The Fantastic Slightly Foxed
by Andy Childs. With the publishing industry seemingly in music biz-style turmoil over the dreaded impact of digital technology and the circulations of newspapers and magazines apparently in freefall it may come as a pleasant surprise to learn that there is at least one periodical that is not only surviving in these uncertain times but [...]
God Save The Village Green
God Save the Village Green by Keith Cullen. (Setanta) Reviewed by Frank Cottrell Boyce. This is the first novel from Keith Cullen – founder of Setanta Records, purveyor of fine music to the people – and I really hope it’s not the last. It tells the story of the growing up and falling apart of [...]
Ask The Fellows Who Cut The Hay
Ask The Fellows Who Cut The Hay (Full Circle Editions ) by George Ewart Evans Review by Richard King. Romanticising our industrial heritage is an easy and often pleasurable trap to fall into. Like dreaming about what might have happened if Brian Clough had coached the national team, or wondering in awe at the scale [...]
A Year in the Woods by Colin Elford
A Year in the Woods by Colin Elford (Hamish Hamilton). Reviewed by Jon Berry It’s rare that I read a nature book that doesn’t have the swirls and bubbles of fish at its centre, but Colin Elford’s A Year in the Woods came to me highly recommended – and from someone whose life is even [...]
Tim Dee – The Running Sky
Tim Dee – The Running Sky. Review by Ceri Levy. The adage, never judge a book by its cover, is not always true or fair. If I had heeded that warning when I was a kid, I would never have bought T. Rex’s The Slider or Bowie’s Aladdin Sane on my first venture into a [...]
Fender Book Competition Winners
7 June 2010 // Books //competition
Thanks to everyone who entered the competition to win signed copies of the Fender book. The correct answer is ”Heavenly Recordings” and I’m pleased to announce that the winners are Mr Jon Watts of Reading and Mr Alex Smith of Plymouth. As soon as we get the authors signatures the books will be in the [...]
Reed Harvest
5 June 2010 // Books
by Andrew Montgomery from ‘Country’ (Cassell hardback) by Jasper Conran and Andrew Montgomery. Available at Foyles.
Fender
2 June 2010 // Books //Music
Fender; the golden age 1946 – 1970, is dedicated to the art and design of Fender guitars and amplifiers and the revolutions they inspired. Two of the authors, Paul and Martin Kelly, are dear friends of ours, scrub that, Paul & Martin are family. I first met them both back in early 1987 (or was [...]
The Unofficial Countryside
20 May 2010 // Books
Richard Mabey, The Unofficial Countryside, Introduction by Iain Sinclair, Little Toller Books, £10. review by Ken Worpole. This delightful reprint restores to public attention Richard Mabey’s pioneering study of urban and fringe nature, first published in 1973. It also comes with a characteristically left-field introduction by Iain Sinclair who twins this book with J.G.Ballard’s Concrete [...]
Words & Music
10 May 2010 // Books //Music
from Andy Childs: Words and Music on Radio 3 yesterday evening was called Take Me To The River. Radio Times said : Juliet Stevenson and Jamie Glover read poetry and prose on the theme of rivers by Wordsworth, UA Fanthorpe, Ezra Pound, John Clare and Elizabeth Jennings, with music by Tippett, Delius, Duke Ellington, Henryk [...]
Caught by the River