Tall Stories - Fine Books For Discerning People

We are pleased to be stockists of Oak Tree Fine Press books.

HB#01094
Coetzee, J.M. Life and Times of Michael K (Volume 1 in The First Chapter Series).
Oak Tree Fine Press : Isle of Man (2006). ISBN: 0955014611. First Edition Thus. Fine : No Jacket (As Issued). Hand bound in brown cloth and housed in a hand-made, brown, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR & ARTIST. 47 pp (The first chapter). Signed by Coetzee on the title-page. Presented together with a signed print in a matching hand made slip case and cassette.

"The first thing the midwife noticed about Michael K when she helped him out of his mother into the world was that he had a hare lip. The lip curled like a snail's foot, the left nostril gaped. Obscuring the child for a moment from its mother, she prodded open the tiny bud of a mouth and was thankful to find the palate whole." So begins the novel Life and Times of Michael K, a frightening vision of a post apocalyptic South Africa, which was the first of J. M. Coetzee’s novels to win the Booker Prize in 1983.

This title features specially commissioned original artwork by South African artist, Colbert Mashile

"There is a suitably alienated Kafkaesque quality to Mashile’s linocuts which recall Coetzee’s words: 'No papers, no money; no family, no friends, no sense of who you are. The obscurest of the obscure, so obscure as to be a prodigy.' And indeed Mashile might be just that rare thing." says Alex Dodd about Colbert Mashile in her Business Day Column on 20 March 2006.

Coetzee was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice. Life and Times of Michael K marked the beginning of a series which now includes numerous Booker Prize winners, as well as artwork by highly successful artists.

This series has been developed to raise money for the support and treatment of children living with HIV /AIDS in Southern Africa and accordingly all proceeds from the sale of this first volume will go to the Thusong Children’s Centre in Kimberley,South Africa. The Thusong Children’s Centre was established in 1994 as a shelter for abandoned and abused children living on the streets. Since its inception, more than 300 children have been placed back into society equipped with the social and economic tools to have a fair chance at creating lives for themselves. There are currently more than 150 children housed in the shelter. €205.00

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HB#01095
Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace (Volume II in The First Chapter Series).
Oak Tree Fine Press : Isle of Man (2006). ISBN: 0955014638. First Edition Thus. Fine : No Jacket (As Issued). Hand bound in yellow cloth and housed in a hand-made, yellow, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR & ARTIST. 26 pp (The first chapter). Signed by Coetzee on the title-page. Presented together with a signed print in a matching hand made slip case and cassette.

Volume II in the First Chapter Series is Disgrace, for which J. M. Coetzee became the first author to win the Booker Prize twice in 1999. Written with austere clarity the novel unflinchingly examines the absence of consolation in post-apartheid society and provides a sober vision of a new South Africa. In a recent poll undertaken by The Observer, 150 of the worlds greatest writers voted Disgrace the best novel written in the last 25 years.

"John Coetzee himself is an appealing figure: discreet, professorial, and soft-spoken. Wisely shunning the literary circus, he is our Invisible Man. He lives quietly; he rides his bike; he writes. Slowly, the work accumulates. He is a writer's writer, but he's a reader's writer, too. Which is how we return him to Observer readers, a great contemporary whose work we are lucky enough to find in our own time." - The Observer, 8th October 2006.

This title features artwork by South African artist, Jo Ractliffe. "Jo Ractliffe works with photo-based media, video and installation. She was born in Cape Town where she completed her masters degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Recipient of the 1999 Vita Art Prize, Ractliffe lives in Johannesburg and lectures at the University of the Witwatersrand" - referenced from David Krut Projects.

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HB#01096
Middleton, Stanley. Holiday. (Volume III in The First Chapter Series).
Oak Tree Fine Press : Isle of Man Date of publication. (2007). ISBN: 0955014670. First Edition Thus. Fine /No Jacket (As Issued). Hand bound in teal cloth and housed in a hand-made, teal, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Limited Edition. 42 pp (The first chapter). Presented together with a signed print in a matching hand made slip case and cassette.

Signed and dated by Middleton on the title-page. The third volume of the First Chapter Series is the most desired and elusive novel for collectors of the Booker Prize. Joint winner of the prize in 1974 Holiday is a multi-layered story of marriage, death, seduction and separation and is an engaging and deeply human account of personal loss. For this magnificent volume, Middleton has painted a watercolour that illustrates the setting of the book and has also written a new foreword which after 30 years is an author's reflections on what has become his most famous book.

Holiday is a novel about lives in crisis. In it, a married man returns alone to the seaside town where he used to holiday as a child. Middleton has been described as 'god's spy' for his brilliant observational powers which allow him to pin down his characters so accurately in the book.

Stanley Middleton, in his late 80's, is still publishing a novel a year with Hutchinson. He has written 44 novels, Holiday being his best known through winning the Booker Prize.

"As good as any novelist writing" - Daily Telegraph

"We need Stanley Middleton to remind us what the novel is about. Holiday is vintage Middleton. One has to look at nineteenth-century writing for comparable storytelling." - Sunday Times

"He has never done anything better than Holiday" - Guardian

This book comes bound in a slipcase together with a signed print of the original watercolour of the town of Bealthorpe, painted by Stanley Middleton and the setting for the book, in a matching hand made cassette.

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HB#01097
Gordimer, N. The Conservationist. (Volume IV in The First Chapter Series)
Oak Tree Fine Press : United Kingdom (2007). ISBN: 0955014654. First Edition Thus. Fine/No Jacket (As Issued). Hand bound in rust-brown cloth and housed in a hand-made, rust-brown, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Limited Edition. 39 pp + 3 pp. (The first chapter). Signed and dated by on the title-page by Gordimer. Presented together with a signed print in a matching hand made slip case and cassette.

Volume four of the First Chapter Series by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer was joint winner of the Booker Prize with Stanley Middleton in 1974. In the novel Nadine Gordimer has juxtaposed the world of a wealthy white industrialist with the rituals and mythology of Zulus. It is her densest and most poetical novel and it's minute details and documentary precision form an intricate web of meanings where each stone, egg, and piece of marble carry symbolic implication. "Nadine Gordimer's work has grown into a profoundly psychological and social chronicle of half a century in South Africa. She is both its archivist and lighthouse keeper. Above her collected experience, the light sweeps, illuminating parts that would otherwise have lain in darkness, helping us navigate towards a South Africa that, far from being geographically cut off and politically ostracised, depicts a universal landscape", - The Nobel Prize in Literature.

Each numbered book is individually signed by the author and features the work of South African artist Cyril Coetzee. The images show Coetzee's patient attention to detail and his ability to render figures from the book in three-dimensional fullness. They are a marvellous accompaniment to a novel that occupies an important place in South African literary history. This book comes bound in a slipcase together with a signed print in a matching cassette.

This series has been developed to raise money for the support and treatment of children living with HIV /AIDS in Southern Africa and accordingly all proceeds from the sale of this volume will go to the The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa. The Treatment Action Campaign is an independent non-profit organization whose funds are used for the treatment and support of people suffering from HIV and AIDS, and for the prevention of the disease in the world's most afflicted region, southern Africa. the TAC has become South Africa's leading AIDS pressure group and a compelling world voice for people with the disease. €205.00

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HB#01098
Unsworth, Barry. Sacred Hunger (Volume V in The First Chapter Series).
Oak Tree Fine Press : United Kingdom (2007). ISBN: 9781906100001. First Edition Thus Fine/No Jacket (As Issued). Hand bound in brown cloth and housed in a hand-made, brown, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR. Limited Edition. 53 pp + 3 pp. (The first chapter). Signed and dated by on the title-page by the author.

"Let the most oppressed people under heaven once change their thinking and they are free" Produced in the Bicentennial Year of the Abolition of the British Slave Trade, the fifth volume of the First Chapter Series is a riveting narrative based on an 18th Century slave ship. Echoing modern concerns, it depicts a society driven by greed -- the "sacred hunger'' of the title - and the desire to maximize profit regardless of the human cost. The stirring opening chapters of the novel are included in this beautiful hand bound volume, together with a new foreword by the writer. Stark woodcut illustrations, specially commissioned from award-winning artist Ezequiel Mabote, complement the text, making this signed limited edition volume a welcome addition to your collection.

"Wonderful and heartbreaking. A book of grace and meditative elegance, and of great moral seriousness." New York Times Book Review "" His descriptions of the multifarious states of ocean and sky are worthy of the master. Unsworth shifts with ease from the abstract to the concrete, from the cosmic to the comic. His tenth novel is his best." - The Times Literary Supplement.

Ezequiel Mabote draws inspiration for his striking pieces from the everyday life and folklore of Mozambique. Trained at the John Muafangejo Centre in Namibia, he makes careful use of texture and colour to create bold visuals, which have been exhibited in the USA and Africa. We do not have the separate signed artwork for sale, we only have the single volume which is signed by the author.

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HB#01099
Atwood, Margaret. Blind Assassin (Volume VI in The First Chapter Series). Oak Tree Fine Press : United Kingdom (2008). ISBN: 9781906100032. First Edition Thus. Fine/No Jacket (as issued). Hand bound in maroon cloth and housed in a hand-made, maroon, cloth-covered slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR & ARTIST. Limited Edition. 48 pp + 3 pp. (The first chapter). Includes SIGNED Yoko Ono print in matching cassette. Signed and dated by on the title-page by the author.

Volume VI of the First Chapter Series Booker Prize is Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, a stunning tale of deceit, manipulation and complex relationships in Ontario, Canada, during the Second World War. The Blind Assassin was awarded the Booker Prize in 2000 for its uncompromising portrait of a former society wife recalling the events surrounding her sister's early suicide. This book captures the flawlessly crafted opening chapters of the novel, in which key events are introduced through distinct narrative threads. Unexplained echoes resonate across the text, creating a sense of mystery and yearning.

Yoko Ono's stunning frontispiece perfectly complements this unsettling, but deeply moving text. Her distinctly feminine drawing offers a dazzling interplay between darkened corners and small intense moments of light, creating a profound visual journey which challenges our perceptions even as it invites our gaze.

This beautiful, exquisitely hand bound book offers a unique view onto the work of these two women, both of whom have earned iconic status for their bold explorations of issues of sexual powerplay, loss and human frailty. "A complex [novel] that works on many different levels. Far reaching, dramatic and structurally superb, it demonstrates Atwood's immense emotional range, as well as her poet's eye for both telling detail and psychological truth." - Simon Jenkins, Booker Prize judge.

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her work is marked by a tendency to collapse and subvert different genres, and key novels include The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye and Alias Grace. As well as the Booker, she has won the Giller Prize and the Premio Mondello. She has been translated into thirty three languages and several of her works have been adapted for the stage and screen.

Yoko Ono's work is characterised by a dedication to pioneering new art forms. Her profoundly social art seeks to involve the viewer as an active participant and break down the distinctions between different genres, as well as between art and everyday life. Since her initial involvement in underground art movements in the 1960s and her later collaborative work with John Lennon, Yoko Ono has worked prolifically, exploring issues of time, change and survival through critically acclaimed one-woman shows and retrospectives.

Hand bound in slipcase together with SIGNED artwork in matching cassette. The artwork complements a fragmented and flawlessly crafted text, which explores the regrets and memories of a former society wife recalling the events surrounding her sister’s early suicide just after the Second World War. Yoko Ono's conceptual image echoes the concerns of the narrative, using small dark corners and intense moments of light to create a profound and disturbing visual experience

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HB#01100
Le Carré, J. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Oak Tree Fine Press :United Kingdom. (2008). ISBN: 9781906100018. First Edition Thus. Fine/No Jacket (as issued). ¼ Red cloth + Marbled boards. Slipcase. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR & ARTIST. Limited Edition. 55 pp (first chapter) .

This magnificent volume is SIGNED by John Le Carré (on the title-page), and features an especially commissioned signed print (tipped-in frontispiece) of the author by internationally acclaimed artist Stephen Alcorn. Edition limited to 160 volumes in hand marbled boards, quarter bound in rich red cloth to match the vivid dust jacket of the novel’s very first edition in 1963. Presented in a matching red cloth slipcase. This limited edition publication showcases the unforgettable opening sequences from the book recently voted "The Greatest Spy Novel of All Time". First published in 1963, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold bowled over critics and readers alike with its unrivalled storytelling and fresh, morally ambiguous perspective onto the "practitioners" of the Cold War. Since then, it has won a panoply of international accolades, reflecting its crucial role within both our literary tradition and our social history. €135.00

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HB#01101
Atwood, Margaret & Ono, Yoko. Through the Eyes of Yoko Ono : The Blind Assassin. Shared Vision (Volume 1). Oak Tree Fine Press : United Kingdom (2008). ISBN: 9781906100032. First Edition Thus. Fine/No Jacket (as issued). ¼ Cloth on dark hand patterned board by Claire Maziarczyk and enclosed in a hand made solander box. Royal Octavo. SIGNED BY AUTHOR & ARTIST. Limited Edition. Signed and dated on the title-page by Margaret Atwood. Includes a SIGNED print by Yoko Ono.

Shared Vision is a new series from the Oak Tree Fine Press, bringing together the work of the world's greatest contemporary authors and artists. Each volume is signed by the author and comes together with the print signed by the artist(s). We are extremely proud of the first book in this series, which offers a fascinating view onto the work of two world famous woman artists, both of whom have earned iconic status through their bold explorations of issues of sexual powerplay, loss and human frailty. The collaboration of Yoko Ono and Margaret Atwood is all the more profound in the light of their shared reputation for successfully melding, challenging and reshaping artistic boundaries and genres.

For this work, Yoko Ono has produced a deeply sensual conceptual drawing. This work offers a dazzling interplay between darkened corners and small intense moments of light. Choose any movement within the work and follow it - you will find yourself simultaneously sucked into the centre and expelled, creating a profound visual journey which challenges our perceptions even as it invites our gaze. Yoko Ono's artwork is perfectly complemented by the opening chapters from Booker Prize winning novel The Blind Assassin. This fragmented and flawlessly crafted text poses many questions but offers few answers as it explores the regrets and memories of a former society wife recalling the events surrounding her sister's early suicide just after the Second World War. The narrative comprises very distinct threads, resonant with unexplained echoes, which together reveal a story heavy with human deceit, manipulation and betrayal.

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her work is marked by a tendency to collapse and subvert different genres. Key novels include The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye and Alias Grace. As well as the Booker, she has won the Giller Prize and the Premio Mondello. She has been translated into thirty three languages and several of her works have been adapted for the stage and screen.

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