Newsletter
February 07
A message from Mr B (acting editor)
The Book Monkey
apologises but he is "too busy" packing for his impending Portuguese holiday to write this
newsletter, so Mr B is here instead to welcome you on board February's Literary
Express. We want to show you our brand new independent publisher of the month, two
fabulous new series from Penguin and Harper Perennial, reviews of some
great new paperback treats, a special
♥
List of Lurrrrrve
♥
for
Valentine's Day - and of course the Quirky Quiz (who won last month's rollover....I
bet you're all on the edges of your little seats?!)
Just scroll down or click
on these links to go to a section directly
Events
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What's New at Mr B's
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Reviews
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♥Mr
B's List of Lurrrrve
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Quirky Quiz
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Noticeboard
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Events - What's Mr B got in store?
Author Tom Hodgkinson discusses his new book
"How to be Free"
(as featured on BBC Radio 4)
*Tickets nearly sold out so grab the last few now!*
Thursday 15th February - 6.30 p.m. at Mr B's
Having reminded us all how to be idle in his previous, hugely
successful book, Hodgkinson turns his attention to freeing us from the
bonds of an overly consumer-focused bureaucratic existence. Drawing on
French existentialists, British punks, US beats, hippies, anarchists and
medieval thinkers he shows that our consumer society has led not to a
widening of freedoms but to their restriction.
No
better time than the New Year to look for inspiration on how to throw off
the shackles of anxiety, debt, government forms, and housework and to start
being free!
Click here to buy the book online
Tickets in
advance £3 (includes a glass of wine and nibbles) To buy: call 01225 331155, email
books@mrbsemporium.com
or pop into the shop!
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An evening
with Susan Hill
We are
delighted that Susan Hill will be spending an evening at Mr B's talking
about her novel "Woman in Black" & meeting readers
Susan Hill's gripping Booker
Prize-winning novel has been adapted into
a
hugely successful West End playby
Stephen Mallatratt, now in its eighteenth year. It returns to the Theatre Royal in
Bath from 30th April to 5th May.
*Limited availability and a lot of demand expected so book early!*
Thursday 3rd May - 6.30 p.m. at Mr B's
Tickets in
advance £3 (includes a glass of wine and nibbles) To buy: call 01225 331155, email
books@mrbsemporium.com
or pop into the shop!
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What's New at Mr B's?
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New Independent Publisher of the
Month
Earworms - Musical Brain Trainer
A funky new way to quickly learn
a foreign language
We've had lots of customers
coming back to us with great feedback about this range, so we thought we'd
tell you all about it.
The basic idea behind this
music-based learning program is that first, your brain is more receptive
to learning when it is relaxed and calm and secondly, that music enhances
the memory processes dramatically and anchors the sounds of the words deep
into your long term memory
Sounds funky but it's all
Greek to me!
So far available for French
(Levels 1 & 2), Spanish (Levels 1 & 2), Italian (Levels 1 & 2), Chinese,
Greek, German and Japanese. Each CD teaches more than 200 words and
phrases and costs £14.99.
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*NEW
series*
"Great
Journeys" - an inspiring new collection of travel writing classics
from Penguin
From
Mark Twain's adventures around the Mediterranean, von Humboldt's
exploits in the Venezualan jungle and Chekhov's travels through the
bleak Siberian wilderness, these very nicely produced slim
pocket-sized editions reveal the strange wonders of a bygone age as
well as timeless advice for intrepid travellers. Twenty lovely books
to collect. Paperback - £4.99 each.
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*NEW series*
"Stranger
than Fiction" - A wonderful selection of non-fiction by Harper Perennial
Harper
Perennial has published this new series to celebrate some of the best in
narrative non-fiction - where tales of lives, journeys and adventures
are often stranger than fiction - with 15 titles including Wild Swans by
Jung Chang, The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, The Diving-Bell and
the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar
Nafisi, Stuart - A life Backwards by Alexander Masters and Sea Biscuit
by Laura Hillenbrand.
Paperback - £5.99 each
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Reviews
Still feeling the
pinch after Christmas? Hardbacks - tempting but too pricey? Let Mr B
spoil you with some brand new paperback delights!
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Bath's Big Read
House of
Orphans
by Helen Dunmore
Another excellent
historical novel by Helen Dunmore, this has been chosen by the
Bath Literature Festival as "Bath's Big Read". Helen popped into Mr B's in a pre-Festival whizz round, and signed
lots of copies, so if you can't see her at the Festival or if
you want to read it before going to see her talk, come and get
your 10% off signed copy at Mr B's.
A beautifully
written story of love, history and change set during the
uprising of the Finns against Russian domination in 1901, with
lyrically written descriptions of the landscape and people. Eeva,
an orphaned daughter of a failed revolutionary is employed by a
widowed doctor, Thomas, who falls in love with her - but she has
committed herself to a boy from her childhood now in Helsinki.
She flees to the city where the chilly forests of the country
give way to concrete, railways and smoke. Eeva finds herself in
a world she does not recognise.
Paperback - Penguin - 2007. Mr B's Special offer 10% off
- Was £7.99 - Now £7.19.
Click here to buy online
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A wonderful new poet
Look We Have
Coming to Dover! by
Daljit
Nagra
A new poet who is the talk
of the town. Nagra, a second-generation Punjabi, whose poem
"Look we have coming to Dover!" won the Forward Prize for Best
Individual Poem in 2004, explores
a
multicultural Britain with a vivid, witty and mischievous use of
language. In mostly suburban settings, his poems, often using
hybrid language, are at times realistic, at times romantic -
speaking of trying to fit in, of love, inspirations and
aspirations. This will cheer you up in these gloomy winter days.
Paperback - Faber - 2007.
£8.99
Click here to buy online |
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Something a
little different
Bar Flaubert by
Alexis Stamatis
A best-seller in
Greece, this novel (translated this year into English), follows
the journey of Yannis who, whilst editing his father's
autobiography, comes across the manuscript of an aspiring writer
which seems to echo his own innermost thoughts. Yannis
determines to find out who the writer of this amazing story is
and what has happened to him - but he must first unravel the
codes in his writing.
We follow
Yannis to Barcelona, Berlin and Florence
as he traces his Greek family's many connections and at last
uncovers a mysterious ancestor who links together the strands of
his investigation.
Paperback -
Arcadia - 2007. £11.99.
Click here to
buy online
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Most talked about by everyone
Suite Française by Irène
Némirovksy
Everyone, but
everyone seems to love this book. It was a runaway success in
hardback last year and now it's proving even more popular in
paperback - and most of its initial success seems to be due to
word-of-mouth recommendation rather than a huge publicity drive,
which is always nice.
There is a tragic
romance to the origins of the book - Némirovksy was a French
novelist whose first novel, "David Golder" became a success in
the 1920s. She wrote several further novels before the outbreak
of World War II. Two years into the war, she planned and started
Suite Française but only managed to draft two out of the five
planned novellas before being taken to Auschwitz and killed.
These drafts survived with her daughter and have only recently
been published.
The first novella,
"Storm in June", follows five French families as they escape
Paris during the war. The second, "Dolce", explores life
in an occupied French village.
Her first
novel "David Golder" has also just been re-issued and is
available in paperback at Mr B's.
Paperback - Vintage - 2007.
£7.99.
Click here to buy online.
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Something life-saving
This Book Will
Save Your Life
by A.M. Homes
Richard is a
super-rich
divorced trader in L.A. whose only regular human
interaction is with his nutritionist, his trainer and his
house-keeper. But a rush to hospital after sudden pains make him
begin really living his life. He's soon trying his first donut
in years, making new friends (including his own son) and, thanks
to a series of increasingly bizarre and amusing episodes - such
as helping his movie-star neighbour airlift a little girl's
horse out of a giant pot hole - inadvertently becoming known as
a local good Samaritan.
A funny and
uplifting story about learning to live life to the full and
making the best of the misfortunes that befall us.
Paperback - Granta - 2007. £7.99.
Click here to buy online.
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Something to dream about
Unforgettable Islands to escape to before you die
by Steve Davey and
Marc Scholssman
Now you may not
(yet) be rich and famous enough to buy your own island, Richard
Branson-style, but you can escape to some pretty amazing places
without needing to take out a second mortgage.
This new book
looks listfully at some of the most vibrant, beautiful and
heavenly places to visit to get away from life's stresses and
worries - and not all are as far away and budget-breaking as you
think. Sark (one of the Channel Islands) is in there, the Isle
of Skye, Mont Saint-Michel, Sicily and Madeira, as well as the
more exotic Rapa Nui in Chile, Mount Desert Island in Maine,
Tierra Del Fuego in Argentina etc. etc. It's not a book all
about deserted islands with palm trees and turtles for company,
but about islands with unique character and vibrancy, cultures
and architecture. Written by two experienced travel journalists
with beautiful colour photos throughout.
Paperback - BBC
Books - 2007. £18.99.
Click here to buy
online. |
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♥♥♥♥♥
Mr B's List of
Lurrrrrve ♥♥♥♥
We
thought we'd recreate here the List of Lurrve that we wrote for
Venue magazine last week to give you a bit of Valentine reading
inspiration. Needless to say all this lurrrrve is ready and waiting
for you at Mr B's - and Vlashka's always ready to give that little
bit more!
Click here to buy any of these online
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1. Ultimate
Tragic Love
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
(Penguin,
2005). £6.99 Paperback.
Iconic
forbidden love with a tragic twist that will never be beaten as
Romeo "How am I supposed to get up there?" Montague and Juliet
"You had me at 'What light through yonder window'" Capulet play
out their tumultuous story. |
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2. Taboo
Love
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
(Penguin, 2006). £7.99
Paperback.
This
classic tragicomedy sees Humbert Humbert pursue his desperate
quest to fulfil his fantasies with the coquettish nymphet
Lolita. |
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3.
Unrequited Love
- The Remains of the Day by
Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber,
2005). £7.99 Paperback.
In
Ishiguro's Booker Prize winning novel, Stevens the butler and
Miss Kenton the housekeeper spend 250 pages repressing their
feelings for one another before a dramatic final repression of
feelings at the end. |
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4. Very
Requited Love
- Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin
(Penguin,
2001). £6.99 Paperback.
Heroine
Sabina reverses the traditional roles by playing games, having a
LOT of sex and always making sure to avoid commitment.
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5. Poetic Love -
No Bliss Like This: Five centuries of
love poems by women complied by Jill Hollis (Constable, 2007). £7.99 Paperback.
Brand new
collection of poems by women such as Atwood, Bronte, Barrett
Browning and, of all people, Elizabeth I. on love and all things
loveish. Bam, Valentine's present sorted. |
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6. Lots of
Love
- Casanova's Women: The great
seducer and the women he loved by Judith Summers
(Bloomsbury, 2006). £20 Hardback.
New
biography of the eighteenth century super-seducer, written from
a female perspective (or perhaps that should be around 200
female perspectives). |
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7.
Professional Love
- The Scorpion's Sweet Venom by Bruna Surfistinha
(Bloomsbury, 2006). £9.99 Hardback.
Go under
the sheets with the controversial musings of a Brazilian
prostitute blogger - part autobiography, part sex-guide.
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8. Love in a Cold Climate -
Love in a
Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
(Penguin, 1976). £7.99 Paperback.
Comic novel
by the doyenne of upper crust life, in which heroine Polly
causes outrage by marrying a Lothario widower who had previously
been her mother's lover. |
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9. Love in a Hot Climate -
The Map
of Love by Ahdaf Soueif (Bloomsbury, 2000). £6.99 Paperback.
A romance
of the desert - A passionate love in 1900 between Lady
Winterbourne and Sharif, an Egyptian Nationalist - discovered
through letters found in a trunk a hundred years later.
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10.
Unconditional Love
- Marley and Me by John Grogan
(Hodder & Staughton,
2006). £12.99 Paperback.
This
giggle-inducing tear-jerking biography of a family's life with
the world's naughtiest Labrador is proof - if proof be needed - that
the only unconditional love is doggy love. |
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The Book Monkey's Quirky Quiz
So...who
won January's quirky quiz ROLLOVER?!
Still licking her
lips, Vlashka thanks all those who entered this month. The winner in our first ever ROLLOVER
is Jill Bennett - Well done - you get a whopping £10 off your next
purchase at Mr B's. Can you handle the excitement?
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Answer me this, book-lovers, and you could
get
£5 off your next purchase from Mr B’s
QUIRKY QUIZ QUESTION
Who wrote this
poem?
When I am sad and weary,
When I think all
hope has gone,
When I walk along
High Holborn
I think of you
with nothing on.
If
you know the answer, email us on
books@mrbsemporium.com or pop into the shop.
The first ten people to answer correctly will be allocated a dog
biscuit in Vlashka’s dinner bowl. The first person’s biscuit to
be eaten will be the winner!
The lucky winner will be announced in next month’s newsletter
and will get £5 off their next purchase at Mr B’s shop in
Bath
or off an email book order.
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Answers to December's Quirky Quiz
Question:
In Rose Tremain's "Music & Silence", what instrument does Peter
Claire play?
Answer:
The Lute
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Noticeboard
Don’t miss out on some of the great things our neighbours
are getting up to …
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Bath Literature
Festival 2007: 3 - 11 March
A fantastic line-up of
authors at various venues around Bath. See
www.bathlitfest.org.uk
for more details.
Other Lectures,
Readings,
Recitals
The
Theatre Royal, Bath - Special Events Program
Fri
16th Feb - Michael Dobbs "First Lady"
Fri
23rd March - Jane Austen Double Bill ("Rhyme & Reason", Kim Hicks -
"Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners", Josephine Ross)
The Bath Science Cafe
Informal talk & audience discussion on science & technology -
Upstairs in the Raven Pub, 7 Queen Street, Bath - on the 2nd Monday
of every month
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Concerts
Charity Concert - Saturday 24th
February at 7.30
- in aid of Children’s Hospice South
West
The Chapel, Prior Park College, Bath
An evening of choral and instrumental music in a stunning setting -
Tickets £8 – call 01249740261 or on the door
Miserere by Gregorio Allegri and works by Handel, Fauré, Bruckner,
Stanford and Pärt
Charity Concert - Saturday 10th
March at 8pm
-
Bath Cantata Group
St Stephen’s Church, Lansdown, Bath -
profits to the Tower Appeal
Schubert - Mozart – - Buxtehude - Tickets £10 from Sharps and Flats,
Orange Grove or at the door –
www.bathcantatagroup.com
Cinema
See what's on at the Little Theatre Cinema in Bath -
Click here to go to website.
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