If you're in the USA, UK or Canada, look out for Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, publishing in hardcover in the next few days. It's a charming first novel by Helen Simonson starring retired Major Ernest Pettigrew and Mrs Jasmina Ali, widowed owner of the village shop. Set in a small country village in the south of England, the author absolutely nails the quintessentially English characters and setting, but the story evolves into something deeper than the anticipated microcosm of village life and prejudices. While very different to The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society or The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, readers of either of these are likely to appreciate Major Pettigrew's outlook on life.
On closing the book I was seriously tempted to start a petition begging Ms Simonson to write a cozy mystery series starring the Major and Mrs Ali, who would make a fine pair of sleuths solving crimes with the help of copious cups of good tea and Kipling quotes;
but, on reflection, I agree with her that it's better to "leave them alone to stroll the cliff tops of Sussex and sit down every Sunday to tea and books" - so instead I will shelve Major Pettigrew close at hand for rereading and lending to friends, and eagerly await her next book!
You can read more about Major Pettigrew, including an excerpt and exclusive interview with Helen Simonson here.
Another book that manages to get under the skin of life in small-town England is Louis de Berniere's Notwithstanding: Stories from an English Village, recently released in the UK but not yet available elsewhere as far as I know. I was fortunate to happen across some of these stories being read on BBC Radio 4'sBook at Bedtime a few weeks ago and loved all five that were broadcast. Sadly, the recordings are no longer available, but the book is well worth seeking out by anglophiles and lovers of a story well told.
By Maja Djikic, Ph.D. posted at OnFiction.....
"You make me leave the house hungry and unshowered, clutching your covers, one foot barely before the other. The little voyage from my house to the office a thousand days long. When the life of your words is too much to bear I halt, breathe, and try to hush the background buzz of people and cars and feet all striding confidently somewhere. I abandon your words to my mind, I let them invade me. I devour them one by one, or in dozens, or in herds and flocks and floods. Suck on them like on roasted ribs, turning them this way and that in my mouth, and when nothing is left, lick my fingers with heavy joy. You make me stop on the street, on the corner, on the stairs - perhaps sit shielded from the wind in some building, on my way to somewhere, now I forget where... You make me almost perish under the wheels of a brand new pick-up truck (No need to yell, Mister, can't you see I'm in love?). I admonish myself for wanting to flare ahead - wanting to have all of your words all at once; chide myself for losing the most delicious details in my great hunger. I cover the next paragraph, the following page with my palm and laugh at myself for with giddiness of a child knowing she will have her cake, and have it, and have it, and will have her cake and eat it too. I finish you (as if there is such a thing, an end of you) sitting in my office. And then close your covers and smile - all that, all that, before my morning coffee."
Which leaves me with just one question - what book are you loving at the moment?
Posted At : February 1, 2010 8:46 AM
Related Categories:
eBooks, Davina, News
Update Feb 5: Scott Westerfeld's article in the Guardian (UK) summarizes the whole contretemps in one easy to digest article.
Update Feb 4: Truepenny's blog is a great starting point for an update on what's been happening. It includes commentary and links to a follow up letter from Macmillan CEO John Sargent; and an excellent post from Joseph E. Lake Jr. explaining all the people involved in getting one of his books to print and the stages it goes through - which in turn explains why ebooks don't have a much cheaper cost basis than printed books.
Feb 1 2010: For those looking for a quick catchup on the Amazon-Macmillan fight I suggest these three starting points:
The open letter from Macmillan CEO John Sargent on Jan 30:
John Scalzi's post giving the author's point of view.
The Association of Authors' Representatives response as reported in Publishers Weekly.
For the last few years, when the vacation and holiday seasons come around and
the news stories start to dry up, I've looked back in time to previous centuries
to find something newsworthy. Today, please join me on a whistle stop tour
400 years back in time to the year 1609 ....
The Renaissance is in full swing. While Galileo demonstrates his first
telescope to Venetian lawmakers and Cornelius Drebbel invents the thermostat,
Johannes Kepler is busy publishing his first two laws of planetary motion.
Meanwhile Henry Hudson is off adventuring, becoming the first European to see
Delaware Bay and the Hudson River. Not far away, seven ships arrive at the
Jamestown colony reporting the sad demise of their flagship, the Sea Venture,
wrecked off the coast of the uninhabited island of Bermuda. The
survivors, including writer William Strachey, eventually reach Virginia ten
months later in two small ships they built while marooned on the island.
Strachey's account of the wreck is believed to be the inspiration for
Shakespeare's The Tempest (1610-11).
Talking
of Shakespeare, the bard is in good voice in 1609, publishing two books of
poetry: The Sonnets (mostly written before 1600) and A Lover's
Complaint; and two plays: Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Troilus and
Cressida. His contemporaries,Thomas Middleton and Ben Jonson,
are also busy publishing their own works. Elsewhere, in Naples, the
outlawed (for killing a man in a brawl) painter, Michelangelo Merisi da
Carravagio, completes at least four great works including
The Raising of Lazarus, and
Salome With The Head of John The Baptist. Carravagio dies the
following year but his work will inspire some of the next generation of painters
including Rubens and Rembrandt.
While Europe savors its first sips of tea courtesy of the Dutch East India
Company, and the people of Strasbourg (Alsace) and Augsburg (Bavaria) enjoy the
first regularly published newspapers in Europe, the Spanish Inquisition moves
into high gear with the Basque witch trials. Meanwhile, somewhere in
England, teenage songwriter Thomas Ravenscroft publishes a little ditty that,
four hundred years later, I would hazard to guess, can be recited in its modern
form by more people than any of Shakespeare's verses!
Three Blinde Mice,
Three Blinde Mice,
Dame Iulian,
Dame Iulian,
the Miller and his merry olde Wife,
shee scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife
There was a time when the hunt for a rare book, or even just an out of print book, was a major undertaking - you could either travel the country scouring multiple used bookstores yourself or pay a commission to a book dealer who would put feelers out through
his local network and, if necessary, to the wider world of book dealers through a classified ad in a trade magazine. However, with the advent of the internet and search engines such as AddAll, most of us have been able to cut out the middle-man and, with a few clicks of the mouse, track down that old childhood favorite without ever leaving the house.
But there is at least one area of book collecting that still benefits from the hands on touch - where the thrill of the chase is discovering the hidden secret of an apparently run of the mill book - and that is the search for fore-edge paintings.
To create a fore-edge painting, the pages of a book are fanned out and held in a vice. A painting is then applied usually with water color. When the paint is dry the book is released from the clamp so the book is flat again, and the edges of the book are then either gilted or marbled to completely hide any evidence of
the painting from casual eyes. I was introduced to fore-edge painting while visiting a friend's father on New York's Upper East Side a few months back where, even though the book's secret was known to me, I still felt a sense of discovery in fanning the pages to find the hidden painting.
(The Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library have been kind enough to put together a 2 minute video of some of the fore-edge books in their collection.)
As Jeff Weber explains in A Collector's Primer to the Wonders of Fore-Edge Painting,
the art of fore-edge painting has been around for a long time. There are examples of books from medieval times with fore-edge paintings, but the art form came into its own in the mid-seventeenth century when English binders developed their own forms with highly decorative motifs, including flowers, butterflies, royal portraits and, inevitably, more than a few pictures of a lewd nature - some of which Martin Frost has been kind enough to display in the "Gentlemen's Relish" section of his extremely comprehensive website devoted to all things fore-edge.
The twentieth-century has seen the development of more advanced fore-edge techniques including the double fore-edge painting, and the rather over the top six-way painting where all three sides of the book have a double (which not only seems a tad gratuitous but also doesn't sound to be all that good for the book as I've yet to meet a book that likes to be fanned on its top and bottom edges!)
(This brief video shows a very elaborate and moderately rude painting on two sides of a book)
So, where might you find a previously undiscovered fore-edge painting? The chances are low that you'll find one in an antiquarian bookstore because any dealer worth his or her salt will know to look out for them - but what about that dusty row of books on your top shelf that were handed down to you from Great Uncle Charles? Who knows what they might reveal! But, don't expect to find
hidden treasure too easily - just like the golden invitations inside the Wonka chocolate bars - fore-edge books are few and far between and you'll have to open up a lot before you find one by chance.
If you've searched all your old books and found nothing but dust and cobwebs, and aren't content with looking at other people's collections (such as the extraordinary collection of more than 200 books in The Boston Public Library), you may wish to start your own - and there's no better place to start than at Martin Frost's website:
foredgefrost.co.uk.
I asked Martin about the cost of buying a fore-edge painting, to which he replied that a poorly painted book in indifferent condition could be bought for as little as US$100, but that it would not a good investment, and most collectors who start with such a book end up replacing it before long. He went on to say that "accomplished paintings on reasonable books can be found at around $400, two-way doubles and all-edge paintings attracting much high
figures, for example a splendid two-way double all-edge painting is currently available at foredgefrost at just under $3000."
The problem about buying an existing fore-edge painted book is that the chances are slim that you'll find a picture you like on a book that you appreciate. This would be an especially important consideration if you're thinking of giving the book as a gift (perhaps for a golden wedding anniversary or an important birthday) because it would be preferable if both the book and the painting had special meaning for the recipient. The solution is to commission a
painting on the book of your choice. Martin is one of a handful of
knowledgeable fore-edge painters working today. Since 1970, he has created well over 3000 fore-edge and miniature paintings for the book trade. He says that painting and gilding a book starts at about US$600, or about $800 if the client wishes the book to be rebound in presentation leather. If you know the title of the book you want but don't know how where to acquire a good quality copy suitable for painting, Martin can advise on that as well.
Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor
Aug 2009 Update: Martin has just released a new list of Fore-edge Painted books that he has been working on for the last year. They can be found at his website: www.foredgefrost.co.uk - click the "Click Here" button on his homepage to download the list.
If you're in the USA, UK or Canada, look out for Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, publishing in hardcover in the next few days. It's a charming first novel by Helen Simonson starring retired Major Ernest Pettigrew and Mrs Jasmina Ali, widowed owner of the village shop. Set in a small country village in the south of England, the author absolutely nails the quintessentially English characters and setting, but the story evolves into something deeper than the anticipated microcosm of village life and prejudices. While very different to The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society or The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, readers of either of these are likely to appreciate Major Pettigrew's outlook on life. 
but, on reflection, I agree with her that it's better to "leave them alone to stroll the cliff tops of Sussex and sit down every Sunday to tea and books" - so instead I will shelve Major Pettigrew close at hand for rereading and lending to friends, and eagerly await her next book!
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Talking
of Shakespeare, the bard is in good voice in 1609, publishing two books of
poetry: The Sonnets (mostly written before 1600) and A Lover's
Complaint; and two plays: Pericles, Prince of Tyre and Troilus and
Cressida. His contemporaries, Thomas Middleton and Ben Jonson,
are also busy publishing their own works. Elsewhere, in Naples, the
outlawed (for killing a man in a brawl) painter, Michelangelo Merisi da
Carravagio, completes at least four great works including
