by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
Flood of Fire
Amitav Ghosh
John Murray £20
It is 1839, and in British India, there are fortunes to be made by exporting Indian opium to China. But tensions are mounting as the Chinese Emperor realises the damage that the drug is doing to the population. With hostilities mounting, the colonial government declares war, and British ships start sailing east from Bengal into the middle of the first Opium War. The Hind is one of the vessels requisitioned, and aboard are a motley group of travellers. Kesri Singh, a sepoy in the East India Company, leading his men, Zachary Reid, a young American sailor in search of wealth and his lost love and Shireen Modi, a widow risking her reputation to travel to China alone to find the truth about her husband’s death and recover his possessions. On the voyage, connections are come to light, and the travellers’ pasts are revealed to be as tangled together as their futures.
This is the third of Amitav Ghosh’s Booker nominated Ibis trilogy set in India and China before and during the Opium Wars, and it is as enthralling and all-consuming as the first two novels.
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison pub Bloomsbury £16.99
This story begins at the end with a scene showing a long straight road running through the fields to a little village called Lodeshill. On the road two cars lie wrecked – one wheel, upturned, still spins.
A couple have recently moved to Lodeshill from London, their marriage in difficulties. A young lad who has lived in the village all his life dreams of leaving it behind and a vagrant farm worker in flight from a bail hostel arrives on foot in the village. Their lives become intertwined. All four of them are trying to find ways to belong in the modern countryside.
Throughout the book Melissa Harrison accurately and charmingly describes the natural world and our need to belong. The suspense increases towards the end of the story as you become concerned about each of the characters you have met. Each time somebody gets into a car you wonder if they are the victims of the tragic car crash described at the beginning of the book. This is an unsentimental story of loss and love. Gill.
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
Breakfast – Morning, Noon & Night by Fern Green. Hardie Grant £18.99
We are spoilt for choice with new cookery books this month, with delicious looking Asian and Thai recipe books just in, but this one has to take the crumpet!
Breakfast, that sorely neglected meal, is the focus of this beautifully-presented and mouth-watering recipe book. With sections dedicated to ‘on toast’, ‘hungover’, ‘indulgent’, ‘baked’ and ‘for a crowd’ and featuring adventurous recipes like ‘smoked trout, ricotta and new potato rolled omelette’, sweet treats like ‘spiced Granny Smith fritters’ and global imports such as ‘Moroccan Eggs’ the owner of this wonderful book will have no excuse to reach for the cereal ever again!
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
Faber £14.99
Rachel Caine is returning to home to Cumbria from her job monitoring wolves in Idaho for the first time in six years. The Earl of Annerdale, rich and eccentric, is determined to have the country’s best wolf expert working on his pet project. And her mother is dying. The Earl offers her a job overseeing the reintroduction of grey wolves to his estate but she initially refuses. Her resistance is soon overcome, however, and Rachel soon finds herself back in the landscape of her childhood, trying to negotiate the oddities of, and protests against, the wolf project and her own uneasy relationship with her brother and the shade of her mother.
It is a tale of returning and of borders. The wolves return to their ancestral home and to their place in our imaginations. In returning to the landscape of her childhood, Rachel is able to begin to rebuild her connection to her brother, and to start to make sense of her relationship with her mother. Borders are everywhere, from the wolf border of the title, to the border between England and Scotland at a time of upheaval, and as in all Hall’s work, the thin, sometimes permeable line between human, animal and landscape.
For fans of Angela Carter, Ted Hughes, Kathleen Jamie.
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
by my_admin | 1, Jun 2015
Our next event is ‘An Afternoon with Nicola Upson’ on Saturday 27th June at 2pm.
Help us celebrate Independent Booksellers Week in style and join historical crime novelist Nicola Upson for tea and home-made cake in the bookshop garden marquee.
Nicola will speak about her acclaimed series of novels, published by Faber, featuring the real-life ‘Golden Age’ detective novelist Josephine Tey.
Praise for the Josephine Tey books:
‘A distinguished series’ P. D James.
Daily Telegraph ‘Any crime aficianado…should make room for Nicola Upson’s novels.’
Tickets £6 to include tea, cake and a voucher towards a book. Advance booking recommended.
Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. She was the winner of an Escalator/Arts Council England award in 2006 for her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, the first in a series of books to feature Golden Age detective writer, Josephine Tey. In 2008, the novel was published by Faber to wide critical acclaim, and praised by PD James as marking ‘the arrival of a new and assured talent’.
An Expert in Murder was dramatised by BBC Scotland for Woman’s Hour, and has been followed by three more novels: Angel With Two Faces; Two for Sorrow; and most recently Fear in the Sunlight (2012), described by The Financial Times as ‘a smart, playful pleasure in an increasingly adventurous series’. The fifth ‘Josephine Tey’ novel, The Death of Lucy Kyte, will be published by Faber in August 2013.
Nicola is the author of a number of non-fiction books, including Mythologies: the Sculpture of Helaine Blumenfeld (Overlook Press). She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist, with five years as crime fiction critic for the New Statesman, and is a regular contributor to BBC radio. She lives with her partner in Cambridge and Cornwall, and is currently writing the sixth book in the Josephine Tey series, and researching a standalone novel.
by my_admin | 12, May 2015
Patrick Barkham is a nature writer and Guardian journalist, and is the author of two previous critically acclaimed books, ‘The Butterfly Isles’ and ‘Badgerlands’. ‘Coastlines’ traces the story of the most beautiful areas of the British coast, preserved for us by the National Trust, and the struggle to protect this natural heritage from human destruction and tidal erosion.
Patrick proves a most engaging and knowledgeable companion, as he walks 742 miles of beaches and coastal paths, and reflects on what it means for us to live in a country which is ‘more edge than middle’. Mixing chatty personal recollections and fascinating historical nuggets with evocative, lyrical passages on natural history and geology, ‘Coastlines’ is an enjoyably eloquent read, and I cannot wait to hear more coastal tales when Patrick appears at our Sussex Produce Company Author Supper in Steyning on April 15th. Gudrun
by my_admin | 13, Apr 2015
An Author Supper with nature writer and Guardian journalist Patrick Barkham to celebrate the release of his book ‘Coastlines’.
Tickets £29 to include a complimentary copy of Patrick’s book, a delicious 2 course meal, and of course a fascinating talk by Patrick, sharing the story of his 742 mile journey around the stretches of British coast which are protected by The National Trust. Patrick’s previous two critically acclaimed books were ‘Badgerlands’ and ‘The Butterfly Isles’, so he really is a treasure trove of information on all things natural – get your questions ready!
by my_admin | 13, Apr 2015
Celebrating the release of his latest thriller ‘You Are Dead’.
On Thursday 28th May at 7.30 pm, we are delighted to present a very special evening with the always-entertaining master of suspense, Peter James, celebrating the release of the latest instalment in his bestselling series featuring DCI Roy Grace. Tickets £15 to include a copy of ‘You Are Dead’ in hardback. Peter is always happy to sign books after his talk. Tickets are now available from the bookshop, and can be reserved over the phone. Licensed bar. Venue – The Steyning Grammar School Theatre at Shooting Field, Steyning.
A pictorial look back at this event
