Book News

from our favourite local book shop, The Book Case

Monday, 4 January 2010

BESTSELLERS OF 2009 at The Book Case

1. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty;
2. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas;
3. Hebden Bridge Town Trail - Local History Society & Walkers Action;
4. South Pennines OS map;
5. Ten Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green;
6. World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy;
7. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle;
8. Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama;
9. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley - HB ATC;
Joint 10th: Lecardo game & Cheers! A History of Hostelries in the Upper Calder Valley - Issy Shannon.

TOP TEN: December's bestsellers at The Book Case

1. Summat A'Nowt - Steve Murty, £9.95
Yet again Steve Murty's well-illustrated history of the Calder Valley and surrounding area was in top position!  

2. Calder Valley Christmas DVD - Nick Wilding, £11.99
A classic mixture of archive film (including the snow of 1947), reminiscences, hilarious anecdotes and old traditions, from the well known local film-maker.

3. Book of Funny Signs - Eleanor Morton, £4.99
From the pages of Dalesman magazine, a collection of weird and wonderful signs.

4. Mrs Scrooge: A Christmas Tale - Carol Ann Duffy, ill. Posy Simmonds, £4.99
A droll retelling of the classic story, brought up to date with a message about the nature of the real gifts we give and receive.

5. Lecardo, £5.99
This entertaining card wordgame for ages 10-adult continued to sell strongly.

6. Red Sky at Night - Jane Struthers, £9.99
"The Lost Book of Country Wisdom" - an attractive collection of traditional countryside lore.

7. Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas, £5.99
Peter Thomas’s history of our area continued popular. A Royd Press publication.

8. Gone Walkabout - Anna Carlisle, £6.95
Cold snowy weather didn’t stop people buying this best-selling book of local walks.

9. Lunar Calendar 2010, £5.25
An attractive poster style calendar of the phases of the moon for the coming year.

10. Cloudspotter’s Guide - Gavin Pretor-Pinney, £8.99
Several books on clouds were popular, but this one did the best!

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 Children's Book - A S Byatt (£7.99). A famous writer is interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins and their friends are already inscribed with mystery.

Adult Non-fiction: Smile or Die - How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World - Barbara Ehrenreich (£10.99) Explores the tyranny of positive thinking, and offers a history of how it came to be the dominant mode in the USA. Ehrenreich conceived of the book when she became ill with breast cancer, and found herself surrounded by pink ribbons and bunny rabbits and platitudes. Rigorous, insightful, bracing and funny, this book uncovers the dark side of the 'have a nice day' nation. Children: Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster - David Conway (£5.99). Little Miss Muffet is bored with her tuffet, and goes in search of a new nursery rhyme to be in. Before you can say "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," the whole book of rhymes is in chaos. Ages: 3+ yrs

CD: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carre (£15.65). The first in the Karla trilogy starring Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and with a star cast including Anna Chancellor, Alex Jennings, Kenneth Cranham and Bill Paterson.

Local Interest

What Brass Bands Did For Me - Chris Helme (£12.99) Chris Helme is a retired police officer living in Brighouse and has been associated with brass bands for 50 years; he edits The Conductor magazine and also writes for The British Bandsman. This new book celebrates the world of brass bands and remembers the unforgettable characters - performers, composers and arrangers - that live on through their music. It's a record of life in the mill towns as it once was and a triumphant celebration of the brass band community of today, with over 100 previously unpublished archive photographs from private collections.

Local Authors

Congratulations to Halifax historian and author John Hargreaves for his personal achievement award from the British Association of Local History. Dr Hargreaves is well-known as the author of Halifax, editor of the Halifax Antiquarian Society's Transactions and as a lecturer.

Falling through Clouds - Anna Chilvers (£7.99)
From a Hebden Bridge author, the story of a young man plagued with nightmares after being held hostage in Iraq and his relationship with 22-year-old student Kat as they summer in Cornwall. "Anna's prose is razor sharp, her dialogue pitch perfect. This, her fine first novel, weaves a tale that moves effortlessly through light and darkness. It's a serious page turner, moving, witty and thoroughly engrossing." - Lesley Glaister.

NEW TITLES

It's a new year and the publishers' production lines are rolling again. In Fiction, there's a new Orhan Pamuk in hardback, and lots in paperback, including A S Byatt, Sebastian Barry, Barry Unsworth, Anita Brookner, Dai Sijie, Raymond Feist and many others, with reissues from Conan Doyle, Wilde, Rose Macaulay, Mikhail Bulgakov and P D James.

See Book News 4 (3rd Dec 09)
See Book News 3 (3rd Nov 09)
See Book News 2 (10th Oct 09)
See Book News 1 (2nd Oct 09)

See more at The Book Case

Or on HebWeb books