Housmans

I've been a customer of Housmans Bookshop, round the corner from Kings Cross in London since about 1973 or 4. The long defunct "Housmans Peace Packets" mailing being essential reading in rural Aberdeenshire all those years ago. I've spent a small fortune there over the years, and from time to time become more closely involved, including, in 1995 drawing up a report for its Board advocating closure! Nobody ever pays any attention to me, which is just as well as Housmans is still there. You can see more of the shop on http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/09/return-of-radical-bookshops, including a long interview with the rather louche-looking Malcolm Hopkins. Malcolm's own career indicates that some radical bookshops can survive in the long run - some of his previous commercial employers Fagins in London (who remembers them?) and Borders both having gone bust. The video includes a nice snippet of someone browsing through our Jazz Jews - Housmans stock most Five Leaves' books.

Yesterday I joined the Board, not as a way of securing a belated agreement on my 1995 proposal, but to be part of Housmans modest revival. The shop is again trading at a profit, there is an excellent events programme, website hits on http://www.housmans.com/ are rocketing and the Housmans ethical alternative to Amazon is working well. The Board is spending some money shortly on new floor covering, new lighting and there are plans afoot to attract new custom from the now-thriving Kings Cross area.

What can you do to help? Buy books there, obviously. Order any book in print via their website. But also donate books - part of the regrowth of the shop has been underpinned by the £1 book box (pictured on the video) which attracts the passing stranger, recycles books economically, and brings several hundred pounds a month into Housmans.

Nat Hentoff on Jazz Jews

http://jazztimes.com/articles/25939-jews-in-the-family-of-jazz

First cuckoo of summer

Lowdham Book Festival in Nottinghamshire - jointly organised by Five Leaves - runs from 18-26 June. We're keeping the programme under wraps for a while yet, or possibly we have no programme to unwrap yet - believe what you will. But we can announce that the Bloomsbury Reading Day on the 19th is open for business, to allow attenders time to read their chosen books. This year's line up is Barbara Trapido, whose books will be pretty well known to readers, plus debut novelists Louise Levene (the ballet correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, since you ask) and Jane Rusbridge.
The deal is £15 a head, which brings you a glass of Pimms on arrival, group discussions, a smashing afternoon tea with the authors, a Q & A panel and the book of your choice by one of the writers. If you want all three books you can get the other two at 15% discount.
The event takes place at the nice new village hall in Hoveringham, a brisk walk or short car journey from downtown Lowdham.
More details from janestreeter@thebookcase.co.uk.

Two men on the Metro

Andy Croft and Bill Herbert are off to The Smoke, to Pushkin House, to read from their collection Three Men on the Metro, on 19th April. A free event starting at 6.00pm
www.pushkinhouse.org/en/events/three-men-on-the-metro

Plus ca change

...his main interest was the novel which he was writing: Failure. The drafting, writing, re-writing, typing, re-typing, submitting, putting aside, re-submitting, acceptance, further rejection, re-acceptance, setting up in type, piecemeal publication... a heartbreaking business undertaken in hopelessly unfavourable conditions... and finally the agreement: £30 down and the remote possibility of royalties; and the sale: three hundred copies; and the absence of reviews, except in the North London Gazette, the Jewish Magazine, the Madras Daily Courier, and the Saskatchewan Free Press - Failure.

from Rain on the Pavements by Roland Camberton (John Lehman, 1951, due from Five Leaves in June/July 2010)

Vote early, vote often

Our chums over at Spinetingler magazine are having a pre-election vote to decide on assorted categories of crime writer awards. We'll be rooting for Russel D McLean in the rising stars category, since we publish him. One of the most interesting categories is for jackets. No, not tweed ones (though I'd vote for that).

http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2010/03/31/2010-spinetingler-award-nominees-and-poll/

New this month at Five Leaves

Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle (yes, the bloke from ET) was a book I first read back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It is a novella on stillbirth. The book stuck in my head for decades, partly because it was so well written, partly because of the skillful way it dealt with difficult subject matter. I'm pleased now to make it again available, in a joint edition with the US publisher David Godine.
40 Years in the Wilderness: inside Israel's West Bank settlements could not be more timely, and, thanks to the wonders of digital printing, up to date. Josh Berthoud Freedman and Seth Freedman travelled through the settlements interviewing people ranging from gun-toting fundamentalists through to those Israeli's simply trying to find a cheap place to live. The book includes discussion of the current settlement activity at Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan in Jerusalem as well as those on the West Bank. Both books are now available mail order via www.inpressbooks.co.uk or can be ordered from bookshops