livesinprint, Sport, travel

Skiing With Demons
Chris Tomlinson

9781909644663 This flagrantly honest book documents the ascent/descent of an ageing ski-bum from city-living executive to garage-dwelling chalet-host. It describes how the ski-bum’s escape from the rat race is affected by means of a rented chalet in the French alpine town of Morzine, where his ‘Chalet Project’ teaches him new and strange domestic skills and he learns a lot about Land Rover maintenance - it also causes him to lose his home and his wife and to stare down into an alcoholic crevasse. On arrival in chalet land he is frequently abducted by the ‘Après Aliens’ and hears voices in his head - his ‘Ski Demons’. Enter the world of ‘girlfriend skiing’ and of the ‘Ski Nazis’ and other such weird creatures and find out what ski-bums do in the summer. Feel for the author as he attempts to qualify as ski instructor and Ski Club of Great Britain Leader – only to discover that he’s not actually very good at skiing!
Published:1st Oct 2015
Paperback:267 pages
Price:£13.99
ISBN:9-781909-644663

 Available from Amazon

and Amazon Kindle Books

This book is also a useful manual for skiers. It examines skiing philosophies and looks at common skiing phobias. Finally, rejoice as our ski-bum exorcises his demons and also his fear of avalanches and an infamous run called the Swiss Wall.
Amazon No1 Best Seller tag in Winter Sports - UK and France

Reader Reviews...

An excellent read!

A great book. I read it all in one go, so eager was I to follow the story. It is funny - I had a few laugh out loud moments which are unusual for me - and poignant too. The author is disarmingly honest about his exploits, the end of his marriage and his struggle to get back on his feet. I passed it onto my 17 year old son who also read it in one go and loved it and to my 80 year old mother-in-law who is reading it now. So, a book for everyone and a great little stocking filler!

Witty page turner of how one man started living the dream of many avid holiday skiers.

A great book. I read it all in one go, so eager was I to follow the story. It is funny - I had a few laugh out loud moments which are unusual for me - and poignant too. The author is disarmingly honest about his exploits, the end of his marriage and his struggle to get back on his feet. I passed it onto my 17 year old son who also read it in one go and loved it and to my 80 year old mother-in-law who is reading it now. So, a book for everyone and a great little stocking filler!

Events

Coleridge in Shrewsbury

Bob Fowke will be speaking on The Pirate and the Poet – Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Captain George Shelvock, in the Unitarian Church, High Street, Shrewsbury, at 2.00 pm on Sunday 10th January. The talk is in aid of the Shrewsbury Literary Festival.

In November 1794, Coleridge was out walking with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, seeking for a central concept for what he hoped would be a block-buster, gothic poem and Wordsworth suggested an episode from A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea by Shrewsbury man (or pirate), Captn. George Shelvocke, where Shelvocke describes the shooting of an albatross by his Second Captain, Simon Hatley. From this suggestion grew the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and Simon Hatley thus became the unsung model for Coleridge’s Mariner. Bob Fowke looks at the extraordinary story behind the poem, the pirate and the voyage.

 

artbooks

Second Shot at Life
Dominic Kavanagh

front cover A double lung transplant during the summer of 2014 was the inspiration for this book which brings together some of my most treasured memories in a collection of wildlife and landscape photography intended to capture the essence of what makes life so precious. As my own life neared expiry due to respiratory failure following 47 years of damage caused by cystic fibrosis, I returned to painting to reflect on what I would miss most and to celebrate subjects and scenes which are great for the soul and which reminded me of what we all have around us that we should be grateful for. After a successful transplant, my painting continues and my photography resumed. Beavering away from my man cave nestled at the end of my garden in rural north Shropshire, surrounded by woodland and its evocative sights, sounds and smells, I have been inspired by the natural world to give something back, in the shape of this fundraising book, for the gift of organ donation so selflessly offered to me.
Published:15th Aug 2015
Hardback:160 pages
Price:£25.00
ISBN:9-781909-644847

 This book and prints can be bought from Dom Kavanagh's website... domkavanaghphotography.co.uk

 Or buy from
The Great British Bookshop
(UK only)
Purchasing this book will support the magnificent work of the specialist NHS adult cystic fibrosis team at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Lung & Transplant team (Birmingham).
books

Huckleberry Finn Self-Published

On 10 December 1884, Mark Twain self-published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with his nephew Charles Webster under the Charles Webster & Co. imprint. Twain was already a successful writer and wanted to maximise his profit. The book was written in dialect and broke new ground, away from more literary forms of writing. He was fortunate because the following year the book was ‘excluded’ by Concorde Public Library as being ‘trash, more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people’. Subsequent publicity did nothing to harm sales and he went on to sell over 40,000 copies of the first edition.

 

livesinprint

The meteoric rise and sudden fall of a 1960s eight-piece band from Bournemouth.
Tim Large

9781909644939 In the summer of 1965, Dave Anthony’s Moods, an eight-piece band from the musical cauldron of Bournemouth, were confidently poised to take over the world of jazzy, brassy, bluesy, popular music and rule supreme.
No such luck. Four years later, they were a backing group for a second-rate Italian pop singer and the band fell painfully apart. Nobody but a few dedicated fans remembers them today. This is the story of how that fiery ambition arose and how it developed and mutated - and how it descended in fits and starts into final failure.
Dave Athony's Moods is Tim Large's account of an amazing journey of peaks and troughs, hilarity and boredom, triumph and occasional tragedy, all seen through his inspired, time-distorted prism. He saw it all, from before the beginning until after the very end. This is his version and he's sticking to it.
Published:1st Dec 2015
Paperback:158 pages
Price:£12.99
ISBN:9-781909-644939

 Available from Amazon

and Amazon Kindle Books
Buy from YouCaxton
(UK only)

£12.99 (+ £2 postage)
Reader Reviews...

Front Page, history, livesinprint

Biography of a bankrupt Englishman who became a Founding Father of the USA.
Colin Gwinnett Sharp

9781911175001 Button Gwinnett was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence. His short-lived but meteroic political career has invited much conjecture but the lack of any obvious legacy has since condemned him to semi-oblivion - apart from his signature which is now the most sought after in the United States. This book fills a gap in our knowledge. It tells the story of Gwinnett's life in gripping detail: from 1762 and his arrival in America as a bankrupt Englishman, to Founding Father in 1776, and finally to his death in a duel the following year. It examines how he rose by dubious means to become one of the largest landowners in the State of Georgia and leader of the Popular Party, and it lays out the complex steps by means of which, in 1776, he placed his signature on the Declaration of Independence and became successively Speaker, Commander-in-Chief and President of Georgia - before an untimely death in an unnecessary duel.
Published:1st Dec 2015
Paperback:162 pages
Price:£8.50
ISBN:9-781911-175001

 Available from Amazon

and Amazon Kindle Books
Buy from YouCaxton
(UK only)

£8.50 (+ £2 postage)
Colin Gwinnett Sharp is a former Royal Navy Commander and an indirect descendant of Button Gwinnett who first came to know of his forbear's life whilst serving in the British Embassy in Washington DC.
Reader Reviews...

travel

Photo-location guidebook to some of the UK’s most photogenic mountain scenery.
Paul Allen

9781909644922 Landscape Treks is a photo location guidebook that takes you round some of the UK’s wildest and most photogenic mountain scenery. The walks are based around getting the best images from a visit to an area by delivering in depth and well researched route descriptions, getting you off the beaten track. They set out a number of key photographic locations along the route with compositional pointers for each location. Also included are a number of wild camping locations which allows you to stay out in some stunning places and maximise your time in the hills. The routes can be split into short (few hours) sections, full day walks and two day overnight trips. These walks cover some of the finest mountain scenery in the UK whilst visiting lesser known viewpoints.
Published:1st Dec 2015
Paperback:238 pages
Price:£25.00
ISBN:9-781909-644922

 Available from Amazon
Buy from YouCaxton
(UK only)
£25.00 (inc postage)
The guide is aimed at walkers, with a love of taking photographs, and landscape photographers, of all abilities, who are looking for new ideas on where to visit to capture their own stunning landscape images. With 16 locations around the UK, in The Lake District, Snowdonia, The Brecon Beacons, The Peak District, The Pennines and The Scottish Borders, this book has 140 images to inspire you to pack up your rucksack and go explore over 70 photogenic viewpoints.
Paul Allen has many years’ experience mixing wild camping and photography as well as arranging trips for clients. These have taken him all over the UK and Europe.
Reader Reviews...

Front Page, history, nonfiction

England’s ‘love affair’ with the natural world over the last two hundred years.
Ian Alexander

The English Love Affair with Nature We English, supposedly cold and unemotional, are helplessly in love with nature. We fell in love two hundred years ago and, since then, have been on a wild roller-coaster ride through escapism, romanticism, art, animal cruelty, conservation, birdwatching, the back-to-nature movement and much more. Today we live with pets, gardening, wildlife documentaries and smartphone apps.
The English Love Affair with Nature tells the story of this extraordinarily long, tangled and passionate romance, how we fell in love, and why we are still mad about nature.

Ian Alexander was educated at Winchester and Cambridge. He has written three books and many peer-reviewed articles on software engineering. He has been in love with nature all his life, and became fascinated by the question of how, why, and when a whole nation fell in love.
www.obsessedbynature.com
Published:1st April 2015
Paperback:320 pages
Price:£12.50
ISBN:9-781909-644465

 Available from Amazon
And on Kindle
Pay with PayPal
£12.50 (+ £2 postage)
Reviews...

Passionate landscapes with an engaging guide
Ian Alexander introduces his theme with a wink ..'the facts alone can be dry- but the bump and grind are not easy to put into words after the event.' So we can expect a factual account of the development of awareness of Nature – matched with a love affair. He's set himself a hard task – and he succeeds remarkably. Historically he describes the English using Newtonian science to liberate themselves from the mental constraints of a medieval God-centred universe. This uncovers the combined potential of the quest for discovery and also reveals Nature in the raw as it were, fit to be wooed and pursued. The scope of this passionate quest is phenomenal: from romantic poetry to village dogshows, from Victorian collectors to naval camouflage, traditional rural scenes to technical advancement. To a non-expert the research is impressively rigorous and credible. However, this is not a catalogue; more of a ramble - discursive, unevenly paced according to the ground covered, with pauses for perspective or reflection. Our author /guide keeps us company with beautifully described vignettes of natural observation; - lending a beguilingly personal quality to big themes. It is inevitably episodic- the kind of book that could be dipped into- but I found the story thread strong enough to keep me engaged from start to finish.

late eighteenth century the English people have been in love with nature
Ian Alexander’s book investigates the premise that since the late eighteenth century the English people have been in love with nature; with leisure time and literacy increasing and a rising number of available books about nature the love affair grew and with the population’s migration into the cities to fuel the industrial revolution’s need for workers the prevailing attitude altered from taking nature for granting to idealising it. Starting with the publication of Gilbert White’s ‘Natural History of Selborne’ and Thomas Bewick’s ‘A History of British Birds’ the relationship with nature is explored through a bewildering number of sources such as nineteenth century scientific pioneers Charles Lyell, Alfred Russell-Wallace and Charles Darwin but also landscape gardeners, romantic poets and modern children’s authors amongst many others. Another theme of the book is the multi-faceted nature of the word ‘nature’, from harsh agricultural drudgery to idealised rural fantasy and from the viewpoints of both individuals and society. Controversies over the age of the Earth and evolution are examined, brought to public attention by the developing sciences of geology, palaeontology and taxonomy. The growth of the conservation movement from the end of the nineteenth century is also explored. The discussions are framed by the author’s own observations of nature, clearly communicating his passion for the subject. The chronology, dramatis personae and bibliography provide an effective aid to further research on the ideas the book raises.