tall-in-the-land-of-stories

An evening with author Alexandra Fuller

Mon, 07 May 2012 08:39:26 +0100

Tall Stories

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• Fine Books for Discerning Readers •

Dear Book People,

Tall Stories and the Book Concierge are pleased to invite you to a conversation with memoirist and writer, Alexandra Fuller on the 8th of May in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Fuller is in Johannesburg only briefly, visiting the country on her way to the Franschhoek Literary Festival. Jackie May, features editor of The Times, will be speaking to her. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear this wonderfully entertaining writer speak about her latest book, Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness.

Cocktail Hour
with Alexandra Fuller
author of
Don't Let's go to the Dogs Tonight

Tuesday 8 May
18h00 - 19h30

Venue: The French Institute of South Africa
2nd floor, 62 Juta Street, Braamfontein
(safe parking in Juta Street)
Corner of Juta and Bertha Streets,
upstairs from Stevenson Gallery

The features editor of The Times, Jackie May, will be in conversation with Fuller

RSVP by Monday 7 May on books@corinavanderspoel.com

Alexandra Fuller’s books will be on sale at the event from Tall Stories Bookshop

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Myself with Alexander Fuller at at a breakfast launch for the book which was hosted by Jenny Crwys-Williams. AF indulged me.

Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969 and in 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After the civil war there in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. She married an American river guide in Zambia in 1993 and now lives in Wyoming with their three children.

She has written four books of non-fiction. Her debut book, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Book Sense best non-fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. Her 2004 Scribbling the Cat won the Ulysses Prize for Art of Reportage. The Legend of Colton H Bryant was published in 2008 and was a Toronto Globe and Mail, Best Non-Fiction Book of 2008

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Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness tells the story of the author's mother, Nicola Fuller. Nicola Fuller and her husband were a glamorous and optimistic couple and East Africa lay before them with the promise of all its perfect light, even as the British Empire in which they both believed waned. They had everything, including two golden children - a girl and a boy. However, life became increasingly difficult and they moved to Rhodesia to work as farm managers. The previous farm manager had committed suicide. His ghost appeared at the foot of their bed and seemed to be trying to warn them of something. Shortly after this, one of their golden children died. Africa was no longer the playground of Nicola's childhood. They returned to England where the author was born before they returned to Rhodesia and to the civil war. The last part of the book sees the Fullers in their old age on a banana and fish farm in the Zambezi Valley. They had built their ramshackle dining room under the Tree of Forgetfulness. In local custom, this tree is the meeting place for villagers determined to resolve disputes. It is in the spirit of this Forgetfulness that Nicola finally forgot - but did not forgive - all her enemies including her daughter and the Apostle, a squatter who has taken up in her bananas with his seven wives and forty-nine children. Funny, tragic, terrifying, exotic and utterly unself-conscious, this is a story of survival and madness, love and war, passion and compassion.

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An Extract from Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness :

Our Mum—or Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as she has on occasion preferred to introduce herself—has wanted a writer in the family as long as either of us can remember, not only because she loves books and has therefore always wanted to appear in them (the way she likes large, expensive hats, andlikes to appear inthem) but also because she has always wantedto live a fabulously romantic life for which she needed a reasonablypliable witness as scribe.

"At least she didn't read you Shakespeare in the womb," my sister says. "I think that's what gave me brain damage."
"You do not have brain damage," I say.
"That's what Mum says."
"Well, I wouldn't listen to her. You know what she's like," I say.
"I know," Vanessa says.
"For example," I say, "lately, she's been telling me that I must have been switched at birth."
"Really?" Vanessa tilts her head this way and that to get a better view of my features. "Let me have a look at your nose from the other side."
"Stop it," I cover my nose.
"Well, you brought it on yourself," Vanessa says, lighting a cigarette. "You should never have written that Awful Book about her."
I count the ways that Vanessa is wrong, "For the millionth time, it's not awful and it wasn't about her."
Vanessa blows smoke at the sky placidly, "That's not what Mum says. Anyway, I wouldn't know. I haven't read it. I won't. I can't. I'm brain damaged. Ask Mum."
We're sitting outside Vanessa's rock house near the town of Kafue. Wisely, Vanessa has grown up to be an inscrutable artist—fabric, graphics and exuberant, tropical canvases all expressed with a kind of noncommittal chaos—so no one can really pin anything on her. And anyway, no matter what happens, Vanessa always behaves as if everything will resolve itself in time as long as no one panics. Her bathroom, for example, has a tree growing through the middle of its thatched roof—very romantic and picturesque but a pitiful defense against rainand reptiles. Vanessa says vaguely, "Oh, just keep your shoes onand have a good look before you sit anywhere and you shouldbe all right."

The rest of the house, attached to the wildly impractical bathroom, has a total of three tiny rooms for Vanessa, her husband and their several children, but it is built on the summit of a kopje, so it has a sense of possibility, like a closet with cathedral ceilings. We sit outside where the air smells of miombo woodland and we smoke cigarettes and look at the comforting lights from the scores of cooking fires smoldering from the kitchens in the surrounding village. Occasionally we hear a dog barking from the taverns on the Kafue Road and soldiers in the nearby army camp shouting to one another or letting off the odd stray bullet. It's all very peaceful.

"Have another glass of wine," Vanessa suggests by way of comforting me. "You never know, Mum might forgive you eventually."
In my defense, the Awful Book, whose full and proper title can never be mentioned in the company of my family, was not all my fault. I had felt more than a little encouraged to write it—directed, even—by Nicola Fuller of Central Africa herself. Having given up on my older sister as a potential writer on account of Vanessa's stubborn refusal to learn how to read or write, Mum settled her literary ambitions on me. I was five when she abandoned the arithmetic section of our weekly Rhodesia Correspondence School packet. "Look Bobo," she reasoned, "numbers are boring. Anyway, you can always pay someone to count for you, but you can never pay anyone to write for you. Now," Mum paused and gave me one of her terrifying smiles. "What do you think you're going to write about?" Then she took a long sip of tea, brushed a couple of dogs off her lap and began to live a life Worthy of Fabulous Literature.

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Reviews for the book :

"shimmering, musical prose", "electrifying" . "Ms. Fuller would move to America with her husband in 1994, her own love for Africa reverberates throughout these pages, making the beauty and hazards of that land searingly real for the reader". -The New York Times : Books of The Times
A Mother’s Long Love Affair With Colonialism
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

"Frances Wilson is delighted by an African tragicomic memoir, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller". The Telegraph

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Alexandra Fuller's top 10 African memoirs:

Among Fuller's favourite 'performances of courage and honesty' that have come out of the continent she counts, Albie Sach’s The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Nelson Mandela’s Conversations with Myself...........................read more in The Guardian

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If you are at all interested and you use Twitter, you can visit us @TallStoriesBook , we give almost daily updates relating to the book world.

September Newsletter

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:43:06 +0100

Tall Stories

____________________________________________

• Fine Books for Discerning Readers •

Hello All,

At the end of August, the book world around Edinburgh was delighted and perplexed by these mysterious book sculpture gifts. These books sculptures below have captured the imagination of the litrary world and the artist is as yet still unknow. The sculpture "gifts" are always addressed directly to someone and some of them have been made using books written by Ian Rankin. They are always left as “gifts” at literary events such as The Edinburgh Literary Festival. So far the only things known about the paper artist are : “........it is somebody who's an Ian Rankin fan and a poetry fan and a book and film fan and a Twitter user who reads Edwin Morgan with an eye for tiny detail and subtlety," said Lilias Fraser, reader development officer at the Scottish Poetry Library.

To read more about these sculptures, have a look at this article on the mysterious book sculptures : http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html

In auction news this month, a copy of Irma Stern's Congo fetched a staggering price of R 155 000.00 on the September auction from AntiquarianAuctions.co.za It was a signed presentation copy from an edition limited to 300 copies only. There was an inscription from the artist on the front free endpaper in blue crayon – 'To André with all my love, Irma, Jonb, 1944.' It was clearly a good month for Irma Stern as a painting by her fetched the higest price paid for a South African artisit in South Africa on the September Strauss & Co. Auction. The Painting of Two Arabs, set a new record for a work of art in South Africa when it sold in Cape Town for R21 166 000.00
While we are talking high ticket items, a dust-jacket (pictured left) is expected to come to auction on the 20th of October 2011 at Sotheby's in New York. It is estimated that it will fetch $150,000-$180,000. It is the first state dust-jacket for first edition of the The Great Gatsby. Apparently there was a small printing error in the blurb of the rear panel of the dust-jacket, where the "j" of Jay Gatsby appears in lower case. All known copies of this dust-jacket have the "j" changed via hand in black ink. This is such a copy. A similar copy fetched $182,000.00 on auction in June 2009.
We will keep you posted........

We asked Agatha-Panter, the book shop cat if she wished to make a contribution to the newsletter. however, she claimed she was already over-worked and promptly collapsed :

This Months

Featured Unused Books

Where are You Now?

by
Mary Higgins Clark

It has been ten years since 21-year-old Kevin MacKenzie, Jr. ('Mac') went missing. A Columbia University senior, about to graduate and already enrolled in Duke University Law School, he walked out of his room and has never been seen again. However, he does ritually call to his mother every year: on her birthday, on his birthday, and on Mother's Day. Each time, he assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frantic questions, then hangs up. Even the death of his father, a corporate lawyer, on 9/11 does not bring him home, or break the pattern of his calls. Mac's sister, Carolyn, is now 26, realises that neither she nor her mother will ever be able to have closure and get on with their lives until they find her brother. She sets out to discover what happened to Mac, and why he has found it necessary to hide from them. Her journey into the world of people who willingly disappear from their own lives leads her to learn about others who may or may not still be alive, and ultimately to a deadly confrontation with someone close to her who suddenly becomes an enemy - and cannot allow her to disclose his secret ...

Published Price : R190.00
TALL STORIES PRICE : R65.00

Mary Higgins Clark is considered by many to be the undisputed Queen of Crime.

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Romanesque

Romanesque (Paperback)
Norbert Wolf (Edited by)
Series: Taschen Basic Genre Series

Reaching its peak in the 11th and 12th centuries, the Romanesque movement was marked by a peculiar, vivid, and often monumental expressiveness in architecture and fine arts. The main centres were located in Italy, France, the German-language countries, Spain, and England, though the voices of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe expressed themselves distinctly in the genre, which patterned itself on antique and Byzantine art. Despite untold losses, countless Romanesque masterpieces remain preserved today. Highlights include: Frescoes in Galliano near Cantu, Sant'Angelo in Formis, Saint Chef, Saint-Savin-sur Gartempe, Lambach, S. Pietro al Monte near Civate, S. Clemente in Rome, from S. Maria de Tahull, Berze-la-Ville, Tavant, Panteon de los Reyes in Leon, Castel Appiano, from Sigena; the golden Altar-Piece from Lisbjerg; the Bayeux Tapestry; stained glasses in the Cathedral of Augsburg and Le Mans, mosaics in S. Clemete, Rome, and in S. Marco, Venice; coloured panels und crosses from La Seo de Urgel, Sarzana and the panted ceiling in St. Michael, Hildesheim; sculptures in Souillac, Autun, Santiago de Compostela; and examples of metalwork, of manuscripts and enamels. Each book in TASCHEN's "Basic Genre" series features: a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period, and a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations.

Format: Paperback - With flaps
Pages: 96

Published Price : R99.00
TALL STORIES PRICE : R25.00

If you are at all interested and you use Twitter, you can visit us @TallStoriesBook , we give almost daily updates relating to the book world.

Orders Are Being Taken For :

*whilst stocks last.

Small Arms of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902

Author: Ron Bester and Associates
Volumes: One
Kraal Publishers, Brandfort, South Africa
Hardback - 386
ISBN: 1-874979-31-6

This large book contains a comprehensive study of all rifles, carbines, handguns and edged weapons used by the opposing forces during the Anglo-Boer War. Contains fifteen chapters and is lavishly illustrated in both black-and white and colour. Complete with diagrams and thorough data. Well researched and informative volume. Contributers include Terry Wilson, Fred von Solms, Johan Hattingh, Frik Jacobs, Denny Rademeyer, Loyce Hillman, Duncan Noble, Hamish Paterson and Johan Loock.

Tall Stories Price :
R 650.00

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Local standard Postage (within South Africa) will be R45.00.

Please enquire for quotes for other methods of postage.

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Orders are Being Taken for the Following Book :

*whilst stocks last.

Tall Stories Price : R650.00

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Artillery of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902
By
Lionel Cook

A comprehensive study of the artillery-
men of both sides in the conflict and of
their armament, their horses and much
else that concerns a gunner. Edited by
Ron Bester.
Hard Back 386 pages. Size 30 x 24cm

Local standard Postage (within South Africa) will be R45.00.

Please enquire for quotes for other methods of postage.

We have a secure credit card site for payments via Mastercard, Visa or American Express.

This Months

Featured Book

'Carvings from the Veldt'

Part Two.A Pictorial History of Rifle Stock-Art from the Anglo-Boer War.

First Edition. Near Fine. Pictorial laminated boards. Quarto. Hard cover.
SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR.
349 pp. Profusely illustrated, mostly in colour. Illustrated end-papers.

Part One of ‘Carvings from the Veldt’ was remarkably well received, so much so that the author has produced a second ‘follow-on’ edition. The new book features 306 new firearms: rifles, carbines and handguns used by both sides, the Boers as well as British and Colonial soldiers. The hard covered book contains over 1,400 images of carved and engraved weapons. In addition there are a further 25 farm maps, official forms and letters & a selection of swords, bayonets, bandoliers, ammunition, medals, a large variety of unit badges and headgear worn by both sides. Also included are two new chapters covering Anglo-Boer War re-enactor groups (in six countries) and Anglo-Boer war trench-art and carvings.

"Folklore and verbal tradition has it that in late 1899 Commandant General Piet Jorbert, who was in command of the ZAR forces, ordered that ..."the Transvaal burgers mark their rifles and that they should start to wear distinguishing marks of their nationality". The reason for this instruction was because burgers from both the Transvaal (ZAR) and Orange Free State (OVS) republics were operating together in the Natal campaign.

Thanks to this Boer custom and to Piet Joubert, we can still find these historic rifles that have their owners' names carved onto the stocks. Many Boer Generals also set an example by having their rifles carved, for example Louis Botha, C.F. Beyers & Ben Viljoen. As you will see featured in this book, the most imaginative, artistic and adventurous burgers also carved battle names, the names of their farms and Commandos, or the towns that they came from." - taken from the Preface.

This book is guaranteed to be of interest to a wide variety of collectors, military historians, rifle collectors, shooters, medal and badge collectors,researchers and students

R 950.00
Buy Now

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Local standard Postage (within South Africa) will be R45.00.

Please enquire for quotes for other methods of postage.

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The Knifemakers' Guild of Southern Africa Annual Show

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:43:33 +0100

Hello Folks, it is that time of the year again and Tall Stories will be exhibiting at :

The Knifemakers' Guild of Southern Africa Annual Show

The Show Venue and Dates :

Mosaïek Lifestyle Centre, Communio Exhibition Hall,
Danielle Street, Fairlands, Gauteng.
GPS co-ordinates, X: 27d56.1069m, Y: 26d08.7500m

Conveniently situated next to the N1 in Roodepoort to the
west of the city of Johannesburg, the premises are easily
accessible from the 14th Avenue off ramp, and offer secure
parking with access control.

Friday 2, and Saturday 3 September 2011

The Exhibitors :

At the Guild Show, approximately 45 knifemakers exhibit, plus allied crafts and materials and equipment suppliers. All types of knives are usually on display, from miniatures to swords, folders to hunters, art daggers to kitchen utilities. Materials range from hi-tech steels to own forged damascus, mammoth ivory to micarta, and horn, bone and unique African hardwoods. South African knifemakers have developed a well deserved reputation for quality at international shows all over the world.

The exhibition runs over two days but is preceded by a 'preview' which is held on the Friday before the public exhibition on Saturday. This preview is intended to honor our most loyal supporters and offer the opportunity of inspecting or acquiring items from the current year's offerings, in a more leisurely and less crowded atmosphere. The attendance is by invitation to real enthusiasts. Welcome drinks and snacks are served and a bar service is available. Competition results are announced and the winning knives may be seen and handled, providing a good indication of current achievements and guide to the location of some of the noteworthy items around the hall. This preview invitation will normally be extended to all foreign visitors.

The above information is taken from the guild's website : http://www.kgsa.co.za/

Do come us and visit us there, we shall be selling various different books related to collecting knives.

August 2011, Newsletter

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:07:08 +0100

Tall Stories

____________________________________________

• Fine Books for Discerning Readers •

Hello All,

This letter has been a long time in coming out, so we thought we would start things out with a bit of literary fun.

Something that we thought was quite fun which we would like to share with you is a recent topic which was generated by @RandomHouse via the social networking site of Twitter, which asked people to come up with the food equivalent of some classic literature titles, but with a food theme instead, so for example : Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun also Rises" became "The Bun also Rises". Please note that we have not given accreditation to various people for their originality, so if anyone feels maligned, we do apologise in advance. We thought we would share some of the more funny #FoodieLit translations with you :

Leek House - Bleak House by Charles Dickens, which was our contribution to the game.

The Thyme Traveller's Wife - The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenigger, which was also our contribution as well as The Time Traveller's Knife.

Peter Panini - Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie.

The Lord of the Onion Rings - Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

For Whom the Bellpepper Tolls - For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, along the same thought was : Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar* which became The Bellpepper Jar

Little House on the Praline - Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Grapes of Broth - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Watercress Down - Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Merry Chives of Windsor - The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

Midnight in the Garden of Food & Weevill - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Yeast of Eden - East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Bury My Heart at Wounded Ghee - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

If you send in your #FoodieLit contributions, which have to be original & are not copied from the list,: #foodielit the most original title will win a gift voucher to the value of R100.00 from us. The winner will be notified on the 2nd of September, 2011.

* As an interesting afterthought for those of you who are interested in collecting Modern First Editions, The Bell Jar was not originally published under the name of Sylvia Plath but rather under the name of Victoria Lucas.

If you are at all interested and you use Twitter, you can visit us @TallStoriesBook , we give almost daily updates relating to the book world.

When I have been able to focus my eyes through the biting cold, I have been reading The Kindly Ones, by Jonathan Littel. A hugely interesting book, and one that gives the lie to any piece of advice you have ever seen about succesful creative writing. It is a tome of more than 950 pages about a bisexual German officer in the Einsatzgruppe of the SS during the Second World War, and has been met with howls of pleasure and outrage wherever it has been published.

Written in French by an American (son of one of my favourite spy authors, Robert Littel) and originally published in France, it won the Prix de Goncourt and sold more than 700 000 copies there. The books' American publisher paid $1 000 000 for the rights, and it has sold well all over the world. Not the stuff best sellers are made of, at all, it concentrates on the evil of the nazi extermination policy in Europe. Where Hannah Arendt described the same as the banality of evil, Littel's approach examines its bureaucratic nature. Max Weber introduced the concept of bureaucracy as an attempt to standardise administrative procedure. In the nazi system this degenerated into a rational, efficient system of murder that shifted, warped and changed the world's definition of what it meant to be human, and inhuman.

The main character is deeply unpleasant, and no-one, aside from those you or I would not want to know, can identify or sympathise with him. Yet the book is magnificent, and even crammed with historical detail to the point of redundancy and beyond, keeps you enthralled. It's description of the battle of Stalingrad is grippingly, horrifyingly real and leaves you shaken and thoughtful.

The next time you see a press of generic, mass market novels, do not despair – on occasion publishers will still print the exceptional. We live in hope.

P.S. We did ask Agatha-Panther, our book cat, to contribute to this newsletter. She only wanted to talk about food and how to take a marathon nap, and we deemed it not appropriate.

Our Unused Book

Specials for this Month.

*whilst stocks last.

Spa Wars

by
Chris Manby

When Emily Brown's life and business is turned around by a surprise visit from Carina Lees, immaculately-groomed reality TV star, she can't believe her luck.With just one other member of staff to help her out at her Essex salon The Beauty Spot, Emily is pushed for time as well as money, and so Carina's patronage and the subsequent financial success of the salon is more welcome than a sunbed session in December. But even with the assistance of skilled-yet-shabby new girl Natalie, things start to go mysteriously wrong, and it soon becomes clear that someone's got it in for the salon. And with tactics dirtier than a gardener's fingernails, the battle of the beauticians commences. For under all the make-up and manicures, Carina is not who she seems, and although confronting the past can be more painful than a bikini wax, Emily eventually has to stare the truth in the face and realise it's what's inside that really counts ...

Published Price : R185.00

Tall Stories Price :

R 95.00

Our Unused Book Specials for this Month.

*whilst stocks last.

Special Air Service Rhodesia : The Men Speak

by
Jonathan Pittaway

Tall Stories Price : R450.00

Until now little has been known about the Rhodesian contribution to the history of the SAS. Now at last the men themselves tell their own stories of the exploits of that elite Special Forces unit during the Bush War and the years before.

Soft cover 590 pages, profusely illustrated in both colour and black & white.

This comprehensive volume starts with the birth of the SAS during the Second World War. Men from the British Commonwealth of the then Southern-Rhodesian joined the new parachute regiment, the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS.

Later chapters cover Malaya, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesia and finally Rhodesia up to the birth of Zimbabwe and disbanding of the Rhodesian SAS.

As it is written by those involved it is very evocative.

This is how Trooper Geoff Turner-Dauncey describes service in the jungles of Malaya:

“From the moment we stepped into the jungle until we returned to base we got soaked, and stayed wet... . With our operational dress torn and rotting... it was common practice to burn our clothes on returning to base. For a while troops returning to base from operations looked rather like clowns: wearing just PT shorts, sandals and berets, their bodies lavishly painted with mercurochrome, gentian violet and Whitfield's Lotion until their skin problems healed.”

Please Note :

Orders will be taken for this book, with a 2 week waiting period.

This Months

Featured Book

* The History of the Zulu War and Its Origins.

Colenso Frances E.
&
Durnford, Lieut.-Colonel

Imprint: London, Chapman and Hall, Limited, 1880
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback

Royal Octavo. 491 + 24 pp (publisher, Chapman & Hall's catalogue dated February 16, 1880).Folding coloured map at rear. Some acid tape repairs. Some creases and tears to the map. Recased, with new headbands and end-papers. Recasing has original cloth laid down onto the boards. A good job as a recasing, although the end-papers are too white. Ink name on the half-title page with a small ( 5 cm) tear in the top edge of the page. Some light foxing around the title page. Overall a good copy. The authors deal with the background to the War from the Zulu perspective and are critical of Frere and his policy towards Cetywayo and the ultimatum which was presented to him. A scarce and important title. Hard Cover. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Olive Cloth. Jacket: No Jacket

Stock number:01470.

R 9000.00
Buy Now

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January Highlight in the Africana Section. (Unused Book)

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:13:04 +0100

Africa - Altered States, Ordinary Miracles
by Richard Dowden with a Foreword by Chinua Achebe

Hardcover, 576 pages,
Published by Portobello Books Ltd

Published Price : R 367.00

Tall Stories Price : R 150.00

Richard Dowden, one of the world's leading Africa correspondents delivers, after a lifetime's close observation of the miraculous continent, a landmark book on life and death in modern Africa.Dowden has now, after 35 years on the continent, written a memoiristic history of its peoples' experiences in the wake of the European withdrawal and the superpowers' arrival. He has been present at each of the continent's major crises and writes illuminatingly about them, but he is as passionate about the warmth, wisdom and joy he has encountered in peacetime, and the diversity of habits, attitudes and purposes to which he has been Britain's best witness. His book is no less than a benchmark publication on this most misunderstood and mishandled of continents.

Image of Chinua Achebe

Tall Stories - November Newsletter.

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:32:30 +0100

Tall Stories

____________________________________________

• Fine Books for Discerning Readers •

And we are back!

After an absence of a year, just one second before the tidal wave of despair engulfed you, just a breath before the last shred of hope curled up and died, a heartbeat before giving up and submiting to the horror of SABC tv, the Tall Stories Newsletter arrives. After a long silence due in part to aliens, vampires, sulphur pits and badly adjusted underwear, it returns. Huzzah, and hark the trumpets and the angelic choirs.
During said long silence, many things happened. Many did not, but that's another story.
Those of you who regularly attend the shop will have met the newest bookdealer. A ferocious(ly cute) cat called Agatha-Panther, she has been hard at work helping us in the shop by being nice to customers, demanding food and attention, and sitting in the windowsill, staring at the passing parade.
She arrived as a small bundle of kitten fur, and has grown into a seasoned and well-travelled book cat, handsome to behold and regal in her acceptance of the adoration in which she is held by all.

We were also pleased to witness Mario Vargas Llosa, a long favourite author, be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. For an interesting read and some background on this author, go to: http://bit.ly/cwJrXd

We were also pleased to learn that Bill Bryson is back in the United Kingdom, and has been appointed vice-chancellor of Durham University. An entertaining interview with him is found here: http://bit.ly/bKHWDL

It has been fifty years since the landmark Lady Chatterly's Lover judgment in Penguin Books' favour. For legal and literary interest, read this: http://bit.ly/8Y1U2X

Collections of Books for Sale :

We have two collections of books that we are going to be selling by themselves,in otherwords,the collections will not be broken up.

The first comprises approximately 129 titles, all about Aviation. From Vlamgat to Aircraft of the S.A.A.F. via Air War Flanders 1918 to I Flew For the Fuhrer.The second collection is comprised of around 96 titles, all about Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. From Contact to When a Crocodile Eats the Sun via Troopiesongs and Rhodesia Before 1920.If you are interested in either set, either contact us in the shop or at :
tallstories@megaweb.co.za

Our Unused Book Specials for this Month.

*whilst stocks last.

Mr. and Miss Anonymous.

College senior Lily Madison is on her own and desperate to pay for her last semester of school. With nowhere to turn, she makes the difficult decision to donate her eggs to a fertility clinic. Sam Parker is also a penniless student who supplements his tuition money by visiting a sperm bank. One day, Lily and Sam meet at the clinic and talk about their secret. They agree that the clinic gives them an odd feeling, as if all is not as it seems. Despite their obvious attraction, Lily and Sam go their separate ways. Twenty years have passed and Lily often wonders if she has a child somewhere in the world. She also thinks a lot about Sam. Now a wealthy entrepreneur, Sam never forgot Lily either, and when he sees her in an airport one day, he falls for her all over again. But while they enjoy their unlikely reunion, a story on the news has them riveted. Two teenage boys are missing and their disappearance may be linked to the fertility clinic Sam and Lily visited in college. In a shocking twist, one of the boys looks exactly like Sam. Lily and Sam are now determined to find out what really went on at the clinic all those years ago. When the whole story comes out, the truth will be more than they bargained for. But they will discover that letting go of their secrets from the past is the best way to build a future worth fighting for...

Published Price : R185.00

Tall Stories Price :
R 95.00

Fern Michaels (born Mary Ruth Kuczkir) is an American author of romance and thriller novels, including nearly 50 best selling books with more than 70 million copies in print.

Our Unused Book Specials for this Month.

*whilst stocks last.

Samurai Swords - A Collector's Guide to Japanese Swords

For 700 years Japanese civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste. This project looks at the weaponry & clothing of Samurai men and women over the centuries.

Fascinating history, detailed technical information, advice on collecting and preservation - all in a single volume. The pages are beautifully illustrated with dynamic paintings, specially taken photographs, detailed diagrams and maps

Tall Stories Price : R280.00

Hand colored Albumen print of a Samurai circa 1890 (photograph coutesy Wikipedia)

Samurai in armour, 1860s. Hand-coloured photograph by Felice Beato
(photograph coutesy Wikipedia)

A Sammurai katana in Koshirae
(photograph coutesy Wikipedia)

This Months Featured Book

* Beyond the Light Barrier *

Originally published in 1977 in Germany, the first two editions were sold out within weeks. This is the autobiogrpahy of Elizabeth Klarer, a Cambridge educated meterologist. who believed that she had had an affair (which resulted in a child) with an extraterrestrial being. It deals primarily with this affair with Akon, a male astrophysicist living on Meton, one of the planets of Proxima Centaur, which is apparently Earths' closest stellar neighbour, at a distance of 4.2 light years away from us. According to the author, she was taken, via spacecraft to Meton, where she lived with Akon and his family for four months. She apparently gave birth to their son whilst on Meton. Akon apparently continued to visit Klarer until 1963, when his work in this part of the galaxy was completed. Akon explained to Ms. Klarer the workings of the light-propulsion system used in his spacecraft. She in turn conveyed this information to the U. S. National Aeronautical and Space Administration as well as the S. A. Air Force authorities. This information is also documented in the book.

Imprint: South Africa, Howard Timmins, 1980
Edition: First South Africa Edition.
Binding: Hardback , with Dustjacket
Book Condition: Very Good. Jacket: Very Good

Binding: Blue Boards.Octavo.

191 pp. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Slight spinal lean. Ink name of a previous owner on the front free end paper. Base of the boards slightly rubbed. Small chips in the top edge of the rear panel of the dust-jacket. Flaps of the dust-jacket creased. Closed tear in the rear panel of the dust-jacket (25mm). Slight wear to all edges of the dust-jacket

R 650.00
Buy Now

&

Stock Clearance.

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:40:27 +0100

Hello Folks !

We are having a bit of a stock clearance sale which will last until Sunday 21st November, 17 : 00,or, whilst stock lasts.

Titles on Sale include :

Pretty Dead Things

Barbara Nadel
Paperback, 373 pages, August 2008
Published by Headline Book Publishing

When Emine Aksu, the flamboyant wife of an Istanbul style guru, suddenly goes missing, Inspector Cetin Ikmen's investigation leads him deep into her strange and colourful past. Emine was a hippie when she was younger, who wholeheartedly enjoyed the liberated lifestyle that swept across Istanbul in the sixties. Her husband suspects that she was visiting an old friend at the time of her disappearance. Meanwhile, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman is called to a terrifying scene at the art deco Kamondo Stairs in the old banking district of Karakoy. The skeleton of a woman has been discovered in one of the large plant containers. Could these two bizarre incidents be linked?

Published Price : R82.00
Now : R 30.00

Memorandum - A Story with Pictures

Marlene Van Niekerk
Hardcover, 136 pages, November 2006
Published by Human & Rousseau

In this title about a hospital experience the text and visual images offer parallel narratives that resonate poignantly with each other. Adriaan van Zyl's series of more than 20 paintings portrays a patient's experience from waiting room to ward giving a quietly disturbing view of the soullessness of hospitals in general. Marlene van Niekerk's accompanying story is a narrative by JP Wiid, a lonely man who is diagnosed with cancer of the liver just before his retirement. The night before a scheduled operation he starts writing a "memorandum" about an experience he had during his first stay at the hospital - sharing a ward with two enigmatic men in a state of postnarcotic euphoria, he overheard their strange conversation, one which was to have a profound effect on his life. He writes how, in the ensuing four months, he becomes a regular visitor to the library, anxious to learn more about the diverse concepts he had been exposed to for the first time. Everything new which Wiid learns about the world comforts him and helps him to accept his fate. Most importantly he makes a friend for the first time - an eccentric but very helpful librarian. While writing the memorandum, Wiid makes a life-changing decision - not to have the operation the next day. He chooses instead to make the rest of his life worth living by filling it with knowledge about cultures, structures, histories, literature and music. In the process he discovers his true self - and his true vocation.

Published Price : R300.00
Now : R60.00

The Duel - Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power

Tariq Ali
Hardcover, 304 pages, September 2008
Published by Simon & Schuster

Pakistan, the likely home of Osama Bin Laden and safe house for the Taliban forces fighting NATO in Afghanistan, stands on the front line of the war against terror. Yet, as recent events have shown, this long-time ally of the West and recipient of $10 billion of American aid in the past decade, is in deepening crisis. As President Pervez Musharraf struggles, with ever-diminishing success, to cling to power through states of emergency and imprisonment of his opponents, a range of forces are attempting to fill the vacuum that surrounds him: (before her death) Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both previous presidents themselves and, Ali, argues, more corrupt than Musharraf himself; a lawyers movement that has taken to the streets demanding adherence to the constitution and the rule of law; and the Islamists in Waziristan and the North West Frontier whose increasingly effective assaults on the Pakistan army threaten to tip the country into full-blown civil war.With customary verve and acuity, Ali parses the prospects for these contending groups, drawing on extensive first-hand research and personal knowledge of many of the key players involved to assess the causes and consequences of Pakistan's rapid spiral into political chaos.

Published Price : R255.00
Now : R60.00

Kydd : The Admiral's Daughter

Julian Stockwin
Paperback - Trade, 324 pages, October 2007
Published by Hodder & Stoughton

In the eighth book of this popular series, Thomas Kydd and Nicholas Renzi return to England in 1803 after tumultuous episodes on the other side of the world to find England in peril of starvation and bankruptcy. Kydd is placed back in command of his beloved vessel, "Teazer," but he barely has time to prep her for the sea when he is sent on an urgent mission. Smugglers, enemy privateers, and treacherous sea conditions await Kydd on his journey to northern France on the eve of war, but equally worrisome events are occurring ashore. A growing attachment to the admiral's daughter curbs Kydd's blissful reunion with "Teazer" and he is forced to make a terrible decision that may cause the end of his friendship with Renzi--or the end of his naval career.

Published Price : R 145.00
Now : R 40.00

Patrick Parker's Progress
(New Edition)

Mavis Cheek
Paperback, 320 pages, March 2005
Published by Faber & Faber

Patrick Parker, child of bomb-devastated Coventry, adored and encouraged by his mother, fulfils his dream destiny to be a great architect and bridge builder. Audrey Wapshott, born at the same time, feels her dream destiny is to become Patrick's wife. But ambitious Patrick has other plans and Audrey, abandoned, is left to follow her own, random path to self-fulfilment beginning with Paris, and sinfulness, in the arms of a much older man. Mavis Cheek's eleventh novel will delight her many fans with its fast-paced, funny and insightful story of ambition, love and revenge.

Published Price : R 102.00
Now : R25.00

Eco in the darkness

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:37:48 +0100

Eco in the Darkness

Umberto Eco, he of inter alia The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, Travels in Hyper-Reality and How to Travel with a Salmon, is curating an exhibition of lists at the Louvre in Paris. What a splendid notion from a simply splendid person, a real-life, honest-to-goodness intellectual in a time of mental dwarves.

Lists, he says, are the way humans construct order out of chaos. It is the way they make sense of a perplexing world and a method of understanding the inexplicability of life and other humans.

I may be paraphrasing him a bit, just a smidgeon, but this would be my humble understanding of the great man’s thinking here. I cannot vouch for his thoughts on the missionary position, one-ply versus two-ply toilet paper (though any sane person would be able to deduce that with some clarity), David Icke’s sanity, or whether the moon ever feels lonely, but of this I am sure. Certainly lists are vitally important. They are tools without which we are unable to make our way in the world. Indeed, not to murder other people it is necessary daily to draw up a list of reasons not to, not least of which would be lists of ways of getting rid of all the bodies, which is really rather tricky when you think about it. I have spent some time cogitating on same, and making lists which are promptly destroyed lest they fall into the hands of people who will fail to understand the true context and spirit in which they were made and report me to the authorities. So I have found that I cannot, for instance and strictly in context you understand, bury them in our garden – it’s too small for the number of victims, and our dog will dig them up. And I daresay there’s nothing quite as off-putting as relaxing with a nice cold beer of an evening only to find your quadruped best friend entering the house with someone’s foot in her mouth.

As the electricity has just gone off (again) and the UPS is beeping at me while I hurriedly finish typing this, gnashing my teeth, I try to find the silver lining in this situation (it’s cheaper than taking Prozac).

(Ehm… er… ah… This may take quite a long time.)

Oh yes, having a bookshop means never having to say: ‘Rats, I forgot to bring a book to work,’ when the power goes out.

Reel Ephemera

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:57:58 +0100

Reel Ephemera

I have to confess, I am not fond of ephemera. This is not a a sentiment that the majority of my colleagues share. My feelings are not popular. However, every now and again, I come across an item which makes me pivot on my axis.

According to Wikipedia, ephemera is defined as
"....transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera include advertising trade cards, airsickness bags [yes, airsickness bags this was news to me to, hopefully these are unused items, bearly touched by human hands and throats. Not even Marilyn Monroes' throat would make me feel less queasy about this issue], bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters, pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, newspapers, stock certificates, tickets and zines. Decks of personality identification playing cards from the war in Iraq are a recent example of ephemera items which are gaining in popularity with people who are interested in collecting such items.

In library and information science, the term ephemera also describes the class of published single-sheet or single page documents which are meant to be thrown away after one use. This classification excludes simple letters and photographs with no printing on them, which are considered manuscripts or typescripts. Large academic and national libraries and museums may collect, organize, and preserve ephemera as history. A particularly large and important example of such an archive is the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the Bodleian Library, Oxford."

We have just been offered an unusual item and I have to say, that I am fascinated by it. I have been absorbed for the entire day, pouring over it and researching it.

Above is said item.
Said item relates to the career of one Harry Curry. Mr. Curry appears to have had a rather enviable life. He was also a hoarder of note. The album contains a panorama of Harry's career, roughly between 1925 and 1939, from letters of acceptance into various positions for different film companies around the world including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures, signed menu cards from events held by these companies, letters received aboard the White Star Line, a radiogram received aboard the "Samaria", Cunard White Star Line, telegrams received aboard the SS Queen Mary, telegrams received from the Union Steamship Company, airline tickets, telegrams received from the Western Union, newspaper clippings about his promotions and all sorts of other titbits. There is even a fold-out map pasted into the album, where he has outlined his journey aboard the T.S.S. “Themistocles”, from Melbourne to South Hampton, where he has had some of the crew members sign the map at the bottom.

The collection is not limited to letters, there are a couple of promotional, publicity cards from stars of the day (one of those being William Powell).

It also includes promotional matter related to publicity for movies that he launched in New Zealand such as “The Vagabond King”, "The Canary Murder Case", and "Maid to Order" (starring Julian Etlinge).

My ghast was flabbered to learn (from the letterheads) that a publicity manager was once known as an "Exploitation Manager". It appears that Harry took his job as an "exploitation manager” quite seriously. There is a newspaper article, “Stunting The Vagabond King”, which details Harry Curry staging

“a unique exploitation stunt.....that not only sent the picture merrily on its way to box-office records, but nearly sent Harry on his way to the place where exploitation men go when they die. It appears that Harry took to the air, heavily laden with handbills announcing the opening of the production......which he intended to drop on the seething masses below. All went well for some time, and the Paramounteer flung out hand-bills with great gusto. Then tragedy! A batch of 'bills caught in the aeroplanes rudder, making control of the machine impossible. As a fitting climax, Harry and the plane made a forced landing in the mud at St. Helier's Bay, none the worse for having introduced the first aerial exploitation stunt in that neck of the woods”.
I did mention that I have been enjoying reading the material, did I not ?

Not only did I learn of "exploitation managers", from these letters and letterheads, but I also learned a wee bit about film industry history. Some of the letterheads are from the "Famous Lasky Film Service" which was an earlier incarnation of "Paramount Pictures".

All these little details of which I had been oblivious. The album also contains bits of British film history in the form of photographs of the UK. Warner Bros. annual conventions and signed invitation forms as well as signed menus from these events. There a few amusing photographs and published caricatures of one Max Milder, who was the head of the London subsidary of Warner Bros., cigar always in hand and in the case of the caricatures of him – nearly eclipsing his head in size.

Mr. Curry clearly had a sense of humour. Whilst aboard the "Orca", he founded this club :

“Ye Jolly Olde Kocktail Klubbe – ye J. O.K.K. Loveth a good Drinker”, the membership card being “not returnable” and admittance being “one bottle as required” and their funds being 'We áint got much money but we sure see life". Under the the rules and regulations we see that the number of drinks per meeeting is described as "as many as you can freeze on to” and “Hoboes not on time to be ostracised. Charming ladies allowed sixty minutes latitude only – this on account of their well known proclivity”

The album also contains a humourous caricature of Mr. Curry captioned "The Social Lion" which appeared in the Paramount Punch, which appears to have been a journal for the trade.

For someone who is an "anti-clutter bug", this was quite an extraordinary object. I am amazed that someone can retain all these pieces, when I find myself in a world where architects appear to be competing to build places of captivity rather than homes, so small are they in size. Letters of appointment and congratulations I can understand as with the movie paraphernia, but the airline tickets, radiograms and telegrams, leave me bewildered, and yet this album captivated me from the start. I read it from cover to cover. It documents an interesting career of an interesting man in an interesting industry, but it doesn't stop there. Although we don't get the personal bumph of christmas letters and birhtday cards, we do get just enough of a view into the mans' life to make the collection interesting and we must remember that this also served as a family document, this was someones father, grandfather, uncle etc. I found the album to be more interesting in many ways than the average collection of ephemera as it is not sterile, but rather somehow alive with someones personality of past.

For those of you whose interest has been piqued with regards to the world of ephemera, go and have a look at The Ephemera Network . And as they say in the classics "That's All Folks!"

Zugzwang, by Ronan Bennett.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:51:42 +0100

Zugzwang, by Ronan Bennett.

Zugzwang, n.: an obscure move in an even more obscure game commonly thought to have originated in Persia, whereby ritual war is conducted between two parties, sometimes resulting in the loss of bodily fluids, mainly sweat and tears instead of the more usual blood.

This is a novel that has all the elements one would wish for in an intelligent thriller: chess, murder, psychology and revolutionary politics, all set against the backdrop of St. Petersburg, in the year 1914 A.C.E.

This last mentioned may be the best part of the book. Bennett seems to have done his research and his evocation of the time and the place is convincing and, in parts, quite beautiful. So too the atmosphere of the times, the closed-in feeling of history holding its breath, the impending world- altering historical events, all combined with the expectations of the chess tournament taking place in the city, for the crowning of the first Grand Master of chess.
Chess may not be your cup of tea, and the diagrams of the unfolding game between the main protagonist, Dr. Otto Spethman and his violin virtuoso friend, Reuven Moiseyevich Kopelzon, difficult to follow, but the intricacies of the game, the hidden moves and the planning and diabolical cunning involved serve as perfect metaphor for the revolutionary intrigue of the time and place.
Add to this some Freudian sexual repression, a murder or three, a dash of poetry, some snow and vodka and a couple of quite surprisingly steamy sex scenes (Ronan, you old devil you, who knew?) and you have a quite intriguing book.

Ronan Bennett has written several screenplays, the most recent of which is Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp.

And for those of you who imagine novelists to be weedy, uninteresting types, Bennett was incarcerated twice. Once at age 18 when he was accused of taking part in an IRA bank robbery during which a policeman was shot and killed. He was convicted and sent to Long Kesh prison, but released less than a year later due to the flimsiness of the case against him. In 1978 he was held in remand for 16 months, accused of plotting to plant bombs in the UK. He conducted his own defence and was acquitted.

He also holds a Ph.D. in history from King’s College London.

Best quote by Bennett: "Writers should be distrustful of authority," he says. "I think writers should always be in a position of tension in relation to governments and power and authority." NPR