Loud whooping in the office . . .

from BNO1 as there is another review of Bless 'em All, this time from Johnathan Keates in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS to you):

'Allen Saddler’s Bless ’Em All is subtitled A Blitz novel. Its emphasis is on the eternally absorbing paradox, in Second World War London, of ordinary lives pursuing their respective courses against a background of communal loss and annihilation. Booksellers Bernard and Maurice Green; their invoice clerk Rosa Tcherny, “a bit of all right”; perky Jimmy
the office boy, with his taste for pork-dripping and the Gem magazine; Bunty, on the game up West; and Gloria, the resting actress whose dramatic quietus owes nothing to the Luftwaffe: none of them is conspicuous for courage or glamour. What matters to them all is being “free to act natural”, as Jimmy puts it, even if, like the hotel porter Bert Penrose, they should end up minus a spouse and a leg.

Allen Saddler carefully avoids any hint of “London can take it” Cockney-sparrer sentimentality. The baldness of his characters’ conversational exchanges is as convincing as the unemotional narrative, pared down to the sinew of an existence suddenly robbed of anything like certainty or expectation: “Edie kept coming, day after day, but she didn’t bring any joy”. Even while it saves them, the mood of resignation which forms an essential ingredient of such lives has its own dangerous powers of
corrosion.'

http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/bless'emall.htm

Peter Haining

Amidst the great and the good of the publishing world, there are none so important nor as unassuming as those who make their living by producing good books for good publishers. These as distinct from writers, although they may indeed be talented writers, because rather than starting out from their own peculiar interests, they start out looking for a book that a publisher will want to sell, and that readers will want to read.

For very many years now we have had one of the best of these noble souls as a regular collaborator - Peter Haining. His speciality is fascinating collections of short prose - either little known pieces by famous writers or collections based around a theme. So we get:

Hunted Down: Detective Fiction by Charles Dickens
(The Web page seems to have disappeared for this one, back up soon but in the meantime here's the amazon page)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunted-Down-Detective-Stories-Charles/dp/0720612659/ref=sr_1_1/026-3159382-0271624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173790788&sr=8-1

The Ghost Feeler and The Demanding Dead by Edith Wharton
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/ghost.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/Demanding%20Dead.htm


Supernatural Tales by Vernon Lee
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/super.htm

Sensation Stories by Wilkie Collins
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/sensation.htm

The Adventures of Hunter Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/Hunterq.htm


or

The Hashish Club volumes one and two - various authors write about drugs
(Sadly out of print)

A Thousand Afternoons – An anthology on bullfighting
(Ditto)

or

Lassie - the extraordinary story of Eric Knight and the world's favourite dog
(Bizarrely this one has disappeared too.)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lassie-Extraordinary-Knight-Worlds-Favourite/dp/0720612675/ref=sr_1_1/026-3159382-0271624?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173790693&sr=8-1


A Cat compendium, – the world of Louis Wain
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/nonfic/louiswain.htm

More often than not with an excellent introduction or more by the man himself. I imagine him sitting in a remote cottage somewhere with wild hair, a comfortable armchair, obscure but comprehensive encyclopedia and a gigantic blackboard marked 'ideas!'

Another Bless 'em All review

Another Allen Saddler review to add to the collection. This time from the Western Morning News:

‘This riotous wartime tale of prostitution, romance, murder and the old-fashioned business of selling books comes from a Devon author with excellent credentials in journalism and writing for radio and television. In a portrait of a cross-section of London society during the Blitz, revealing that they were not heroic in the conventional sense and that most of them regarded the bombing as an intrusion, a nuisance to be endured. With its wealth of quirky characters, this highly entertaining novel exposes the misplaced optimism, naked opportunism and matrimonial misdemeanours in a comic tour de force of considerable verve, perceptiveness and period authority.’

We're still waiting on some more, but so far I believe that no-one had a bad word to say and many many good ones. Congrats must go to Allen.

A Bookseller disclaimer

The Bookseller (A trade weekly) mentions us twice this week - one all about our new fiction programme the other about Blogger No. 1 (BNO1)'s current reading habits.

The first piece, although good and long and accurate quotes BNO1 as saying that the new fiction imprint will be called POP fiction. It won't and it was BNO1's mistake to have mentioned such a silly name at all. Apologies for any confusion caused.

Also BNO1's name has again been confused. So far in his short publishing career he has been called 'Miss.', 'Peter Owen' and now apparently been inducted into the Owen family.

International Woman's Day

So both women and books have been reduced to Clinton's status.

Top ten P.O.P. in print books written by women:

1. Two Serious Ladies, Jane Bowles
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/twoser.htm

2.Lady and the Little Fox Fur, Violette Leduc
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/ladyandlit.htm

3. Ladders to Fire/Children of the Albatross/Four chambered heart, Anais Nin
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/ladders.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/childr.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/fourch.htm

4. Alberta trilogy, Cora Sandel
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/alberta.htm

5. The Butcher's Wife, Li Ang
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/butcher.htm

6. Reteat From Love/Duo et Le Toutonier, Colette
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/retrea.htm

7. In The Shadow of Islam, Isabelle Eberhardt
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/intheshad.htm

8. Ice/Asylum Piece/The Parson, Anna Kavan
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/ice.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/asylum.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/parson.htm

9. Paris France/ Look At Me Now and Here I Am, Gertrude Stein
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/modclas/paris.htm
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/nonfic/lookatme.htm

10. Loving Mephistopheles, Miranda Miller
http://www.peterowen.com/pages/fiction/Loving%20Mephistopheles.htm

We've also published Shere Hite, Monique Wittig, Uno Chiyo, Edith Wharton, Johanna Sinisalo, Anita Desai . . .

Ken Russell's P.A.

Publishing, as may have come across in these posts, is a fairly schizophrenic tranquil/harassed kind of business. At P.O.P. when one first comes in to the company they tend to be surprised at how quiet things seem. Certainly appeared so for me (Blogger no.1 in case you're wondering) right up until the first evening when I got home exhausted - but not entirely sure why. After a bit of time here it becomes apparent that the dichotomy springs from the fact that the hard work is most often self generated. 'tis you personally who decides that they must do that extra bit of editing, designing, laying out, phoning, emailing reading reading reading etc. whereas in most jobs the hard stuff is a reaction to others - got to get a report in on time, deal with this complaint, put the doll's head on the doll on the conveyer belt etc.

But over the last few days it's been rather different: with the imminence of the forthcoming books by Ken Russell it's all been stuff from outside - 'can he do this interview, that one, well if that program is going to do it then we couldn't possibly, won't he do ours instead? (How is that our problem?). when are the books coming out? Can you send proofs? Yes I'm coming to the party when is it? how do i get there? You will remember to send review copies? NO MAIL WON'T DO, I NEED TO KNOW TODAY!!'

And then there's Ken himself phoning up half an hour before the books go to print saying 'I just found two important errors' . . . nick of time doesn't do it justice.

Still, we're ecstatic that so many people are interested in Ken - he truly deserves the recognition.

Hasta la Revolucion Siempre

Gabriel Garcia Marquez turned 80 yesterday - funny to think he's almost exactly the same age as Peter. He chose to spend it in Cuba (Garcia Marquez, not Peter), which seems a very sensible place to spend one's birthday. Anyway, Feliz Cumpleaños to one of the truly great modern writers.

It's funny, we published Miguel Angel Asturias just before he won the Nobel Prize (Peter's still upset about the day Asturias won, something to do with not being offered any champagne), they are writers of comparable quality and subject matter but one reprints in millions whilst one hasn't made nearly as much of an impact. It'll be fun trying to change that . . .

Looking back through the mists it seems that we also published a book about the Cuban revolution written by a disgruntled ex Cuban ambassador to Britain. He wasn't in favour.

Then there's a book called 'What's Left?' by a fellow named David Powell. It seems that Nick Cohen stole our pun.

More oddities from the past:

'You Can Upholster!' from the seventies, exclamation mark and all.

'Beer is Best' I think this was by a Theakston or someone.

'A Dictionary of Satanism'

'A Dictionary of Graphology' various editions of that one.