Juxtabook

The Last Bookshop

"One day, a small boy's holographic entertainment fails, so he heads out to explore the streets of abandoned shops outside. Down a forgotten alley he discovers the last ever bookshop... "

The Last Bookshop is a charming short film (20 mins) that imagines a future where physical books have died out. There are some really delightful moments: when the boy first sees the massive wall of books, when he gets lost amongst the shelves, and when he tries to open the book using touch screen movements! What are stories? What are customers? What is money? The boy asks.

I was also amused to see that bookselling attire clearly is not anticipated to change much in the next fifty years! Of course I sit here everyday in tweeds, a tie, and pince-nez!

After a strangly balletic start, the dystopian future plays out in a bookshop ignored by the giant multinational corperation who now owns all the rights to all written words. Provided no money changes hands, the shop is permitted to exist, and the owner becomes oddly threatened by the enthusiasm of his new customer.

The message, I guess, is that we'll get the bookselling and retail future we deserve.

More on Swallows and Amazons and Bunloaf

Having mentioned recently that I had still not read Swallows and Amazons but that I was familiar with the bunloaf mentioned therein, I found myself standing in front of a copy in the town library whilst I was waiting for my daughter and pounced!

I have finally read and thoroughly enjoyed Swallows and Amazons and I have reviewed it on my YA book blog here.

I was glad to see bunloaf mentioned so often but a bit disappointed that there was not a description of it at all. Ah well, you can't have everything...

Much though I loved the book, I do wonder what modern children would make of it, and I muse along those lines in my review. If you've experience of reading with a child or a children's book group, or know a teen who has recently read the book, I would be grateful for any feedback as to its genuine enjoyability for 9-14 year olds, rather than its appeal for middle aged booksellers! The comments are open over there.

Tull at The Octagon, Bolton

I don't often get to the theatre these days but Tull at The Octagon in Bolton had caught my eye and I am so glad we made the effort and went.

Walter Tull is believed to be the first black outfield player in British top flight football. In the years before the first world war he was a forward with first Tottenham and then Northampton Town. This is remarkable enough but his sad childhood (death of mother then father) ended with a decade in a children's home in Bethnal Green. He shared this time with a brother for the first two years but the brother was adopted by a couple from Glasgow separating Walter from this last link with his family. Football appears to have then become Tull's life.

But with the story of any young man in early twentieth century Europe one always knows what is coming: four long grinding years of war - if you live that long. Walter volunteered for the First Footballers' Batallion and served with distinction for nearly all the war, becoming one of the first black officers (which was in itself against the rules) and being recommended for the military cross, an award inexplicably denied him. Walter lost his life in the March of the last year of the war in the spring offensive of 1918. A fellow footballer risked his life to try rescue Walter's body but it couldn't be done and Walter is one of many with no known grave.

The Octagon's version of Walter's life is a remarkable piece of theatre. Eight men and women with no props, no set, and a muted 'costume' of neutral colours in stretchy fabric produce in that tiny space in the round: a Kent childhood, a boisterous children's home, football training, aggressive matches, the searing liquid anger of the terraces, the politics of war and peace and women's suffrage, and the small scale development of the character of one man in a context of extraordinary circumstances. Phil Vasili's script is tight and exciting but leaves plenty of space for the emotional ride of Walter's life too.

Every inch of space was used. Dozens of characters were portrayed with actors slipping effectively from one accent to another, one characterto another, two scenes often playing at once. It was all so seamless, and there was never any doubt what or whom you were watching. The cast's skill at characterisation was remarkable but almost paled into insignificance at what they achieved physically. The fights (childhood and adult, football and war) and the representation of the beautiful game itself were a triumph of choreography and execution. The standing ovation the cast received at the end was well deserved. If you are anywhere remotely near Bolton I can't recommend this production enough: social history and drama at its best, it is a truly special piece of theatre.

You can sign an e-petition which calls upon the government to posthumously award Walter Tull the Military Cross for which he was recommended.

Tull at The Ocatgon Bolton is on until 16th March and the play is based on Phil Vasili's own biography of the footballer: Walter Tull, (1888-1918), Officer, Footballer: All the Guns in France Couldn't Wake Me

 

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe

If you have listened to much British music or watched many British films then it is hard to come to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe with a clean slate. The tale of Arthur and his desire not to be crushed by the social and economic system is hard to read afresh. It is hard not to see the retro-styled album covers of The Smiths, to see Hylda Baker, to hear The Artic Monkeys, to see every subsequent British New Wave film on working class culture running through your head: A Taste of Honey, Billy Liar, The Family Way, and so on. You can't help seeing motifs that have become cliches, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", yet of course in 1959 they were far from cliches.

The plot is fairly simple: Arthur aged 22 and recently out of National Service slaves all day on piece work in a local factory. He has no responsibilities beyond giving a few pounds for board to his mother and enjoys drinking heavily, spending his money on nice clothes, and dallying with several married women. None of this particularly engages his brain though it is entertainingly related to us by the narrator, and so we get his rambling internal views on all aspects of the working class world in which he lives as he muses on the lives of his parents' generation and his own, on the government and the army, on marriage and husbands and wives, and on the future for men like him. He wants something more but as yet cannot see what that really might be.

I find this post-war era fascinating. The tail end of military service meeting the social movements and discontent that led to much of the 60s' activism and change. So if you can come to this book with fresh eyes it is remarkably light. Arthur's gripes might seem petty to those who experienced the squalor of the interminable dole years described in the brilliant but tuly 'grim oop north' Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood, but Arthur experienced those too, as a child, and he mentions them a couple of times. The lightness comes from the fact that Arthur must know that, compared to real years of hunger in the past, he is a lucky man, yet still his spirit strives for more. It is this striving in Arthur that points to hope for the future: whatever compromises Arthur might make in his own life, the human spirit constant seeks the stronger light.

I love this book and can see it becoming a regular re-read.

I wonder if others find an extended context of cultural references a help or a hinderance when reading a book like this for the first time?

Books out and about

My books went for a day out to have their photos taken, just before Christmas. You can see more here in a blog post by the photographer Kathryn on her website. The images will be used for business cards, bookmarks and possibly some cards and postcards. Customers will start seeing them in parcels quite soon!

Janeites

" ‘Jane? Why, she was a little old maid ’oo’d written ’alf a dozen books about a hundred years ago. ’Twasn’t as if there was anythin’ to ’em, either. I know. I had to read ’em. They weren’t adventurous, nor smutty, nor what you’d call even interestin’—all about girls o’ seventeen (they begun young then, I tell you), not certain ’oom they’d like to marry; an’ their dances an’ card-parties an’ picnics, and their young blokes goin’ off to London on ’orseback for ’air-cuts an’ shaves. It took a full day in those days, if you went to a proper barber...'"

The Janeites by Rudyard Kipling

A Beautiful Annotated Edition of Moby-Dick

This is nothing whatsoever to do with my business but I thought the publishing idea so innovative, and the academic worth so tremendous, that I'd share this with you. I know academic Chris Routledge only from twitter and the blogosphere but he has done something quite remarkable in attempting to use Kickstarter to bring a beautifully produced annotated edition of a literary text into being. There is a film about the whys and wherefores of this, and you can pledge funds toward the publication (and receive copies of the book at certain levels of donation) on the Moby Dick Kickstarter page here. I am tempted by the limited edition hardback! I love the cover painting that first appears to be just sky ...

If other academics have similar projects, or new editions coming out with smaller presses that don't have the big publicity machines, then please let me know  and I'll flag up the books in the newsletter. If you're interested in such book news you might want to like my Facebook page where I highlight such things, or sign-up to get my books newsletter.

Booksellers should note that there are a couple of multiple purchase tiers (paperbacks, and limited edition hardback and paperback combo) that are priced for reselling and include a bit of free advertising for indie booksellers who support the project.

 

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott

The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott grew on me very slowly and it took me ages to read the first half. I finished it some six weeks ago. However as I was changing the beds this morning I found myself thinking about the life and views of one of the characters, Clover. Book characters popping in to your head during housework is a sure sign of a job well done in terms of characterisation. This thought also leads me to the conclusion that had I done more housework as a student I might have written even better essays. Anyway ...

It starts off as a well-wrought but not especially exciting study of life in Vaudeville. If you are fascinated by the theatre this is a winner for you straight away. In terms of character however the first part of the book largely focuses on the eldest of three sisters who perform in a sweet sister act, The Belle Auroras. Aurora, the eldest, is indeed beautiful and is regarded as the one most likely to be a success, in highly predictable ways, including making an advantageous theatrical marriage of convenience. Their widowed mother, who had performed on the stage in her youth before becoming respectable and marrying a teacher, battles to keep standards high and food on the table. They're poor, cold, hungry - so far so predictable. The theatre world is focused on Aurora: who is attracted to her, does she draw crowds, are impressarios impressed with her? But we see the theatre as much through the eyes of her younger sisters, the 'baby' Bella and quiet middle one Clover whose name is not part of their act. They watch the stage, and the acts and the grown-ups from backstage and suddenly as these two develop we learn much more than when the lovely Aurora was the focus of all gazes.

As the book progresses and the girls and their mother get older, cracks appear in the tight facade of family and we see them with their individual talents and lives as the first world war looms on the horizon. This later part of the book made it for me. The newer, more mature relationships, Clover's battles with her traumatised soldier lover, the new successes and failures, and their ways of adjusting to life and each other were fascinating and beautifully, subtly done. From the height of vaudeville to the dawn of the movie age this novel, in the end, ceates a wonderful arc of character through a slim plot and lots of theatrical atmosphere. Not my favourite novel of the year, not my favourite novel of the theatre, but in the end a very satisfying read and I am glad I stuck with it.

Best Bib and Tucker

I have recently, for the first time in 12 years, taken some marketing advice about my business. I have, in the way of many second-hand book sellers, muddled through with a mixture of sales on my own site, on the sites of several large household names about which the less said the better, and on smaller multi-seller indie sites like Antiqbook and Biblio (I recommend these latter two). And generally what I did worked. Customers usually responded to what I did and pootled their way towards buying my books. How hard can it be I thought, I used to teach media for heaven's sake! However the downturn combined with the stranglehold of said household names and a chat with, believe it or not, my pilates teacher, sent me in the direction of a wonderful lady called Kathryn who is going to help me make C L Hawley a little sprucer and more able to compete in this big, bad cut-throat world of bookselling, where pootling will sadly no longer work.

Kathryn is not full of marketing speak, she is rather more in the real world, in fact she used to work in two very well known arts organisations, one of which was connected with an author's birthplace museum, and I felt right away that she understood my business. She also takes wonderful photographs. So as part of an image refresh I am having some professional photographs taken of my books for the very first time so that I can supply bookmarks and the like with my books. This is quite an odd feeling as my books are on the whole bought and sold for their content not their looks, however, with much excitement in the bookroom a selection of my more glamorous tomes, plus some of their work-a-day booky relatives have been picked. Whilst I do clean books on their arrival, the photographing meant that an extra spruce was required:

 

The whole process has not been unlike the morning of your child's school photograph! Making sure there's no toothpaste on the cardigan and no cereal on the teeth!

Another local family business, Eastburn Country Furniture, has kindly loaned their premises for the photo-shoot. I shall let you see some of the results when they arrive.

Bunloaf and Swallows and Amazons

My mother is making bunloaf today. We always have bunloaf at Christmas and my mother took over making it from my grandmother about ten years ago. The recipe we have was one my great-grandmother used at home in Liverpool and my grandmother remembered having to carry the heavy loaves on a wooden board to the bakers where they would be cooked. I assume their domestic oven was not big enough.

I thought everybody had bunloaf at Christmas until I grew-up and got about a bit more! Then I realised hardly anyone had heard of it. Every so often I google the term to see if I can find anything else about its origins and today happened across this piece which talks about its presence in Swallows and Amazons, a book I shamefully have never read. Is it true? I do hope so! It would seem from the article's references to the Cumberland coast and the Isle of Man, and my family acquiring the recipe in Liverpool that the Lancashire/Cumberland coast seems to be its main location. Has anyone else heard of it? My mother's version is very similar to the recipe quoted in the article: no eggs and definitelyy no tea or beer.

I have written about (and photographed) bunloaf in the past when writing about J L Carr and edible archaeology.

A Cacophony of Gabble

I've just pootled across this diatribe against blogging book reviews:

"...in our present climate of criticism — a climate in which the Net has spawned a cacophony of gabble impersonating literary comment, palaver and vulgate enough to warp you. Literature has always had its leeches, except now the Net has given every one of them a bog to wiggle around in. This wouldn’t be any more of an issue than it is to ignore the wastrel on the corner dispensing pamphlets on anarchy, but as respectable print publications either prune their space for book commentary or else go extinct altogether, more and more criticism — like more and more of everything else — is migrating to blogs and social media sites. Young or new book readers looking for literary analysis are going to have an increasingly arduous chore of dividing the shit from the serious. Worse, the biddable and ovine will gravitate to the shit because that’s where all the buzzing is. If you’ve ever attempted to read a review on Amazon or on someone’s personal blog, you know it’s identical to seeking relationship advice on the wall of a public restroom."

If this is the best level of analysis the pro-critic can manage, no wonder they're being left behind.

The article is otherwise very good on the subject of The Craft of Fiction by Percy Lubbock. Lubbock's book is so good that I actually stock it (paperback, hardback) - a service probably more useful to Literature than many a bit of jargon laden, theory ridden waffle by a 'critic'!

I shouldn't allow myself to be wound up, but critics are supposed to have high levels of discrimination, and that's what you do online as you should do with print: you discriminate! I have no desire to lump all critics in the same group, and I know most are much more generous and balanced in their assessment of what goes on in the 'cacophony of gabble', indeed, there is probably someone beginning a PhD thesis on the subject of the influence of bloggers on literature as I write!