A brace of launches for Curious Kentish Town at Owl Bookshop

Announcing another launch event for Curious Kentish Town on Monday 24th November at 6.30pm The launch of Curious Kentish Town on Monday 17th November 2014 at 6.30pm is now fully booked. Please email owlbookshop@gmail.com if you would like to attend the 24th November event. Entry is free but is by ticket only. Owl Bookshop 209 Kentish Town Rd London NW5 2JU Tel 020 7485 7793

Curious Kentish Town Martin Plaut & Andrew Whitehead Book Launch Monday 24th November 6.30pm Please join us to celebrate the publication of a new book about Kentish Town Where did Oswald Mosley first lead his fascists after the Battle of Cable Street? Which Kentish Town rent strike inspired a Peggy Seeger song? Where does the long lost Fleet river break cover? Or followed, quite literally, in the tracks of the piano industry? Do you know about the horse tunnels at Camden Lock...the ghost sign advertising maids’ caps and aprons in Dartmouth Park... the African revolutionary who made his home near Tufnell Park? Curious Kentish Town explores more than thirty locations across this part of north London and brings to life the remarkable stories attached to them, with the help of a wealth of photographs and illustrations. An artist-designed map will help you follow in the authors’ footsteps. Martin and Andrew, both journalists who have lived in the area for decades and love it, will discuss the book, followed by questions and answers.

PLEASE READ IF YOU HAVE REQUESTED TICKETS FOR THE EVENT ON THE 17TH NOVEMBER. The event on the 17th November is fully booked and will be very busy with limited seating. If your email request has been acknowledged and you would prefer to attend the second event on the 24th please let us know and we will move your reservation.

New from Five Leaves - Curious Kentish Town

We are pleased to announce Five Leaves' latest title, Curious Kentish Town by Martin Plaut and Andrew Whitehead. Andrew previously edited our London Fictions book, and runs the website of the same name. There is also a website for Curious Kentish Town, which will be updated as more curiousities emerge. The book will tell you which Kentish Town rent strike inspired a Peggy Seeger song, what happened to the Fleet river and all you need to know about the horse tunnels at Camden Lock. Lots of curious stories, and lots of photographs.
The Curious website is at
http://www.curiouskentishtown.com/, which includes a big feature on the book in this week's Camden New Journal.
Kentish Town area residents can buy the book at The Owl and other nearby bookshops as well as the usual outlets like Housmans and, post free, from Five Leaves on 0115 8373097.
Curious Kentish Town
9781910170069, 92 pages, £7.95.

Huddersfield Town in an away match

 London Fictions was launched last night at the Phoenix Artist Club in the West End, just off Charing Cross Road, once the heart, and still important in London's book land. An intrepid team of authors from the book had already done events at Housmans and at the Bishopsgate Institute and there are plenty more to follow, but this was the launch and quite a few of the contributors read from the books that inspired their chapters in London Fictions.
In introducing the evening I commented that although Five Leaves was based in Nottingham, and I hail from the land of the (vegetarian) haggis, we have a long interest in London fiction, London culture, London history, particularly of the old Jewish East End. I don't really know how to explain this interest, but I was followed by Andrew Whitehead - still a strong supporter of Huddersfield Town football club - who described how he came to London and fell in love with the place. If you check out his www.londonfictions.com and his own personal website www.andrewwhitehead.net you will see how this comes out. In the book, if you have not seen it, each chapter talks about one important London novel but is followed by a description of the setting now. Some are written by the chapter contributor, but many are written by Andrew, who dragged his teenage son round some unfamiliar streets of London to familiarise himself with the setting.
Others followed - fellow editor Jerry White, now living in the London suburb of Leamington Spa, Susie Thomas in London-on-sea ie Brighton and others who live in the city but all of whom find inspiration in the streets around them, and the literature of that most multi-cultural of cities.
Of course 26 books are not enough to fully give the flavour of the city. There are more essays on www.londonfictions.com and I think we will have a "More London Fictions" in due course.
Apart from contributors, the launch was attended by people from Housmans (which carries perhaps the best chosen London section of any bookshop) and Joseph's Bookstore, a couple of London fiction reading groups, people from History Workshop and www.eastendwalks.com.
Our New London Editions series and this book has tapped into a discrete group of readers and writers who know their city and know their literature. We'll continue to do this. Not dissing Nottingham, but I do so wish we could move Five Leaves to London.

London Fictions book launch

You would be very welcome, but even if you can't come, check out the venue...http://www.phoenixartistclub.com/, because we will have other launches there.

London Fictions, advance notice

Well, this item is not due out until 1st April but the text is in, as are most of the illustrations and we are rather proud of this one. It's an important book for us. And we do like the cover. Well done editors Andrew Whitehead and Jerry White. More later. The biggest debate was whether to publish it as Five Leaves or under our New London Editions imprint. We went for the former. The book is orderable already, though I'm not expecting much interest until next year. Just showing off, really. But if London fiction is your interest, keep following Andrew's www.londonfictions.com. We do have permission to use the cover painting, from Tower Hamlets Council which owns the work, but we would very much like to contact the artist Belinda Davies, who painted this in the mid-70s and used to live in Stepney. There is a younger artist by the same name, who appears in all the searches. Any ideas?

The Year of Alexander Baron

We are very pleased to see that Black Spring has published two classic Alexander Baron books, From the City, From the Plough and The Lowlife. Both were high on our wants list for New London Editions but we are not complaining, and wish Black Spring the best for these editions. From the City... is generally regarded as being one of the best novels about WWII, while The Lowlife is a great book about one of the Jewish characters who did not take the north west passage, continuing to live in Hackney, still gambling down the dog tracks. Black Spring also promise the release of Baron's book of war short stories, The Human Kind, next spring. A tremendous book. Meanwhile we have just received Andrew Whitehead's introduction to Alaxander Baron's Rosie Hogarth, due out in October from Five Leaves, to add to our King Dido. More on that one later.