Adrift in Notting Hill

As well as the Colin Wilson film tie-in mentioned in the last posting, we will be publishing a companion volume, The Furnished Room by Laura Del-Rivo, with a new introduction by Colin Wilson. This one is already a film tie-in being made into the now seldom seen West 11 which features Alfred Lynch, Eric Portman and (how rarely she is connected to Five Leaves) Diana Dors, pictured. Laura's book was first published in 1961 and the links to Wilson's book is clear as this too is set in bedsitterdom, this time in Notting Hill and Earls Court. Laura is still running a stall at Portobello Market, which will be a great place to launch the book in due course.

I cannot find a poster for West 11, and would be pleased to hear from anyone who has come across a copy. I did toy with illustrating this posting with a picture of West 11's director, but Michael Winner versus Diana Dors...

Five Leaves goes adrift in Soho

Colin Wilson's Adrift in Soho will be published next autumn, as part of our New London Editions series, and as a film tie-in with Pablo Behrens' film of the same name. Pablo has secured funding, and is about to start casting, with the shooting beginning early next year. We'll have our first film tie-in cover, though timing is tight on that for the repping cycle to shops. Adrift in Soho first appeared in 1961, a novel of Soho and Notting Hill seediness with the main character arriving from the provinces in search of adventure. The film has a provisional website on www.adriftinsoho.com, so you can have a sense of the book and the cover. More later.

Hackney Limmud

Limmuds (or more correctly limmudim, I suppose) are something-for-everyone Jewish study days. Sessions can be academic, religious, political, controversial or about puppets (though I can't actually recall anything about puppets, but you get the picture). There is a big national one held over the Christmas break - what else are Jews supposed to do for Christmas? - and local ones all over the country now. I'm just back from Hackney, one of my favourites as the attendance tends to be a bit more alternative, a bit poorer, a bit more varied, a bit more working class and a lot more secular - though our stall was next to Lubavitch, which we and they found amusing. Our stall had the new print of the great Hackney Jewish novel Rain on the Pavements and Ken Worpole was talking again about Alexander Baron, that great Hackney novelist, so we did a bit more than cover the train fare. I've never been to a big Jewish event without seeing Janel Levin from Jewish Renaissance, who must be the hardest working magazine editor ever.
Sadly our little green "truck" - veteran of many a bookstall - is off to landfill. Overloaded as always, dropping it off a bus did not help. I blame Boris Johnson.

Our worst review ever?

Supporters of the Jewish right has for years been banging on about "the new anti-Semitism", where any small sign of concern that Israel might, on balance, from time to time, do the odd minor thing a teeny weeny bit wrong is lumped in with thousands of years of blood libels, forced conversions and pogroms as being anti-Semitic to the core. Ever vigilant, they spend their lives scanning the Guardian, the Independent and the Hamas-supporting BBC for evidence, where such evidence of anti-Semitism can always be found. If you want to find it. Over on the other side is Gilad Atzmon. Atzmon is an Israeli born anti-Zionist, whose views once managed to attract a picket by Jews Against Zionism. Atzmon is the mirror image of the right, where any sign of Jewish politics is a fig-leaf for Zionism. Thus, attacking Mike Gerber, the author of Jazz Jews and a member of the Jewish Socialists' Group, he argues that "Jewish politics is always a form of Zionism" or, because Mike plans to play Israeli musicians on his Jazz Jews radio programme he "manage[s] to endorse Zionist culture". Atzmon goes on to describe Jazz Jews as "one of the most disturbing books in the history of jazz literature". Maybe we'll use that on the cover when we get to paperback time. The good news though is that Atzmon has said it was Gerber writing the book that caused him to invent the satirical character "Artie Fishel" with his Promised Band, so we can now safely say that Jazz Jews influenced jazz history. Here's Atzmon's article (don't forget to wade through the comments): http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/10/jews-jazz-and-socialism/

East Midlands' Rebels

David Bell, author of The Dirty Thirty - on the Leicestershire striking miners, is starting a new book for Five Leaves on East Midlands' Rebels. This will be a popular (as opposed to academic) book, and be published in 2012 or 2013 depending on how big it gets. David has drawn up an initial list of people to cover, which includes (by way of example) Brian Clough, Lord Byron, Alan Sillitoe, Eric Irons (Black activist), Elizabeth Hootton ((17th century Quaker), Daniel Holt (18th century newspaper editor and supporter of Thomas Paine), Robin Hood, Alice Wheedon (Suffragette). You get the picture. Further suggestions are welcome. The people in the book don't need to be "big names" and could be rebels in their own field. Suggestions welcome, here or to info(at)fiveleaves.co.uk.

Battle of Cable Street, diary date

If you had planned to take part in the Battle of Cable Street, you are, unfortunately, 73 years and 364 days late, as the 74th anniversary is tomorrow. However we can say that plans are already being worked up for the 75th anniversary in 2011. I posted about the books Five Leaves will be publishing earlier, on 13th August, but can now say that we'll be running a joint launch for the books on 2nd October 2011, with a panel discussion on the literature of the 1930s the previous day. Alan Gibbons, author of one of the books, will also be doing some schools' work on the 3rd October. Many of the Cable Street events will take place in and around Wilton's Music Hall in the East End. Meantime you might want to diary that weekend, and read an interview with one of the participants, Max Levitas, still active at 95 or watch another, Ubby Cowan, talking about the event:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/97180, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FuXR2wFHA0

Things to Say

I was going to do a posting about Monday night's launch event at Bookmarks Bookshop for John Lucas's two new books, but one of those present beat me to it. John Harvey, taking time off from his life of crime writing and listening to jazz, has posted: http://mellotone70up.wordpress.com/.