Another quiet weekend at Five Leaves Towers

Apart from the Derbyshire Readers Day mentioned earlier, there was: The Colin Ward and Childhood conference in Cambridge, well attended, excellent speakers, good programme, good booksales especially from our friends at Freedom Press. Up in Scotland Zoe Wicomb had a full house at the Aye Write Glasgow Book Festival, and was the guest at BBC Scotland's Book Cafe. The Scottish Daily Record gave Ray Banks' California an excellent review, while J David Simons talked at the Scottish Jewish Archives (shame the publicity was so late) and at the Edinburgh Jewish Literary Society. And we finished the weekend by finding a sponsor for a forthcoming big book on London fiction. And I cleaned my bedroom.

Where are the Moomins when you need them?

Only four more days before our second States of Independence day in Leicester, celebrating the wonderful world of small and independent presses, this Saturday at De Montfort University. A one day - and free - book and spoken word festival. This list gives you an idea what it is about.

The 1950s, artists' books, publishing, eBooks, Asian writing, Irish writing, speculative fiction, spoken word from Short Fuse and Word!, anarchism, sex and sensibility, crime fiction, graphic novels, the Moomins, music, short fiction, money, poetry, making it as a writer, editing, East Midlands Book Award, book and magazine launches. Cafe available. Come for an hour or all day. Full programme on http://www.statesofindependence.co.uk/. All human and Moomin life welcome.

Where would we be without amoebas?

Derbyshire Readers Day - mentioned earlier as drawing its speakers only from small independent presses - was a great success, at least as far as this indie is concerned. Six of the speakers, Berlie Doherty, Stephen Booth, Dan Tunstall, Maxine Linnell, Danuta Reah and Charlie Williams are all associated with Five Leaves, though we are not their sole publisher in four cases but on this day they were all in our orbit. I was also pleased to chair a publishers' panel with the editors of Smith/Doorstep, Templar, Shoestring and Route, and to attend a lecture by one of the editors of Peepal Tree on the Caribbean history that forms the backdrop to Caribbean writing. I hope Jeremy Poynting repeats this talk elsewhere. It will certainly soon appear on Peepal Tree's website. Quote of the day was from Danuta Reah who mentioned that she had some dealings once with a computer shop where the owner, "would have been a serial killer had he not gone into computing". Malcolm Burgess also raised a laugh when he reported that I'd [accidentally] described Five Leaves as a "micro press" which made him think that his Oxygen Press must be an "amoeba press".

Thanks and congratulations to Derbyshire Libraries for taking the risk of devoting their whole annual event to the groundlings.

Mod culture

Safe to say that, save for humming along to the odd Small Faces track while at work, Mod Culture has never intruded on Five Leaves nor we on it. Not that there's anything wrong with it. In County Council days I organised a Mod Night in a library - with half the audience arriving on scooters. The more respectable elements - the other half - told some hair raising tales of their pill-popping youth. Anyway, here's Five Leaves debut article on the Mod scene. More on this book sometime later.
http://www.modculture.info/2011/01/cult-terry-taylor-novel-gets-reissued.html

On board the Carousel

We don't usually post our reviews in full, but I rather liked this one from the children's book mag Carousel. This also give an opportunity to say nice things about the mag, details on www.carouselguide.co.uk/, which is a good read - and for those of us printists out there, happily produced in a paper format.

Indie bound for glory

Britain's independent bookshops are fighting back, using the "indie bound" model imported from the USA to promote the value of supporting local bricks-and-mortar shops. Below are some of their arguments. Try them out - ask your local bookshop to put up a notice advertising a book group, then try a chain, then try Amazon...

•Based on US statistics, £100 spent at a local business means £68 of that stays in your community, as opposed to only £43 if spent at a national company •Local businesses create higher-paying jobs for our neighbours. •Buying local means less packaging, less transportation, and a smaller carbon footprint. •Shopping in a local business district helps create a healthy and vibrant high street. •Local retailers are your friends and neighbours—support them and they’ll support you. •More independents mean more choice, more diversity, and a truly unique community. •Local businesses donate to charities at more than twice the rate of national companies.

Today Cowdenbeath, tomorrow the world