter tons for the consignment, on Friday 30th. November, in time to make enlightened (i.e. rather few) outlets before Christmas. A beautiful large-format hardback at £19.99. Also now available, published as a slim buckram-bound volume in Morgan Green is The Collected Poems of Charles Morgan edited by Peter Holland, £12, while The Derbyshire Portway Pilgrimage to the Past by Stephen Bailey, in paperback at £6.95, should be available in June
As I update, the daffodils King Alfred in the windowboxes are still at their spectacular best; fully out for Easter and kept fresh by the cool, showery weather. The scarlet (or are they crimson?) Apeldoorn tulips are impatient to take their place. This last winter's experimental use of SNOWDROPS in the windowboxes looked great from INSIDE the shop, though hardly noticeable from outside; we shall certainly try them again.I think I will have to do a "Whimsies" feature on our rather individual windowbox policy.
At last a few NEW pictures, including Berlie Doherty and Caroline Pitcher launching their new children's books in the Cafe
Readers are strongly advised NOT to visit the bookshop before Friday 11th. January as then begins our annual sale, a very much living fossil of ye olde National Book Sale of the days of the Net Book Agreement. We are selling ALL new books at 10% off and all our second-hand books at 20% off, with the exception of our ABE/Website rare books, though we will be more than usually sympathetic to requests for discounts on these. P.S. LOTS of overstocks (mainly duplicates and shop-soiled) are 50-75% off. The sale continues untilincl ( a new word= USA "through") Sunday 27th. january.
We just managed to get the geraniums out of our windowboxes before the first 5 degree frost of Monday/Tuesday 10/11th. December, replacing them with this year's experiment in winter window flowers: SNOWDROPS.Today (8th. January) they are flowering delicately and look well from INSIDE the shop, though invisible from outside! Last year's experiment was Helleborus foetidus, with its cascading leaves and bright yellow-green flowers, a limestone plant that grows wild in the woods round here. It was very noticeable, but untidy and needing lots of water. Like HONESTY, which we put out between tulips and geraniums in the Spring, this species does not like being uprooted, even when grown in pots sunk into the ground. I think I will have to do a "Whimsies" feature on our rather individual windowbox policy.
In October a works outing visited the Metro Cinema, now at Derby University, to see AND WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?, starring Jim Broadbent, Colin Firth and Juliet Stevenson, much of which was shot in and around Scarthin, with the Bookshop by no means invisible. We are only real these days when we are virtual! After a shaky start, the film proved gripping and moving.If you missed it, well, it seems to have vanished off the face of the earth; not really box-office, I suppose. It needs to do well at Cannes to reappear. Otherwise, we'll get the DVD.
BOOKS -what new among the old? A considerable collection on West African culture, history, language, peoples and agriculture is slowl being fed onto the shelves and onto AbeBooks. A shelf of paperback Pevsners appeared at the weekend and we are fighting off enormous Railway collections - perhaps TOO successfully.
Apple Day 2007 took place on Saturday 20th. October, a heavenly day, with an over-run on Sunday afternoon. For now, I'll leave the rest of the details as they were before the event; just change the tenses. See the Common Ground Website for what's on here and elsewhere try clicking on: Apple Day Events. This year, there will be several stalls, including Julian Brandram with some apple varieties to taste and discuss and Beano's Organic Produce. We are pleased to welcome a folk band, the Friday Night Group from Highfields School in Matlock, with their fiddle and flute jigs and reels. It is said that a "mystery shopper" from ( here it is again) Common Ground will be mingling with the crowd!