Five Leaves Bookshop. No cause for alarm.

Little time to post on the blog the last period... the bookshop has swamped us. Here's a nice story in the local paper - http://www.nottinghampost.com/Independent-book-shop-fresh-chapter-retail-city/story-19922880-detail/story.html. I'd never thought of myself as a businessman before. I'd better join the Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce and buy a tie and a razor. But things are moving along - all staff appointed, computing equipment ordered, half the books already on order, events starting to take shape and it is ages away. One month before we open. Easy peasy. AAARGH - opening time is only a month away! Panic!! Panic!!

Five Leaves is opening a bookshop in Nottingham!

Press Release: immediate

New independent bookshop to open in Nottingham

The Nottingham-based publisher, Five Leaves is to open a bookshop in Nottingham, the first independent bookshop in the city since 2000.

The bookshop will open in mid-November at 14a Long Row, opposite the Tourist Information Centre, in premises that have been used as an art gallery and a café and will trade under the name Five Leaves Bookshop.

Ross Bradshaw, owner of Five Leaves, said “When I came to Nottingham in the late 70s there were several independent bookshops and in subsequent years various chains were represented, but for many years there has only been Waterstones in the city centre. It's a great shop but there's plenty room for an independent as well.”

The new bookshop will specialise in history, politics and landscape; fiction and poetry; lesbian and gay books; and international writing, with an emphasis on independent publishers

Ross Bradshaw added “Nottinghamshire has a flourishing literature scene, with more professional writers than ever and a very active events programme including the longstanding Lowdham Book Festival which I've been involved with since the start. The bookshop will provide another focus and we will work with local and national writers to build the shop's own programme. The premises became available suddenly and we are working hard to open by mid-November. Several of our own writers and other local publishers are pitching in to help.”

Initial events will include a memorial evening for the Nobel Literature Prize winner Seamus Heaney and a speaker from the peace movement in Israel.

One of Nottingham's leading writers, Jon McGregor, said “I'm hugely excited at the prospect of a new independent bookshop in Nottingham. Despite the impact of online retailing, there is still a place for the personalised experience of a well-run independent bookshop; not just as a place to buy a book, but as the hub for a community of readers and writers. Ross Bradshaw has many years of experience in publishing and bookselling, and I'm sure will make a fine job of it; I'm equally sure that Nottingham's thriving community of writers and readers will support the venture from day one."

The Five Leaves Bookshop will complement other local independents including The Bookcase in Lowdham and the graphic novel specialists Page 45 in Nottingham city centre.

For further information please contact Ross Bradshaw, info@fiveleaves.co.uk, 0115 9895465 (w) 0115 9693597 (h).

Background

Ross Bradshaw worked at Mushroom Bookshop in Nottingham from 1979-1995 (the shop closed in 2000) and since then has run Five Leaves Publications, initially part-time while working as Nottinghamshire County Council's literature office, then full time. He is a trustee of the East Midlands Book Award and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. Five Leaves jointly runs the Lowdham Book Festival with The Bookcase in Lowdham, the biggest book festival in the region. Together with Housmans Bookshop in London, Five Leaves established the London Radical Book Fair in 2012.

Five Leaves Publications forthcoming books include a collection of essays on Crime, a biography of the architectural writer Ian Nairn and A Brief History of Whistling by Nottingham writers John Lucas and Allan Chatburn.

Five Leaves Bookshop will be linked to the social enterprise Howie-Smith Project, which supports small creative enterprises in Nottingham.

The Five Leaves Bookshop will open for trading on 9^th November, but there will be a grand opening on 16^th November with events in the shop all day.

ENDS

Nairn night at the LRB

Ian Nairn: Words in Place. With Gillian Darley, David McKie and Owen Hatherley

Tuesday 19 November at 7.00 p.m. 

Ian Nairn erupted onto the architectural scene in 1955 with the publication of The Architectural Review issue ‘Outrage’. A mathematician by training, and a former RAF pilot with no formal architectural education, Nairn’s visceral and savage attack on the blandness of post-war British design struck an immediate chord with a surprisingly diverse array of traditionalists and modernists, and gave rise to a new concept: that of ‘Subtopia’. Gillian Darley and David McKie’s study of Nairn - Ian Nairn: Words in Place – published by Five Leaves, introduces to a new generation an architectural critic whose work has influenced writers and critics such as J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Jonathan Meades, who once described Nairn as ‘a great poet of the metropolis’. Gillian Darley and David McKie will be discussing Ian Nairn’s life and work, and Owen Hatherley, author of A New Kind of Bleakand A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain will be in the chair.

Full details: 

http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/product.php?productid=65337&cat=0&page=1

Calvert Journal and Yiddish writers

Calvert Journal is new to me, but it is an ezine I'll need to watch out for. Not only has Owen Hatherley written about the Moscow Metro (a joy for anyone to see) but he has written a long review of the Five Leaves book From Revolution to Repression - Soviet Yiddish writing 1917-1952 in which is included some of the early Chagall illustrations reprinted from the book. (I mention them as one of the illos appears in the current Chagall exhibition in Liverpool, but is wrongly attributed there!). The journal specialises in Russian art and life.
We are very pleased with the review - perhaps too long to reprint here, other than the start: Current events must make the recent opening of a Museum of Tolerance in Moscow look like a bad joke. The museum in fact concentrates on a quite specific area of “tolerance” — the experience of Russian Jews. As ever, the word “tolerance” suggests a certain guilty conscience. Historically, Russia's Jews were perhaps the most visible minority in a territory which has always been a multiplicity of different groups, languages and peoples, entirely inadequately subsumed under the term “Russian”. Even after the break-up of the USSR, the Russian Federation still includes many autonomous republics and national territories inherited from the old Russian Federated Soviet Republic. A new book, From Revolution to Repression: Soviet Yiddish Writing, 1917-52 (Five Leaves Press), edited by the late Yiddishist Joseph Sherman, is a reminder of the distinctive culture that arose in this space — and a reminder of why some would prefer to forget it.
The whole review is on http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/1427/owen-hatherley-revolution-to-repression-yiddish-literature.
Hatherley seems to suddenly be in Five Leaves' orbit as he is also a contributor to our forthcoming book on Ian Nairn.
From Revolution to Repression has sold its first printing, but the reprint will be through very shortly.

Ian Nairn book now available for pre-order

Colin Ward goes electric

There's a minor dispute at Five Leaves Towers. We are split between thinking Colin Ward would have grasped the possibility of ebooks or he would have been quite uninterested. No matter, we've just put the short memorial volume to Colin up as an ebook. Colin was an educator, an anarchist and an inspiration for much of what we do at Five Leaves, so it would have been churlish to let this volume go out of print. The booklet sold, we think, about 600 copies, reflecting how well Colin was regarded in all his areas of interest.
Here it is as an ebook: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembering-Colin-Ward-ebook/dp/B00EV44G2E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378112112&sr=1-1&keywords=remembering+colin+ward.
Sorry about the fuzzy illustration here - I'll try to get a better one.

An insightful reading but definitely

I don't speak German, so this is a review for any German speakers. I did put it in Google translate, which gave a very good translation, with the amusing last words being - "An insightful reading but definitely". One to include on the back of any reprint perhaps. The review appeared in the newsletter of the Jazz Institute Darmstadt.

Peter Vacher schreibt seit den 1970er Jahren für britische Jazzmagazine wie Jazz Journal und andere. In "Mixed Messages" hat er einundzwanzig Interviews mit amerikanischen Jazzmusikern zusammengefasst, die teils bekannter, weitgehend aber auch gar nicht so bekannt sind, die meisten von ihnen Musiker der älteren Generation, fast alle tätig im Genre des traditionellen oder des swingenden Mainstream-Jazz.

Der Posaunist Louis Nelson erzählt über das New Orleans der 1930er und 1940er Jahre; der Bassist Norman Keenan über die Bands von Tiny Bradshaw und Lucky Millinder. Der Trompeter Gerald Wilson spricht über Einflüsse, Arrangementkonzepte und die Szene in Los Angeles, der Trompeter Fip Ricard über Territory Bands und Count Basie.

Ruby Braff äußert sich über Boston, den Jazz im Allgemeinen und Wynton Marsalis; Buster Cooper über seine Zeit mit Lionel Hampton und Duke Ellington. Ellington spielt auch im Interview mit dem Trompeter Bill Berry eine große Rolle, Hampton und Basie wiederum in den Erzählungen des Posaunisten Benny Powell.

Der Saxophonist Plas Johnson erzählt über den "Chitlin' Circuit", den er mit Johnny Otis und anderen Bands tourte, der Pianist Ace Carter über die Jazzszene in Cleveland, Ohio. Der Saxophonist Herman Riley berichtet über sein Leben und seine Arbeit in New Orleans und Los Angeles, der Saxophonist Lanny Morgan über seine Arbeit mit Maynard Ferguson.

Der Pianist Ellis Marsalis spricht über die moderne Jazzszene in New Orleans; der Saxophonist Houston Person über Orgel-Saxophon-Combos und seine Zusammenarbeit mit Etta Jones. Der Posaunist Tom Artin erzählt von seinen Erfahrungen auf der traditionellen Jazzszene der USA, der Trompeter von der Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band und einem Engagement mit Bobby Short.

Der Bassist Rufus Reid nennt J.J. Johnson als role model, der Saxophonist John Stubblefield reflektiert über eine Karriere zwischen Don Byas, Charles Mingus und AACM. Judy Carmichael erzählt, wie sie dazu kam, Stride-Pianistin zu werden, Tardo Hammer über den Einfluss Lennie Tristanos. Der Trompeter Byron Stripling schließlich sagt, was er von Clark Terry lernte, wie es war mit Count Basie zu spielen, und warum die Jazzpädagogik ein wichtiges Instrument sei, das Wissen der großen Jazzmusiker weiterzureichen.

"Mixed Messages" ist eine abwechslungsreiche Sammlung von Erinnerungen an jazzmusikalische Aktivitäten, persönliche Erlebnisse und musikalische Erfahrungen. So "mixed", wie der Buchtitel impliziert, sind die Botschaften der darin portraitierten Musiker allerdings gar nicht, dafür ist das stilistische Spektrum denn doch zu stark auf Musiker des swingenden Jazz beschränkt. Eine erkenntnisreiche Lektüre aber auf jeden Fall.

Wolfram Knauer (August 2013)