Saved by the post

Yesterday was not the best of days. You don't need to know why, but it was saved by the post. You know, that old fashioned stuff that comes through a hole in your door. Top of the charts here was the Searchlight Education Trust special publication on the 75th anniversary of Cable Street. Never mind that it drew on and gave great coverage to our five new books on the subject, Steve Silver has put together a very attractive and readable pamphlet, which included his own family stories of the Battle. You can get hold of Steve's pamphlet on http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/shop/cablest for four pounds. On the same subject, the latest of the dozens of Cable Street events is a party by Jewdas in Brick Lane on 1st October. "Party like it's 1936" they say. Kids, eh? Also in the post was a tenth anniversary compilation from Jewish Renaissance, a magazine that regularly reviews our books, features the occasional article by me and whose poetry editor is Liz Cashdan (currently waiting patiently for Five Leaves to publish her "New and Selected" in 2013). Janet Levine, editor of JR, said that people doubted the journal would last two years (or even two issues) when it started. Congrats to her and her team for JR's success.

Back to Cable Street - we now have a bundle of brochures advertising Cable Street 75 March and Rally on 2nd October, which we are sponsoring. The speakers at the rally include Maurice Levitas, aged 96, a Cable Street veteran, who will also be at our collective book launch the same afternoon.

Sticking to the labour movement, I also received Voices of Wortley Hall: the story of Labour's Home, 1951-2011 by John Cornwell. Some years ago I was one vote in the crowd at Wortley, a stately home near Sheffield (pictured) owned by the labour movement, taking part in a bitter inter-union dispute about the level of modernisation necessary at Wortley. I can't remember now whether I voted for the FBU or the AUEW slate, but I was in favour of en-suite bedrooms for all. Nothing is too good for the working class. Wortley has continued to modernise - it is a major wedding venue - and keep its links with the trade union movement. The best stories are of course those of the early years when strong characters, and passing strangers, achieved the impossible. In passing, one of the descendants of the Earl of Wharncliffe (whose family originally owned the building) trying to join as a member. He was turned down as he did not have a trade union card. He promptly joined the Musicians Union so he could, presumably, buy the odd pint in the bar in his old family home. The book does not have an ISBN but can be ordered over the phone for £10 plus £2.50 postage from Wortley Hall on 0114 2882100.

Cable Street book offer

Just as Waterstone's announces its abolition of three for two, Five Leaves catches up with the abolition of the Net Book Agreement* to offer 20% off our Cable Street books. Mail order only, cheques only. This offer will also apply at our book launch where cash will never be refused.
* This 1997 decision was the most stupid decision ever for the UK book trade, leading to large scale closures of independent bookshops. It is still being played out by Waterstone's (which campaigned for its abolition) being undercut by supermarkets.

Dirtry Thirty Tribute Evening

Leicester Trades Council/Everybody's Reading/Leicester Social Forum/Five Leaves event - this will sell out. Get your ticket now.

Cable Street, ready to roll

We put in the final corrections to the last of our five Cable Street books tomorrow... two are back from the printers, two are in press, the promo leaflet is ready to print, the demo is on and the seven page colour programme featuring ALL the events can be downloaded from: http://www.battleofcablestreet.org.uk/anniversary.html. If you are coming to any of the events around the launch of our books - the launch itself, the lunchtime gig and the evening event with Billy Bragg, Michael Rosen and Shappi Khorsandi let us know as it will be rather busy on the day. Our books can now be ordered from www.fiveleaves.co.uk but very soon we'll post a special offer, 20% off for mail order paid with by old-fashioned cheques (that way we can avoid paying the credit card companies). The nice picture of a previous event is by Dan Jones.

Damned fools in utopia

Or to give the new book of Nicolas Walter's essays its full title, Damned Fools in Utopia and Other Writings on Anarchism and War Resistance edited by David Goodway. Nicolas Walter died in 2000, having been one of the most consistent writers for Freedom and its offshoots Anarchy and The Raven, as well as the atheist/freethought press. He was famed as a fierce reviewer and a stickler for details (he was, after all, the chief sub-ed at the TLS for a period). He also wrote a stream of letters the broadsheet press. His published output beyond the many magazines he contributed to was, however, sadly limited. On his death it was widely assumed that Freedom Press would publish a selection of his essays but they had "moved on". Other attempts to secure a publisher in the mainstream of the anarchist movement failed. Five Leaves stepped in eventually and a book of his historic essays, The Anarchist Past, appeared in 2007, edited by David Goodway. Too late, sadly, as, perhaps, there had been something of a generational change in the anarchist movement and Nicolas - perhaps also because he had little book-published work - was no longer well known. How quickly people forget. There were always two volumes of essays planned by David Goodway. I cannot now remember why I did not simply announce the second volume to appear under Five Leaves, especially as the content of that volume held more interest for me personally. Perhaps there were some issues, perhaps I was just too busy. Checking past emails I find that the editor asked our friends at PM Press in the USA to bring out an edition there. We discussed a joint edition but when PM opened a London office using the same trade reps as Five Leaves it seemed easier to leave the field to them with one edition for both countries. We're not short of books to publish.
Now that Damned Fools in Utopia has finally appeared with PM I regret not doing the sensible thing which was to have brought it out in 2008 or 2009 and let PM have American rights. It is - as it was then - a very good selection of essays, the heart being about Nicolas' work within the peace movement, and in particular the Spies for Peace. There are also very good essays on libertarian individuals - Orwell, Alan Sillitoe (who was an occasional contributor to the anarchist press), Herbert Read, the largely forgotten Guy Aldred and the "crank" publisher CW Daniel, the UK publisher of Tolstoy and health books (whose imprint ended up being owned by Random House!).
The selection ends with the short essay by Nicolas, "Facing Death" which was first heard on the World Service. Nicolas was, by then, indeed facing death, knowing, as an atheist, that there was nothing beyond. A fine essay which deserves a wide circulation.
Had we published the book I'd have argued with David Goodway about the title - I never liked it - but would probably have accepted defeat. But though I hope the volume is widely read I do regret that PM has set the price at £16.99 and used a white cover which is, after a brief skim through, already grubby. I've read the essays before, some in their original form and all in David Goodway's selection but there are many I will return to again and again, by which time the cover will be as grubby as the content shines.

Happy Birthday, The Bookcase

The Bookcase in Lowdham is 15 tomorrow. The shop is a village bookshop, about eight miles from Nottingham, the village having about 2,000 residents. It was a brave move to start a shop there but the owner, Jane Streeter, had worked in legal bookselling in London before moving back to Nottinghamshire where she had three children. She kept up her subscription to The Bookseller, with the long term aim of setting up her own shop. The rumour is that her accountant husband, Andy Streeter, worked out it would be financially better to open a shop than to have another child and a shop was duly opened. The first shop was very small. If too many customers came in, others would have to leave. But it thrived. A couple of years later - at our first meeting - we decided to start a book festival in the village. Book festivals were not as trendy or as numerous as they are now. We wanted to have a festival that combined the notion of a high quality book festival with the life and rhythms of the village - using venues like the Primitive Methodist Chapel and the WI. It worked, and continues, with some events attracting up to 450 people.

Meantime the shop moved to bigger premises, developed a school supply side and uses every opportunity to sell books. It is, and will always be, a shop orientated to the needs of the village, selling gifts, and tickets for any local shows. but it is a village that has retained its pubs, its post office, a butcher and a co-op, a very busy village hall and a great cultural life. Jane Streeter has engaged with the wider literature community, launching books by local writers, developing a dedicated local books website (http://www.nottinghambooks.co.uk/), running bookstalls and the shop now provides jobs for several other booksellers. Always active in the booktrade, Jane became one of only two or three women to become President of the Booksellers Association, and the first person from a village bookshop to have held the post. She is one year in with another to go, and she is involved nationally (and internationally) in every aspect of bookselling. The slogan "think global, act local" has been turned on its head to be "think local, act global". Congrats to the whole Bookcase team. http://www.thebookcase.co.uk/

Spitalfields Life

Our writer Gillian Darley tried to post a note on this blog about Spitalfields Life (http://www.spitalfieldslife.com/) following our last posting on the Brick Lane bookshop. She failed to do so, so I have. And can I say that the website is a must. The article from today is about one of the old Huguenot houses in Fournier Street, where the occupant found wallpapers going back to 1690 in various parts of the house, plus a treasure trove of found objects under the floorboards, and a sealed up medicine cabinet with poison in it. Anyone interested in the East End will immediately log it as a favourite. Thanks Gillian