The Making of Modern Ireland – An Alternative History

A new book, but not one of mine; this one is written by my friend Geoff Robinson. Writing a book is challenging in all sorts of ways and the amazing thing about Geoff is you're never too old to take that challenge. He has just published The Making of Modern Ireland – An Alternative History and he's 88 years old. Geoff's book is both extremely well researched and written in such a way as to make history engaging and interesting without being in the slightest bit stuffy.


“The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine.” – Seamus Heaney

The history of a nation all too often depends on an admixture of truths, half-truths and mythology; exemplified by the story of Britain and Ireland. Both countries were part of the Angevin Empire that controlled an area from the banks of the Shannon to the Centre of France until after its defeat by the French, in 1399. But Ireland did not experience English rule until her colonisation by Henry VIII in the 16th Century.

Basing their story on past ills which resulted in the 1798 Rising by the United Irishmen and the birth of republicanism, together with carefully selected facts, folklore and historically inaccurate assumptions, the Fenians produced a mythology which was in part responsible for the Rising of 1916. Few are aware that this would not have been possible but for the secret connivance of the enemies of Irish freedom, while Ireland gained her independence not by the Rising but as a result of British over-reaction which produced the War of Independence.

The Making of Modern Ireland looks at the broad sweep of the nation’s history from the 12th Century, when it was part of the Angevin Empire, right up to 2009 and the government of Brian Cowan. Geoff Robinson’s narrative offers an alternative view, stripped of the half-truths and mythology, that has passed for much of the country’s history.

Though born and educated in England, Geoff Robinson is an Irish citizen who has lived in Ireland for over fifty years. An unswerving believer in the rectitude of the Irish cause, he knew many who had been involved in the 1916 Rising and later came to meet others of such divergent political views as the daughter of a Redmondite MP and the editor of the “Bulletin”, a clandestine newssheet published during the War of Independence
Following his marriage in 1966 to Bernadette Tiernan, a national teacher, he developed an interest in Irish politics. His wife’s revelation that no critical examination of the events leading up to the 1916 Rising was contained in the schools curriculum, prompted him to make a re-evaluation of Irish history which has resulted in his book, The Making of Modern Ireland.

Buy it from Amazon UK

Buy it from Amazon US

MANAGEMENT BOLL**KS – How to talk your way to the top…

Just who is picking the low hanging fruit? Is brainstorming a thing of the past or do we now just do 'thought showers'? If you have ever spent time in a meeting contemplating yet another 'paradigm shift' then you will be the first to realise that at the end of the day it is all a load of. .

It's out now and it's the perfect stocking filler for all your executives friends (and even those in the family!)

What the publisher says – For some people Genghis Khan was the earliest example of an extremely competent manager; although it’s doubtful whether he ever wasted time on management speak – for him actions spoke louder than words. Management speak seems to have been gifted to the world by America. Chester Irving Edwards’ 1938 book Functions of the Executive has a lot to answer for. With statements like, “The line of communication should not be interrupted when the organization is functioning,” you could have guessed that it was only going to get worse.

Initially it was those on the cutting edge that talked the talk, soon middle, junior and even non-managers embraced this language as a means of getting ahead. Management speak is very seductive – the bottom line is we’re all trying to leverage our fair share of the intellectual capital. Even politicians, who look increasingly like middle managers in marketing departments, have hi-jacked management speak to ‘present’, or at least try to differentiate, their ever more similar ideas from those of the other parties.

It is now so pervasive that everyone in society at least grasps the basics of the language. It’s no different from the language as a whole; it’s evolving year by year as new words get added to the lexicon almost every week. It would be wonderful to know who dreams some of it up. Who was he first numpty that uttered the immortal phrase, ‘transferable skill set’? Who said ‘impactfulnesss?’ and managed to keep a straight face? Who decided it was a good idea to have hymn sheets in the office? But whatever the answer, who needs to walk the walk, when you can talk the talk?

While euphemisms have crept into management speak for just about every kind of business activity, recently one old fashioned piece of straight talk has come back into fashion. ‘You’re fired!’ Still, it’s better than if Genghis Khan had been your manager, in his case it would have been ‘You’re dead!’

The Stones in The Park

“I hope they don’t think we’re a rock ‘n’ roll outfit.”

The words of Michael Philip Jagger in July 1962 when the only thing he and the rest of the fledgling Rolling Stones wanted to be was a blues band. Seven years later, almost to the day, Sam Cutler who worked for Blackhill Enterprises, the company that arranged the free concerts in Hyde Park, went on stage to announce the band to the hundreds of thousands gathered in the royal park.

“The greatest rock and roll band in the world. They’re incredible; let’s hear it for the Stones!”

It was 5.25pm on Saturday 5 July 1969. For the Rolling Stones it was their first full concert in over 2 years, barring a short, 2 song, cameo at the NME Poll Winners Concert a year earlier that had been Brian Jones last appearance with the band. In June 1969 Brian left the group, setting in motion thirty-three days that would change the Stones forever more. Mick Taylor replaced him, before Brian then spawned a dozen conspiracy theories by dying in mysterious circumstances. Surrounding these events was uncertainty about the band being able to tour America due to Mick and Keith’s, as well as Brian’s, drug busts.

We will never know all that happened between Mick and Keith and the rest of the band over Brian’s situation as a Rolling Stone. It’s quite likely they can’t remember themselves all that went on during the later part of 1968 and early 1969. The truth always depends on who tells it, and in this case there were numerous different truths. For the last 40 years there have been stories and whispers from people saying that Brian wanted to leave of his own accord. This was probably true. He had lost his band mates along the way and he knew he was never going to regain control of the group that he had formed.

The Hyde Park concert was far from the greatest gig the Stones ever performed, but this was the dawn of the ‘Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World’. Come December at the Stones’ finale to their hugely successful American tour – the massive free concert at Altamont, just outside San Francisco – things almost went spectacularly and horribly wrong. But life turns upon events, and the Rolling Stones survived to become the Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the World, not just because Sam Cutler called them that for the very first time at Hyde Park in the summer of ’69 and throughout the US tour. They have done so because of all that happened over those fateful thirty odd days, forty years ago.

My new book is out this week and is available at all good bookshops as well as online from Amazon.

Phil Spector – The Murder and A Book

The news the Phil Spector has been found guilty of second degree murder and is to be jailed for at least 18 years will be all over the media today. It will, for some, tarnish the reputation of one of music's great creative figures. I fondly remember looking forward to new releases of Spector produced records during the sixties – even those that were run of the mill, and there were few of them, were better than most anything else that was being produced. He was emulated and revered by musicians during that golden age of pop. To get a better understanding of the man and his music read my friend Mick Brown's wonderful book, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound – The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector. Mick is a brilliant writer who has the eye for detail of the journalist that he is, coupled with compassion and humanity that produces great books

Mick talked to Spector in December 2002, the legendary recluse's first interview in 25 years. Six weeks or so later Spector was arrested on suspicion of murdering a small time actress named Lana Clarkson and that trial is about to commence in Los Angeles. Ironically twenty-four hours before the alleged murder Mick's article appeared in the Daily Telegraph Magazine. As the book's publicity states, '"Tearing Down the Wall of Sound" is Mick Brown's personal odyssey into the heart of the strange life and times of Phil Spector. Beginning with that fateful meeting in Spector's home and recounting the story of his mercurial life and career, including the unfolding of the Clarkson case and its aftermath, this is one of the most bizarre and compelling stories in the annals of pop music.'

28 Million People Should Buy This Book

Did you know that about 28 million people worldwide can claim Scots ancestry? It means if they all turned up during the year of homecoming we'd be in deep trouble! I know this fact because I've just heard about a fascinating new book to be published next month called Scottish Genealogy by Bruce Durie.

Did you also know that Scotland has possibly the most complete and best-kept set of records and other documents on the planet? Given the extraordinary worldwide Scottish diaspora, there's clearly a need for a thorough guide to Scottish genealogy; Bruce Durie’s book brings authority to the subject and is firmly based on established genealogical practice. Bruce disabuses the reader of the many canards which have accompanied the recent upsurge in interest in family history, notably that it’s ‘all on the internet,’ that there is such a thing as a ‘family coat of arms’ and that everything written down must be true (just check out the blogosphere!).

Bruce is the Course Director in Genealogical Studies at the University of Strathclyde and was formerly a biochemist, pharmacologist and neuroscientist; he is also Archivist and Historian to the Chief of the Durie Family and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The Great Bookshops Blog

I've started a new blog about great bookshops – the independent kind, not the chain variety. You can read more on the Great Bookshops Blog.

I'd love to hear from people who can offer information on where to find great book shops. Far from a dying breed there are even two new ones that have opened in the last year here in the Scottish Borders

Pop! The Weird, the Whacky, the Wonderful World of Pop and Rock

Christmas solved....well if you know someone who loves pop....

What is pop? Since the 1950s it’s been used in its abbreviated form to denote popular music. Before Bill Haley appeared on our shores, popular music was much more refined – and, of course, controlled by those nice people at the British Broadcasting Corporation. ‘The organist entertains in a thirty-minute programme of today’s most popular tunes.’ Gradually things changed and before long in New York, London, Paris and Munich, everybody was talking about pop music…

Because it’s short for popular music, what’s to stop us including any kind of music in this book? Absolutely nothing. Often as not, ‘pop’ is used in a kind of dismissive way – oh, that’s just pop; it’s as though other musical genres are far more important. However, pop is the single most appreciated art form in the world today. Creating music is an art form, just as much as painting pictures, some of which may even be pop art, or sculpting or opera or classical music, or, for that matter, any kind of art. Arguably, more people appreciate pop music than all other art forms put together.

Pop and politics really don’t mix. There was talk last year that the then Mayor of London, the man formerly known as Red Ken, was thinking of recording with the Cheeky Girls, one of whom was once engaged to Lib Dem Over MP, Lembit Opik. It’s yet another strange tale in the strange business of politicians attempting to ‘engage with younger voters’.

Pop is crammed with more than 600 pictures (many never previously published). Here you’ll find bubblegum pop, Brit pop, pop-rock, jangly pop, sub pop, sunshine pop, straight pop, pink pop; and all other kinds of popular music. Rock, soul, R&B, blues, jazz, folk, rap and hip-hop are all included – because if it’s music that’s popular, it’s pop!

Pop includes those that have brought us big hits, small hits and 'one-hit wonders. Pop celebrates the weird, whacky and wonderful world, the bad hairstyles, the pets, cars and fashion faux pas, the feeble attempts to get noticed and the pictures the performers would rather you not see. It’s a nostalgic light-hearted and sometimes irreverent look at the pop business.

You can get it from from Amazon

Book Shops in the Borders

Today Mrs.H. and me had a holiday. Where did we go? The Borders of course, because as everyone knows a day out of the Borders is a day wasted.

There are two new book shops that have opened within striking distance of us and so it was important to visit them to see how they are doing and get a feel for what they have to offer. First we went to Kelso, which is a little over twenty miles from where we live. In actual fact our motives for going there were mixed, as we had to pick up oatmeal. The best Scottish oats that money can buy; it's from Hogarth's Mill which is slap bang in the middle of Kelso.

The new Kelso bookshop is called Latimer Books and it was a delight. Well designed, a great collection of books and an owner who was helpful, knowledgeable and just the perfect person to own a book shop. What I like about the shop is that unlike many other bookstores they are dedicated to selling just books – no cards, no CDs or DVDs, just books. Brilliant! Naturally I had to buy something. One was the biography of the architect Pugin and the other was ‘The Lodger’, a mystery, come novel, about Shakespeare.

From there it was a ten-mile drive across to St Boswells and the Main Street Trading Company. This is a bookshop and cafe combined that has been opened by a former director of Children's marketing for the publisher Bloomsbury. It couldn't be dissimilar from Latimer Books and it's a great bookshop, in a very different way, but just as appealing. It's much more spacious and it was very interesting to see that what they stocked was very unlike the selection at Latimers. Main Street’s advertising and web site say...."Where is human nature so weak as in a bookstore" It's a quote by Henry Ward Beecher; of course they are right. Here I bought a book about the French Resistance called oddly enough ‘Resistance’. The cover and foreword (by William Boyd) are very enticing. I can't wait to finish what I'm currently reading (I biography of Oswald Mosley) to start on all three books.

So it was a day far from wasted….and I look forward to many more visits to both shops. This evening, sitting and looking at the books made me yet more sure that e-readers are in fact – b****cks! What's fantastic is that people who obviously love books want to maintain the tradition of great independent book shops where you get advice that is backed up by knowledge and love of what they do. Good luck to both shops, of course they'll need a little in this tricky times, but not too much I suspect as both are up there with the best.

The Book is Not Dead

Amidst all the media hoop-la for the Sony Reader and how it is the death knell for paperbacks, and probably all books, everyone seems to be missing one major point. Of course everyone has drawn attention to the fact that it costs £199. There's no question that yet again publishing has not had its ipod moment - I doubt that it will for the forseeable future.

Perhaps the biggest thing against these electronic book readers is the fact that they are exclusive. If we want children to read more then we need to give them access to more books and this certainly isn't the way. How many kids will be bought one of these readers? Certainly none to many in East Glasgow, Craigmillar or other less well of areas across Britain. The book is not dead it is just under attack from fashionsitas and techno-junkies who think that because it's new then it must be good. We should be concentrating more effort into making libraries a cool place to visit, holding more events in them and generally working with books as one of the fundemental pillers of a civilised society.

Judith Miller's Scottish Book Signings

My friend Judith Miller's new Antiques Price Guide for 2009 is published today; it's 704 pages has around 8,000 photographs and has been fully updated. She is at the Caird Hall in Dundee this Thursday to record the BBC Antiques Roadshow in Dundee. Then she is staying in Scotland to do some book signings. Try and get along if you live nearby and are interested in antiques. Not only is Judith one of the most knowledgable people on antiques, she's also lovely...

Friday 5th September
1.00pm - Yeadon’s of Banchory
20 Dee Street, Banchory, Aberdeenshire, AB33 5ST

7.00pm -Yeadon's of Elgin
32 Commerce Street, Elgin, Grampian, IV30 1BS

Saturday 6th September
12-2pm -Waterstone’s Inverness
Eastgate Centre, Inverness, IV2 3PR

5.30pm - Waterstone’s St Andrews
Market Street, St Andrews, KY16 9NX

Al Kooper's Brilliant Book....

If you read one book about music this year then this should be it. How many books about music have you read that make you laugh out loud? Well Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards will.

To say Al Kooper is legend is putting it to simply, then again the man is quite simply one of the most interesting people to have been around the music business for longer than anyone would thought it possible to be around it. It's been said that when rock history was being made then Al was in the vicinity. Whether it was playing organ on Like a Rolling Stone with Dylan, doing sessions for the Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Hendrix, Taj Mahal and The Stones (to name just a few); creating ground breaking music with Blood Sweat and Tears or doing incredibly interesting things with Mike Bloomfield and Steve Stills, it's as though Al has just been there when it counts. I wrote a couple of months back about Al's great album, 'New York City You're a Woman', for me the best of his solo LPs, but that's not to put the rest of his solo stuff down, it's just that NYCYAW is a gem amongst jewels.

The book first came out years ago and I devoured it at one sitting, the phrase unputdownable is over used, but for me this really was. Well the revised and updated version is out in the UK next week and is available at Amazon and of course elsewhere. It's a sort-of-a life story that's exotic, sometimes sad, almost unbelievable and what makes it better than most books of a similar style is Al's eye for detail.

BUY IT!

Les Mange-Rêve

A French friend of mine has his new book out this week. For more info go HERE

Eddie Cochran & Gene Vincent - Things Do Go Wrong

I've just got a new book by Spencer Leigh about Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent's 1960 tour of the UK. In the foreword by Bobby Vee it says "Spencer has also, subtly and masterfully, managed to reconstruct the English lifestyle setting of the period". He has and that's just one of the things that makes this book well worth reading. All too often books about music (and many other subjects) suffer from a myopic approach that makes you feel that the subject is under to finely a tuned microscope. In Spencer's book you get a much grander sweep, even if the pre fab sixties was a little less grand than what was to follow. Spencer has interviewed many of those who were involved with this tour which helps bring the whole book to life and bring an authenticity sadly lacking from so many music books.
Besides a good story well told, Spencer has included cuttings, adverts and all sorts of other pieces of ephemera that greatly add to the enjoyment of the book.

You can get it from Amazon or direct from Spencer Leigh HERE

There May Be Trouble Ahead No.3

The Waterstone's branch on the Old Brompton Road, which was their first ever shop, which opened in 1982 will close on Christmas Eve after the company decided not to extend the lease. Their MD said yesterday "From that one store we have grown Waterstone's into a 320-plus store company with over 4,500 employees and shops all over the country and further afield." Waterstone's has been implementing plans to cut 10% of its floor space over three years. I think that this will accelerate after this Christmas, which may well prove a watershed for book retailing. There's news that Sainsbury’s are selling more books than ever and planning to do more. Waterstones is part of the HMV group and it's well known that the CD/record stores are also struggling. The group recently bought some of the FOPP stores from the receiver and my guess is and has been for a while, that we will see an expansion of that brand at the cost of the separate book and music stores.

This Little Britain - Harry Bingham

This Little Britain, Harry Bingham's book is brilliant and not just because his essays within each chapter are the prefect length for a bedtime read. It's described by the publisher (4th Estate) as "Celebratory, witty and incredibly insightful", for once the book lives up to the blurb. Yes but what's it about? Well, it's not about the TV series, which I'm probably one of the few people in Britain, under the age of 65, who doesn't find it funny. It "explores the eccentricities and customs of the British nation in a bid to answer a question - who we are." But much more than that it is a super history lesson on all sorts of cultural and historical backwaters as well as BIG topics including slavery for example. By exploring language, literature, law, war, science, economics, empire, and lifestyle Harry proves, at least to my satisfaction, why Britain is such an important nation.

There is none of rhetoric that Gordon Brown's fond of spouting on Britain, it is far too factual. And while Harry does poke fun at some of the things that we’ve done or been involved in as a nation he does it with a light touch and doesn't get involved in revisionist ranting. The underlying theme of the book is exceptionalism, that is to say how Britain is different from the rest of the world; not for the sake of being different- but just ‘cos we are.

I'm a great fan of quirky and ‘This Little Britain’ delvers in spades, however, don't think for one minute that you won't learn a lot from a few nights in bed with Harry Bingham.

Publishing - A Funny Ol' Game

Danuta Kean is a journalist who specializes in writing about publishing and the arts; she also has a very good blog you can read here. I was somewhat randomly perusing her archive, which goes back to 1997, when I chanced upon an article from January 2002 from the Evening Standard under the headline – ‘Over publishing: So little time, so much to read’. It's fascinating.

Did you know that there are 126,000 books published every year? No wonder so few cut through to make it onto one or other of the bestseller lists. Danuta points out it's less surprising that some make it onto the lists because publishers indulge in what she refers to as "bungs" to booksellers, but not just any booksellers but the supermarkets and the main players like W.H. Smith. As Danuta says. "Publishers’ marketing budgets are skewed in favour of so-called "bungs" to book chains. When Asda demands as much as £25,000 and WH Smith £10,000 to put a title under its customers’ noses." Five years later and little has changed.

Her article opens with this. "Publishers will say anything to get an author between the sheets of their catalogues. But once the contract is signed, that seductive promise of a gold-plated publicity campaign all too often fades into thin air and the writer is lucky to receive a meagre handful of reviews before the edition is pulped." So why do people write books and how disappointed are they by what then happens?

It's a kind of Faustian pact. We all know how the game is played and we do our damndest to try and beat the system. Tactics vary from charm to pleading and from anger to despair as writers attempt to get their work marketed. I was speaking with a friend recently, a best selling author, who was in a state of despair about the lack of marketing for his book, despite the subject of his biography having a huge media profile. It's a syndrome that I've come to call 'two weeks in the sun' Many, but not all, books get that two weeks attention from the publisher's PR department and then they move onto the next thing, it's implicit in the process of publishing. He’d had his 2 weeks in the sun and everyone had moved right along.

Marketing books for many publishers is a process that is closer to selling than marketing. It is increasingly dependent on the power of the supermarkets to make or break a book. Saying that it implies an unfair process - not at all. The fact is that they have to sell volume to make money. Books, like CDs are part of the customer draw and like it or not it is here to stay. What we writers of non-blockbuster, TV tie in or those books with no guaranteed sale have to realise is that it’s all about DIY. Similarly publishers are facing up to the reality of life in a world where bookshops are on a steady decline. Who knows we may even lose one of the big chains before too long.

Writers have to find ways of marketing their own work. It’s no good just writing the damn things anymore. I’ve long argued that writers and publishers should stop pretending that any real marketing will go on for any but a few books. There should be a plan agreed, up front, of support for the writer’s to do their own marketing. This could be achieved in part through the supply of mailing lists, email lists, information and marketing templates to get we writers to do the job ourselves.

Fundamental to marketing is the need to not just recognise a demand for a product but to inform and make aware the market as to it’s availability and why it should be purchased. In the future this will increasingly be the task of authors and if we grasp it, it may help to put things back onto a slightly more even keel.

Danuta’s article goes onto explore other aspects of book marketing and selling and if the subject interest you I urge you to read it.

Hatchards Book Shop

My first job in 1970 was as a messenger for an airline. Our base was at Gatwick Airport and my job was to go to London, just about every day, to take documents to various consulates and embassies that needed to be approved before cargo was allowed to be exported to these countries by air. I would go into the office at 9 a.m. and then get a train shortly after 10 and deliver my documents, usually by midday. I then often had to hang around and wait for things, usually returning to collect things around 3 p.m. before catching the train back to Gatwick. This gave me a lot of time to explore London and in particular record and book shops.

I discovered Hatchards (the oldest bookshop in the UK, founded 1797) in Piccadilly on one of my first trips to London. I would visit several times a week to look at books and usually once a week to I bought something; it has always been my favourite bookshop. Somehow books look better in Hatchards than they do in Waterstones and Smiths, it makes me want to buy them. I try to sneak a visit whenever I'm in London and today was no exception. I went up to the first floor and as surprised to see my book about the BBC News in WW2 on display! I just had to take a picture. It's on the top row third from the left - you can see it if you squint. I think the assistant thought I was a nutter, but I didn't have the brass neck to tell him it was my book I was photographing. Even better it was next to Peter Ackroyd's new book about the Thames. As Peter is, for my money, the greatest living English writer it was double delight!

I met Peter at a publishing party a few years ago; he had had a few glasses of wine. I stood talking to me with his arm around my shoulder gently pouring a glass of red wine down the front of my white shirt. I didn't have the heart to interrupt his flow. Peter drunk was far more interesting than most people sober.

Here is The News - It's Out!

In 1939, and throughout World War Two, the wireless was King, radio ruled supreme and a man with a cultured accent saying, “and here is the news”, meant only one thing – the British Broadcasting Corporation – the BBC – London – facts – information – and most importantly it meant…..THE TRUTH.

The Second World War was the only time in history that the radio has been the preeminent source of news. After what was a shaky start in the early months of the war the BBC was soon beating the newspapers to the news; so much so that the Newspaper Owners Association complained to the government. When the war started the BBC’s first broadcast of the day was at 6 p.m. because up until that time news was reserved for the newspapers. The idea of radio news was still very much in its infancy and several times in the 1930s the BBC actually said at 6 p.m. “Here is the news, there is no news”, and promptly ended the bulletin. Against this background it makes their achievements even more remarkable.

Towards the end of the war the BBC, in one of its publications, quoted from the preface to Dryden‘s poem Annus Mirabilis. “To describe the motives, the beginning, the progresses, and successes of a most just and necessary war.” It portrays perfectly what the BBC’s correspondents, editors, newsreaders, commentators, givers of talks and the thousands of dedicated employees who worked for the Corporation achieved.

When the war began the BBC had no more of a clue than anyone else, as to how the war would progress, how long it would last – other than it would probably be long - nor what would be its outcome. They had to adapt to changing circumstances against pressures that ranged from the cultural to the technical, both on a personal level and a global scale. In particular the expansion of the war into far flung corners of the world created enormous demands on the broadcaster, and in particular a growing exigency for correspondents the longer the war went on. Throughout it all the BBC had to face criticism at home, attacks from the newspapers, carping from MPs and sometimes the wrath of its own listeners – but broadly speaking Britain and the World never lost faith with the BBC.

Today the BBC has a reputation that has been built upon their achievements during the Second World War. There have been some who have tried to bring the harsh glare of a revisionist’s spotlight on the work of the Corporation, theirs have been cheap shots and as often as not they have been misinformed. The BBC provided the soundtrack to six of the most turbulent years in Britain’s history, and did so while showing great resilience during the early years of the war under what were very difficult conditions. They did it with great skill, flair, imagination, dedication and tremendous tenacity, and they did it while never losing sight of their own imperative - “To tell the truth – in war as in peace”

Typo - A Great Read

Back in early July via Richard Charkin’s blog I was alerted to ‘Typo’, David Silverman's book about his catastrophic business collapse running a typesetting company. Richard gave it an excellent review and in its own small way proved the potential of the internet to market books is the way forward - but not like most publishers think it should be done.

It was also interesting because Jonathan Main at the Bookseller Crow immediately posted a message on your blog saying he'd secured a supply of the books from the publisher's MySpace site. I ordered it from them - it arrived and I've just finished reading it. It is an absolutely brilliant book, not just if you're into typesetting. The story concerns David and his partner buying a typesetting company in Iowa, see it begin to grow and then ultimately collapse through a series of unfortunate situations - personal and professional. It reminded me of one of my favourite sayings - in business you can never save yourself to prosperity.
It's the story of every company as much as David's company. It's also extremely funny, insightful and ultimately heartwarming.

Book Buying

Yesterday I had some time to myself in London and went to my favourite (high street) bookshop, Hatchards in Piccadilly. I first went there in 1970 and it's changed very little or so it seems. You have that feeling of stepping back into a more genteel world where book selling was not an industry but a service that they provided to the clientele - they were after all founded in the 18th Century.

Before that I was in Watersone's flag ship store which is 100 yards along Piccadilly from Hatchards. It is in the old Simpson's store and is five huge floors of books. Watersone's owns Hatchards, which to me says something about the strange business of high street major retailers. Can both shops really be making money? In Waterstone’s there are numerous posters urging people to shop online at Waterstones.com - it's a strange old world.

At Hatchards I bought the latest issue of the very excellent Slightly Foxed, the quarterly literary magazine. It is available on subscription, which I've so far avoided as I like the idea of popping in Hatchards for it.