Bits and Bobs

All sorts of bits and pieces which I've been meaning to write about for a while, today...

- Telegram Books emailed me a while ago, wondering whether I'd consider their publishing house as one of my Places of Beauty (which reminds me that it's not been updated for a while, actually). I must investigate them further at some point, but they look like a really fascinating translation press. See telegrambooks.com; they have works from Siberia to Egypt, Pakistan to Belgium. Some of them truly are beautiful, too - my favourite cover is on the right, The Old Man and His Sons by Faroese author Heoin Bru.


- do go and check out Smartish Place, a ten year old literary magazine. The website is really well laid out, and though I don't know much about poetry, there seems to be a lot of potential interest there - interviews, reviews, original work and so forth.


- Alma Books launched, in March 2007, a series of Oneworld Classics, and have also taken over the Calder list, including authors like Duras, Ionesco, Celine and more. They blog at Bloggerel.com, and have books which range from Wuthering Heights to The Decameron, Oscar Wilde to DH Lawrence to some really lovely Jane Austen editions. Most of these editions have some new illustrations, apparatus about the author, and all sorts of other intriguing bits and pieces, and are beautifully produced. I love it when a publishing house puts real effort into the cover images - especially when it's a book that isn't too difficult to track down, this can really make an edition worth having. A couple of my favourites shown on the left, Great Expectations by Mr. Dickens, and The Italian by Mrs. Radcliffe.


- filedby.com emailed me about their website, filedbyauthor, for connecting readers and authors, check it out


- Steve Lee emailed me about his book What If... (which I mentioned back here) - if you buy copies from http://www.ChangingTheWorldToday.com they now give $4 to Save The Children for every copy bought. We used to put on 'fun days' to raise money for Save The Children, so it's a cause close to my heart.