BOOKS

My Year of Reading Welshly is a pleasant journey through 52 books from Wales and about Wales. From novels to poetry to non-fiction, I explore an eclectic spread of books published over the last 100 years. It’s not just about mines and farming (though there are plenty of those), but a window onto Welsh culture in all its complexity and diversity, and how these books eveal modern Wales and speak to universal themes of love, social struggle and identity.  

During the long years of the Second World War, tea remained the cornerstone of British hospitality, drunk and enjoyed by civilians and members of the armed forces alike. While There Is Tea There Is Hope This celebrates the power of tea as a national symbol and act of defiance during Britain’s darkest hour. Beautifully illustrated with rich visual material from Imperial War Museums and filled with wartime ephemera, historic photographs and war-era artwork, plus vintage baking recipes to enjoy. More details.

Studios of Their Own travels around the world examining the unique spaces, habits and rituals of over 50 famous artists. From Picasso, to Hockney, to Caravaggio, discover the eclectic creative spaces used by artistic visionaries, brought to life with evocative illustrations. Crossing centuries, continents and genres, the book explores these artists’ workspaces and habits. How do they practise their craft? What do they look for in a studio? Do they work in silence or with music… in a shared space or in solitude? How do they harness the light? And how do their physical spaces affect and inspire their output? More details.

100 Words for Rain: And everything else you need to know about the British weather. The British obsession with weather and the words we use to describe it have come to define us. We talk about it endlessly ­– five whole months of our lives to be precise. We use it to start conversations with complete strangers. It affects our moods, shopping habits and even how we vote. Packed with information you’ll want to share about this most important subject. More details.

 

The Book Lover's Almanac: A Year of Literary Events, Letters, Scandals and Plot Twists. Enjoy daily distraction with this engaging Almanac. Each date is assigned one or more literary connections. Book lovers will find extracts from authors’ diaries and letters, chance upon the narrative twists and transformative moments in their favourite novels, discover the winners of prestigious awards and losers of creative squabbles, and the delivery of manuscript, first publication and performance. More details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Book Lover’s Joke Book is the funniest book about books you’ll ever read. There are rib-ticklers for typographers, crackers for critics, and badly foxed quips about antiquarian bookshops. Here too are the best literary April Fool’s (the joke’s on you), rejection letters (the joke’s on the publisher), cookbook jests (the joke’s a bit crumby) and wardrobe puns (the joke’s Narnia business). More details.

 

 A tour around the world examining the unique spaces, habits and rituals in which famous writers created their most notable works. More details.

Snapshots of the most exciting, unusual and noteworthy art events from around the world and throughout history through direct testimonies, eyewitness accounts and contemporary chroniclers. More details.

Bringing together much-loved masterpieces with exciting new works, this accessible and inspiring guide is a celebration of classical music. Discussing pieces ranging from Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony to the scores for Avatar and Assassin’s Creed, each entry puts the piece of music into context, providing fascinating insights into the inspirations behind each work and enhancing your listening experience. More details.

Full of age-appropriate reading suggestions and ideas to encourage tricky readers, discover how to instill one of life’s greatest skills: curiosity and a lifelong love of learning. Complete with dedicated contributions from Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen, Abi Elphinstone, Cressida Cowell, Hollie McNish, Ken Wilson-Max and Julia Eccleshare, this title taps into an increasing concern about anti-screen activities and return to traditional forms of creative thinking. More details.

This fascinating miscellany of menus from around the world will educate as well as entertain, delighting both avid foodies and the general reader. Each menu provides an insight into its particular historical moment – from the typical food on offer in a nineteenth-century workhouse to the opulence of George IV’s gargantuan coronation dinner. Some menus are linked with a specific and unforgettable event such as The Hindenburg’s last flight menu or the variety of meals on offer for First, Second and Third Class passengers on board RMS Titanic, while others give an insight into sport, such as the 1963 FA Cup Final Dinner or transport and travel with the luxury lunch on board the Orient Express. Also included are literary occasions like Charles’ Dickens 1868 dinner at Delmonicos in New York as well as the purely fictional and fantastical fare of Ratty’s picnic in The Wind in the Willows. More details.

 

Behind every great writer there is a beloved pet, providing inspiration in life and in death, and companionship in what is often a lonely working existence. They also offer practical services, such as personal protection, although they may sometimes eat first drafts, or bite visitors. This book salutes all of the cats and dogs, ravens and budgerigars, monkeys and guinea pigs, wombats, turtles, and two laughing jackasses, who enriched the lives of their masters and mistresses, sat on their keyboards, slept in their beds, and occasionally provided the creative spark for their stories and poems. More details.

Interest in sheds has grown over recent years, with man caves'and she sheds becoming part of the garden landscape, either for hobby or office use, a summer house or place to escape. Television shows, such as George Clarke's Amazing Spaces, along with the Shed of the Year competition have contributed to this rise in popularity. However, many of the shed books on the market have just been picture books, showing the wide variety and themes of sheds around the country/world. The Haynes Shed Manual is a practical, step-by-step guide with wide-covering advice on all aspects of planning and building sheds. Written by two shed experts, it will appeal to the enthusiastic DIYer. More details.

Books; reading, collecting and the physical housing of them has brought the book-lover joy – and stress – for centuries. Fascinated writers have tried to capture the particular relationships we form with our library, and the desperate troubles we will undergo to preserve it. With Alex Johnson as your guide, immerse yourself in this eclectic anthology and hear from an iconic Prime Minister musing over the best way to store your books and an illustrious US President explaining the best works to read outdoors. Enjoy serious speculations on the psychological implications of reading from a 19th century philosopher, and less serious ones concerning the predicament of dispensing with unwanted volumes or the danger of letting children (the ‘enemies of books’) near your collection. More details.

 

Book Towns takes readers on a richly illustrated tour of the 40 semi-officially recognized literary towns around the world and outlines the history and development of each community, and offers practical travel advice. Many Book Towns have emerged in areas of marked attraction, such as Ureña in Spain or Fjaerland in Norway, where bookshops have been set up in buildings including former ferry waiting rooms and banks. More details.

Lists that make you smile, make you wonder, and see titles together in entirely new ways. From Bin Laden’s bookshelf to the books most frequently left in hotels, from prisoners’ favourite books to MPs’ most borrowed books, these lists are proof that a person’s bookcase tells you everything you need to know about them, and sometimes more besides. Perfect for bibliophiles looking to expand their bookshelves or to learn what their bookcase says about them. More details.

 

 

Whether by bike in Chicago or by donkey in Colombia, librarians all over the world are coming up with astonishingly ingenious ways of ensuring their books reach the people who need them. Many of these new libraries function as community centres, and assist their members in overcoming economic, social and political barriers. Others provide an unexpected dose of culture for travellers and commuters – or even prisoners. Elsewhere, architects are designing monumental public libraries without walls, and prefabricated home libraries that can be assembled in an ordinary back garden. Whether you’re at an airport, a park, a café or in the wilds, you can still find just the right book – all for free. More details.

 

 

 

A title that will appeal to those interested in book culture as well as furniture and interior design, Bookshelf is the first publication to take bookshelf design as its subject. From the conceptual Read-Unread Bookshelf (which weighs books read against those still to be started) to the multi-function Trick (a unit that transforms from shelf-space into a table and two chairs), Bookshelf presents over 200 inventive and experimental shelving designs in more than 400 colour illustrations that are sure to inspire. More details.

 

 

 

Featuring shedworkers and shedbuilders from around the world who are leading the alternative workplace revolution, Shedworking looks at why having a shed office is a greener way of working, improves the work-life balance, and accelerates one's productivity. Inspired by the author‘s Shedworking website, which has been internationally acclaimed for the groundbreaking scale of its architectural coverage, the book features many previously unpublished images of garden offices and shed-like atmospheres: offices on roofs, sheds inside "traditional" offices, and even sheds on wheels, as well as cutting-edge Le Corbusier-designed models for the back garden, all-glass shed offices, and buildings "built" using living trees. Along the way it offers a whistle-stop tour of famous sheds from Pliny the Younger‘s summerhouse and the retreats of 19th-century composers Edvard Grieg and Gustav Mahler to award-winning 21st-century fantasy writer Neil Gaiman's gazebo. In short, Shedworking offers a manifesto for those wanting to change their working lives for the better and go to work in the garden. More details.

 

Personal accounts of York's theatres and cinemas 1900 - 1960. More details.