Inside Outsider

Planning to attend the Sohemians tomorrow night (Iain Sinclair is talking about Roland Camberton, whose books we publish), reading Tony Gould's Inside Outsider: the life and times of Colin MacInnes is useful for getting into the mood. Faber Finds re-issued the book in 2009 - pity, I would have liked that one - but I picked up a library sale version on Saturday for the bargain price of £1. MacInnes' life is well known. He was a man related to Kipling and Stanley Baldwin and the son of the novelist Angela Thirkell (making him, as Bernard Kops said, "one of the inner Thirkells") yet who lived his life on the edge. Gay, broke, attracted to the rough and tough black culture (and rough and tough black men), yet turning in copy for middle-class magazines and some essential novels. Reading the book was a bit of a wander through Five Leaves' own list of authors. Tony Gould was the books editor of New Society (edited by Paul Barker, who edited a selection of New Society essays for us; designed by Richard Hollis, who runs an autonomous imprint within Five Leaves). The book is dedicated to Ray Gosling, who also appears regularly in the text - Ray's Personal Copy slumbers on our backlist. Bernard and Erica Kops put in regular appearances, not least because they became "Mannie and Miriam Katz" in MacInnes' Absolute Beginners. We publish a couple of Kops' books. Terry Taylor, author of Baron's Court, All Change, is quoted - though he deserved more space as he was the inspiration for one of the characters in Absolute Beginners. The photographer Terry Taylor's then interests being "jazz, soft drugs and hustling" were shared with MacInnes so it is hardly surprising their paths crossed. Terry's book has just arrived in our office, and we'll return to him soon. Even Colin Ward puts in a cameo appearance. Mind you, I imagine any publisher with books out concerning Soho, London in the 1950s or early black culture in Britain could post a similar blog, as MacInnes knew everyone.

Nigel Pickard

Nottinghamshire writer Nigel Pickard died earlier this week at the terribly young age of 45. Nigel was first published locally as a poet - his Making Sense appearing from Shoestring in 2004 (some of which would appear later in the Five Leaves' Poetry: the Nottingham collection). Nigel was also one of two poets in residence at Lowdham Book Festival one year, together with Rosie Garner. At the time he lived in Lowdham and his first novel, One, was published by Bookcase Editions from the village in 2005. One sold a surprising number of copies, many though organisations concerned with autism, a core part of the book. His second novel, Attention Deficit, was published by the Nottingham small press Weathervane, with Nigel appeared at many readings to promote the book. In his work as a local headmaster he developed his students' interest in creative writing in conjunction with First Story. His early death was a great shock to those he taught and those he knew on the local literature scene, including fellow members of Nottingham Writers' Studio. Our condolences to his family.
A fuller obituary appears on LeftLion: http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/nigel-pickard-rip/id/4072

Five Leaves' end of term knees up

Radical bookshops' history

Some parts of one's past keep creeping back... After seventeen years hard labour in a radical bookshop, together with a couple of years on the board of another shop, and thousands of pounds spent on the written works of utopian dreamers and other such reprobates, it is hard to get away. Dave Cope, of Left on the Shelf - the second hand specialists - and I have put together an incomplete listing of radical bookshops in history, together with a bibliography of books, and even passing mentions in fiction, of radical bookshops. You can find the current listings on http://www.leftontheshelfbooks.co.uk/. We are now trying to make that list as complete as we can, so any information would be welcome.

To accompany the site, I've started work on a more narrative history of radical bookshops, which will appear as a printed booklet sometime next year. With the Five Leaves Ship of State to run this will not be the last word on radical bookselling history, but it might encourage others to write something more substantial. I'd appreciate contact with anyone who has worked in radical bookselling in the past, any sources of records, any customer tales, photographs. Anything. Please send direct to me on info@fiveleaves.co.uk.

The new 2011 edition of North West Labour History Journal includes an article on the history of News from Nowhere in Liverpool, written by Mandy Vere, the matriarch of the shop. Copies are available from News from Nowhere. The bookshop pictured here is Radish, in Leeds, one of the new generation of radical shops. Both News from Nowhere and Radish, by the way, have excellent sections devoted to world music, as well as books.

Nottinghamshire Readers' Day

Pippa Hennesy writes: This year's Nottinghamshire/Nottingham Libraries Readers' Day was the first to be sponsored by a publisher (Vintage), which could have been a problem but as it turned out gave the day an interesting slant. The publisher's representatives were keen to engage with readers, as was demonstrated by the two parallel sessions I attended. In the morning, we were taken through the process of designing a book cover. It's very different from the Five Leaves process - it involves editorial and design teams and sales teams and (eventually) the author... we brief a designer and comment on what they come back with, and try to involve the author at all stages, the occasional book cover even being designed by the author. Interestingly, Vintage don't consult readers as a rule. Until yesterday, that is. They showed us seven possible covers for a set of crime fiction books by one of their writers and asked our opinions. The reaction (widely varying opinions, with the majority saying 'we don't like any of them') might have discouraged them from doing so again. Still, we at Five Leaves Towers learned a lot - expect more stunning cover designs from now on.
In the afternoon I went to a session with Alison Hennessey from Random House and one of their authors about 'The Future of Publishing'. Fascinating stuff, lots of discussion and debate. The answer is, of course, 'nobody knows'. If you ask me, there is a future for both books and e-books, but they have different futures. At the moment there isn't much to tell between them - effectively they're both containers for words. I think printed books will become 'beautiful objects' in their own right, and e-books will make much more use of the possibilities of the technology... whatever those might be. Watch this space.
Apart from that, we listened to David Lodge and a trio of historical fiction authors, talked to lots of lovely people and even sold quite a few books. We sold TWO copies of Rose Fyleman's Fairy Book (hoorah!) and two of Swimmers in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle - a sadly-neglected but absolutely beautiful novella which is currently our worst-selling book. It is my mission to change that status - buy it! you won't regret it!
Many thanks to the indomitable Sheelagh Gallagher and the invincible Jane Brierley, and the folks at Vintage, for a fantastic day.
Meanwhile, up in Fife, our J. David Simons was on the frontline at another Readers' Day.

A curious rattle bag

It was encouraging to have a nice review in the Guardian for our Maps. They got it in one by describing the book as a "curious rattle bag" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/18/maps-ross-bradshaw-review). But Chris Moss, Time Out's travel and books editor, writing in the current issue, after describing some general faults in modern travel writing said: "It's liberating... to read the essays, portraits, memoirs and travelogues gathered in this compendium. Featuring contributions from seasoned journalists and writers, including Chris Arnot, David McKie, Robert MacFarlane, John Payne and Iain Sinclair, it loosely binds 18 pieces about place that all have a cartographic element - mapping thoughts, mapping walks, mapping history - and through which ripple forms and tones not often found in the modern travel feature, such as the homage, the homily, literary criticism, social and sport history and reportage." There's more, including some particular chapters picked out, then: "All maps are palimpsests to some degree and reading Ross Bradshaw's selection is akin to peeling back layers, deciphering faded contours and, occasionally, redrawing an entire geography. If travel journalism wants to adapt to the recession, here's a direction it might follow." Reading between the lines, all things considered, I get the impression Chris Moss thinks Maps is OK really. Blush.

London anarchist bookfair 2011

Because of the vagaries of train ticket pricing, it was again cheaper to travel first class to the London for the Anarchist Bookfair, but nothing's too good for the working class. Despite the competing attraction of camping outside St Paul's, the Bookfair was mobbed. Estimates for last year suggested around 4,000 people over the day. Were there more this year? The Five Leaves meeting - part of David Rosenberg's Cable Street marathon - was in the first set of sixty talks and discussion. Despite an early start 30+ people listened in respectful silence while Dave outlined the history and detail of The Battle of Cable Street - an event largely involving people from other political traditions (Communist Party, Labour League of Youth, Independent Labour Party). The only other session I attended, however, was a packed meeting on writing and reading anarchist fiction, which perhaps suffered too much from people being respectful when there were good arguments to be had. That session benefited, as did the day itself, from the increasing international presence, with writers from Sweden and Spain taking part. After last year's appearances by John Pilger and Paul Mason, this year's "outside" speakers included the Black activist Darcus Howe and Donnacha DeLong, President of the National Union of Journalists, which again indicates that the anarchist movement is starting to be taken seriously. [Later note - but read Donnacha's comment below - no outsider she!] I suspect, however, Darcus Howe attracted more people than the two hour session on "Tenants' movements in Poland - social resistance to neo-liberal housing policy", however important the latter is.

I squatted on the Housmans stall for most of the day, which did very good trade, especially with Verso books. People were taking their politics seriously. But not too seriously. The speaker at the anarchist fiction session, DD Johnston, read a hilarious piece from his novel, about the anarchist bookfair, seeming to prove the opposite of the quote from The Poverty of Student Life that "since the anarchists will tolerate each other, they will tolerate anything".

As I left at 6.30 - the fair still in full swing - I watched the wonderful French brass band Les Judas playing in the courtyard. Emma Goldman famously said* "If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution" and the band had many people dancing. What she didn't say was that you had to dance well!

* Actually, she didn't say that at all - see http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/goldman/Features/dances_shulman.html