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You are here: Home / Archives for London

Carnival of the Lost by Kieran Larwood ill. Sam Usher

February 23, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 23 Feb 2022

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“A page-turning riot that brings Victorian London to life in all its gruesome, grimy glory. Kieran Larwood’s brilliant writing is so evocative that you can practically smell the streets, and it’s easy to get swept up in the story and lose track of time.” BookTrust

A murky, carnivalesque world of intrigue, unexpected friendships and mysteries solved in the first of a new series from the author of The (Podkin One-Ear) Five Realms books.

Sheba the wolf girl joins an unusual troupe of performers that includes Pyewacket, a witch’s imp, Gigantus the giant, and Sister Moon, a knife thrower. For the first time in her life she feels she might make true friends, and learn a real stage craft. But soon that’s not all she has to think about… Children are being sucked into the Thames and there have been strange sightings of a mechanical monster. The carnival troupe know first-hand that looks only tell half a story – they become determined to find these forgotten children. Perhaps they will unravel the mystery that has defied even the law!

Illustrated with black and white artwork by Sam Usher. “Sam has done an amazing job at bringing them to life. His pen and ink drawings really capture the atmosphere. The characters are all spot on, and the way he draws Victorian architecture is incredible. He really was the perfect choice to illustrate Carnival.”

Read an interview with the author on ReadingZone.

A second title in this new series is scheduled for July this year (2022) and a third in early 2023.

Follow the author on Instagram:

 

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, Fiction Tagged With: adventure, historical, London, Victorian

Edie and the Box of Flits by Kate Wilkinson ill. Joe Berger

July 12, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

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Imagine having a magical box of winged people that only children can see.

When eleven-year-old Edie Winter finds a mysterious box on the London Underground, she’s amazed to discover that it’s home to a family of Flits – tiny winged people. But Impy, Speckle and Nid need Edie’s help. Not only do they need supplies (rice crispies, sugar sprinkles, digestive biscuits and raisins) and someone to look after them, but their brother Jot has run away and they need Edie’s help to find him. Set against the backdrop of London and its Underground network, the novel is a story about friendship, family and noticing the little things in life. With delightful black-and-white illustrations by animator, cartoonist and illustrator Joe Berger.

Follow Joe Berger on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_joeberger/

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: found, London, miniature, tiny, underground, winged

My Brother Is A Superhero

July 8, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

Solomons

Nosy Crow is excited about My Brother Is A Superhero by David Solomons, which received its launch in the impressive Map Area of City Hall last night.
It has to be admitted that the book has been given fantastic branding. The jacket design by Picked Ink‘s Laura Ellen Andersen (artwork) and Rob Biddulph (typography) is eye-catching, designed to appeal to its core 9-14 audience, and the publisher has managed to receive a book jacket quote from Steve Coogan – “You’ll laugh until you fall out of your tree house”.

According to Kate Wilson, Nosy Crow MD,  the books’  first print run is ‘frighteningly big’. Several foreign rights have already been sold. Dominic Kingston, Nosy Crow’s publicity manager, tells me the book is being heavily promoted in gaming magazines.

David Solomons is a screenwriter (with the screenplay for Five Children And It amongst his credits). This is his first novel.

Author signing

The Map Area, City Hall

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: City Hall, event, launch, London, party

How About: Little Soldier + Shadow Of The Zeppelin

December 18, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

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2014 has been a significant year for Bernard Ashley.
It was 40 years ago that his first novel, The Trouble With Donovan Croft, was published.
And Orchard Books celebrated the 15th anniversary of Little Soldier by reissuing it with a new cover design, at the same time as publishing a brand new novel, set during WW1, Shadow Of The Zeppelin.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, How About Tagged With: Africa, London, war, WW1

Nomad Books – Indie Bookshops Feature #9

June 20, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Nomad Books on the Fulham Road is a large independent bookshop with a cafe and basement room that can be hired for functions.

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Its children’s section is particularly spacious and impressive – no surprise really, as it is currently overseen and managed by a bookseller who previously worked for the Lion and Unicorn children’s bookshop. There are storytelling sessions each Monday and Friday afternoon.

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Look at this wonderful display table of World Cup related titles:

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I had paid my first visit to the new Foyles flagship store the previous evening and whilst being on the whole impressed I lamented the absence of comfortable seating (the new Foyles has only uncushioned backless benches to sit down on). So I was very pleased to see that at Nomad Books reader and browser comfort is given high priority:

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It was late in the afternoon on the day of my visit and the shop was in the middle of a busy week, and in between two significant events.

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This ninth indie bookshop visit had been difficult to pre-arrange, as the email address advertised on the website proved not to be the email address that is checked by staff. In the end, as I was in the area, I did what I have not done previously, and turned up unannounced. Apart from not having heard of the ACHUKA blog before, the counter staff were perfectly happy – when they eventually tracked down my original email (sent multiple times) – to let me spend some time in sucking up the vibe and taking photos.

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Nomad Books was opened in 1990 by Harriet, who remains an active owner. Acc0rding the the site’s staffing page, the shop is managed on a day-to-day basis by Andrew. There are five other members of staff listed and certainly something that struck me on my visit was the number of people on site (probably double that of a similar sized Waterstones): this included Hannah on the cafe counter, and a cleaner who was busy dusting and tidying.

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I liked the care and thought given to the various book displays.

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And the way in which, as in all good independent bookshops, a title catches the eye that you have not come across or even necessarily been aware of before:

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One of the booksellers, Mark, has a background in graphic design, and he conducts a drawing workshop each week, downstairs in the Reading Room:

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The cafe is spacious (plenty of room for pushchairs) and well-frequented, with daily papers provided.

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The remaining photos will give you a further feel for this really pleasingly furnished bookshop.

Definitely a must-visit whenever you are near the Fulham Road.

Nearest underground: Parsons Green

But also a pleasant stroll from Fulham Broadway.

The shop stocks just the right amount of secondary merchandise…

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But the books hold centre stage…

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Filed Under: Books, Bookshops Tagged With: bookseller, bookshop, Fulham, independent, London

Roger Mayne| Guardian Obit.

June 14, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

he saw himself as having come late to the Cartier-Bresson idiom, a consolidator rather than an innovator. They shared the style of “concerned” social documentary photography, taking street pictures with human subjects and applying a classical black-and-white composition to them.

via Roger Mayne obituary | Art and design | The Guardian.

Filed Under: Photography/Art Tagged With: Cartier-Bresson, Devon, London, obituaries, obituary, scene, street

Roger Mayne | The Times Obit.

June 14, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Roger Mayne, photographer, was born on May 5, 1929. He died of a heart attack on June 7, 2014, aged 85

via Roger Mayne | The Times.

Filed Under: Photography/Art Tagged With: Devon, London, obituaries, obituary, photographer

Slightly Foxed – Indie Bookshop Feature #7

April 14, 2014 By achuka 4 Comments

SlightlyFoxed

Slightly Foxed on the Gloucester Road could not be easier to find. Come out of Gloucester Road tube station, turn right, and you will see it on a corner on the opposite side of the street.

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There had been a very well-regarded second-hand bookshop here for many years (known simply as Gloucester Road Bookshop) before the niche publisher, Slightly Foxed, celebrated their sixth successful year by taking it over in 2009. Since being taken over the shop now sells new books as well as old.

Unusually for an independent bookshop, the Slightly Foxed website is excellent and kept right up-to-date. At the time of my visit, a newly-appointed assistant manager, Charlotte Colwill, who had been in post for less than a month, was already included on the website’s informative staff info page. Charlotte had been appointed to take over from Aimi Gallienne, who is leaving the shop to have a baby but plans to return, albeit in a different role.

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The shop is managed by Tony Smith, who began his bookselling career at Hall’s second-hand bookshop in Tunbridge Wells. He was reading English Literature at York University and the vacation job meant he could find texts for his course and be paid as well. Tony began working there in 1987, just after the death of well-known antiquarian bookseller Harry Pratley, who had been at Hall’s for many years and whose personal collection was sold at Sotheby’s for more than £3 million.

Smith graduated in 1989, but continued working at Hall’s until 1994, when he enrolled on a diploma course in antiquarian bookselling at UCL, run by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. The course required work experience and Smith approached Heywood Hill, whose manager, John Saumarez Smith, he already knew from his buying tours in the South East. As luck or fate had it, a Heywood Hill bookseller  had just left and Tony found his fortnight’s work experience turned into a full-time job.

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He stayed at Heywood Hill for nearly fifteen years, and clearly remembers his time there fondly. “The customers at Heywood Hill were tremendously loyal and enjoyed the atmosphere of a literary cocktail party deftly managed by John. The staff were notable for their steadfastness (John was there for 43 years and two of my colleagues clocked up over 20 years each). We each had our enthusiasms and provided a bespoke service to a wide-ranging clientele from Hong Kong, Sydney, Santiago, New York and all parts of the UK.”

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John Saumarez Smith had left Heywood Hill in 2008. As a cousin of John Murray, he was acquainted with Gail Pirkis,  an editor at John Murray before leaving to set up Slightly Foxed, the literary quarterly. John also knew Nick Dennys, a nephew of Graham Greene, owner of the Gloucester Road bookshop, who was keen to move out of London at just the point when Slightly Foxed was looking to own a bookshop. John brought things together and Gail offered Tony the role of manager, which he eagerly accepted.

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Tony leaves new stock selection to his assistant manager, and concentrates on curating the second-hand and antiquarian stock. The high-ceilinged, big-windowed ground-floor of the bookshop is full of light, with its corner aspect allowing it to suck in sunlight from two directions. In contrast, the basement, where the majority of second-hand titles are shelved, gets no natural light at all – but the artificial lighting illuminates the stock very invitingly (and that can’t be said for a lot of second-hand bookshop basements).

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“One of the best things about my job,” Tony says,  “is the unpredictability of when and where the stock will come. I never know if the next phone call, email or visitor will lead to the chance to make an offer on some wonderful books.” The shop is situated in an affluent, bookish neighbourhood and this means that he can be selective in what he buys. “Any independent bookshop’s stock will reflect the enthusiasms and prejudices of its staff and this bookshop is no exception. I buy all the second hand and antiquarian stock and continue the routine we inherited from the Gloucester Road bookshop of marking the books with a letter code to identify how long it has been here. When a section is tired or overflowing, any of us can mark down the oldest stock to try to encourage the customers to buy it. I don’t consider my pricing to be the highest in the business – far from it – but, clearly, if the customers have been refusing my idea of its worth for six months or a year, then it needs to come down and be turned over.”

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On the afternoon of my visit there was a varied mix of sporadic visitors. One lady was looking for a black-and-white A-Z. A man checked the art stock downstairs, but had been drawn into the shop by a title in the window display, which he asked to see before leaving. He popped back outside to point to it, so that Charlotte (pictured below) could fetch the right one. Book sold!

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“The shop windows are a useful way of informing passers-by of the range and depth of our stock,” says Tony. “They are changed at least once a week. We also have shelves of £1 books which we put out on the pavement in good weather which also help to stop people in their tracks. It’s all part of making the shop as attractive and inviting as possible. I believe in bookshop bookselling, directly sharing enthusiasms with the customers, and would be sad if that ever came to an end in this country.”
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The shop continues to be owned by Slightly Foxed publishing company, which is now much more than merely a publisher of a literary quarterly. The shop stocks back issues of the magazine, and also copies of the Slightly Foxed growing catalogue of books. Tony’s own favourite is A House in Flanders by Michael Jenkins, a love letter to the magic of France.
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The synergy between shop and publisher is one reason the website is so impressive. As Tony puts it, “We benefit from the association and have shared the costs as the websites (shop and publisher have two separate but connected sites) have changed and developed. We try to make the online experience as attractive and simple as possible.”
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The shop has been Slightly Foxed for five years now. The quarterly, on the other hand, celebrates its 10th birthday this year.The publisher’s website says, “During the past decade we’ve acquired enthusiastic readers all over the globe, and we’re delighted to say that we still have a good number who’ve been with us since our very first issue. Once people start taking Slightly Foxed they tend to become addicted… Perhaps this is because Slightly Foxed is unashamedly about enjoyment – 96 entertainingly written and elegantly illustrated pages of personal recommendations for books that have influenced, touched or perhaps simply amused the people who write about them – the kind of books people keep beside their beds or take down from their shelves from time to time, just for the pleasure of re-reading them. It’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine, introducing its readers to forgotten books and giving them refreshing new angles on old favourites.”Pick up a back copy when you pay the bookshop a visit, or go online and order the latest issue.
SlightlyFoxedMag

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The shop also stocks all titles published so far in handsome limited-edition reissues of the ‘Carey family’ series of children’s books by Ronald Welch, who won the Carnegie Medal in 1956 for the first title in the series. Altogether there are twelve titles in the sequence, which follows one family through from the time of the Third Crusade in the 12th century to the Great War at the start of the 20th century. The fourth title in the series was published last month.  See this page for the schedule for the remainder of the series.

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In a nice touch, the tabletop display that greets you on entering the bookshop is garnished with a bouquet of flowers.

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Bookshops Tagged With: bookseller, bookshop, Gloucester Road, independent, London, quarterly, readers

Compact Voigtlander Primes Trio

March 27, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Leica photographer, Matthew Osborne, on his three prime Voigtlander lenses of choice, and on his new acquisition, 1958 Leica M2 35mm film camera…

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My lens choice
Voigtlander Color Skopar 35mm f2.5 ii – Super compact pancake lens for street photography
Voigtlander Nokton Classic 40mm f1.4 – Compact and perfect for portraits and low light photography
Voigtlander Super Wide Heliar 15mm f4.5 – Wide angle for environmental street photography showing the people in their surroundings

My Ona camera bag still had space and I wanted to take a film camera. I packed a Nikon FM SLR with a Rollei Planar 50mm f1.8 lens attached. The Nikon FM did well but I lusted after Leica film. When I got home I ordered a 1958 Leica M2 35mm film camera. My camera bag is now complete. Three camera bodies covering film photography and digital photography (Leica M2, M8, M9) and three compact lenses covering all I need (15f4.5, 35f2.5, 40f1.4).

via Compact Voigtlander Primes Trio | Matthew Osborne Photography.

Filed Under: Photography/Art Tagged With: film, Leica, lens, lenses, London, Voigtlander

The Gentle Author’s Piccadilly Pub Crawl | Spitalfields Life

February 2, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Piccadilly Pub Crawl

Follow the link for more photos of traditional London pubs

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/02/02/the-gentle-authors-piccadilly-pub-crawl/

Filed Under: Blog, Photography/Art Tagged With: London, photography, photos, Piccadilly, pubs

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