Falling leaves, falling prices - I'll never write slogans for a living

However, it is the time of year to curl up with a book. To retreat from the wind, the damp and the falling leaves into the world of the imagination. I'm never quite sure I want to be 'lost' in a book, though I do like to be engrossed there. I realise that it is almost Halloween and that it is now a very short sprint towards Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year and muddle as the clocks change. It's a time of endless lists and new diaries (balancing two as you are running out of space in the old one and the new one just doesn't quite cover the necessary dates). To encourage people to curl up with my book I have started a pre-Thanksgiving sale of The Whicharts in the shop.

Happy news and sad news

I am still smiling at the lovely review the equally lovely Elaine at Random Jottings gave The Whicharts. It can be very lonely as a publisher and I'm enduringly grateful to all the generous bloggers who write recommendations, even if I don't post a heartfelt 'Thank you' at the bottom of the entry - that seems a little 'eye over shoulder-ish'. I have, however, emailed Elaine.

In less happy news, I read Eva Ibbotson's obituary in The Times this morning. I suspect it's hidden behind the paywall, but The Guardian have some good interviews with her online in the Culture section. I use her books for comfort reading when I feel in the mood for formula, but formula done with a very deft touch and a sense of foodie revelling in indulging in coffee, cream-stuffed cakes and warming Viennnese dishes.

Apart from the absolute freedom to create what I like, then agree it with the rights holders, the best things about being a tiny publisher are rediscovering books you find as footnotes, as titles on dustwrappers or in catalogues. Then, you have the fun and hard work of preparing them for a new audience. Finding the Mary Evans Picture Library was pivotal in my Whicharts project. They couldn't have been nicer or more helpful and emails just flashed into my inbox. Lewis Baumer was my source for The Whicharts art, but I need something very different for my new project. This part of the research is a pleasure and I'm slowly shortlisting from the riches available.

Fiction and History

I seem to see as many readers of history as of fiction glancing and commenting on this blog - I like it, even if I can't seem to get comments emailed to me. I'd never realised just now many Noel Streatfeild readers were blogging regularly. The very kind Vintage Reader mentioned the pushy stage mother (Cora Wintle) in Wintle's Wonders - Noel Streatfeild did get revenge on all silly mothers there.

To those who've emailed me to ask, no, my second title is in development and that's really all I can say.

To escape from the worry of project-management, I've been reading through Juliet Gardiner's books recently and am seriously considering going to her talks this winter. She's doing a series of Blitz-related lectures at the London Transport Museum and I am counting pennies.

It's been a while since I updated the blog. Not that I've been doing anything out of the ordinary, just enjoying the sunshine and the early chill of autumn. I like travelling at the tail-end of summer, just as the 'back to school' signs are removed to make way for Halloween or Christmas, depending on how organised or desperate your shop is. I'd travelled at the last minute recently and ran out of books just as I arrived at the airport. That was misjudgement. I usually have a second paperback in my bag just in case I finish the first one, but the scramble to travel meant that I just didn't have the wit to pack properly. The selection at the airport was pitiful - I was just grateful that there was a copy of Daisy Goodwin's My Last Duchess on display. I'd been meaning to buy the hardback and had a very good read on my flight. Even if the two copies available were scuffed and creased, it was much the best of a dire selection. Anyway, it turned out to be a very good read for costumed delights and polite romance. My Last Duchess crosses between Eva Ibbotson, Edith Wharton and Frances Hodgson Burnett in a fascinating tale of marriage and country house life.

I don't know how I came across the 2nd Edition Book Sellers based at Raleigh-Durham airport. I've never actually flown there, but the idea of a secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in an airport terminal really appeals to me. We're all doomed to spend rather too much time 'waiting' in the departure lounge before joining another queue at the airport these days, so a browsing opportunity of this kind sounds temptingly blissful. Then again, I hunt down secondhand bookshops wherever I travel, just to see what may be on the shelves. Mostly, I'm disappointed and find the glossy (gilded elevates these titles undeservedly) holiday writing, though sometimes I find delights like Rumer Godden and Elizabeth von Arnim.

I see that someone in America is selling my book for rather more than I do. I wish them luck, though I feel as much irritated as amused by it. I'm almost certain I haven't actually sold them any copies, though they may have bought stock elsewhere.

Crime and cocktails

I'll move from vintage books to contemporary today, mostly because I'm still working my way through books by illustrators I like and authors I'm not familiar with. Some books I've found using this odd search criteria work rather well. More of that later. A lucky find a week or four ago in a charity shop was a trio of Phryne Fishers. Kerry Greenwood is an Australian crime novelist I'd never tried, but am now keen to read more of. Sadly, she doesn't seem to be stocked by English bookshops, but there are plenty of copies on Amazon.

Phyrne Fisher is an exuberantly 'bright young thing' living in Australia and earning her living as a lady detective. It seems that Phryne grew up in Australia in less than genteel poverty, then her father inherited a title (as you do in all the best girls own novels) when the three men between him and the title died. Flung into wealth and status, Phyrne and her family returned to England, though Phyrne herself has put as much distance as possible between herself and her parents and returned to live in Australia. Which book this past history might be in, I'm not exactly sure. We see hints of her past only in the novels I've managed to read. We may not even see this at all. Mostly, Phryne appears in 1928 as an elegant survivor of World War One with a lover, a perfectly-run household, a fast car and two adopted daughters.

Her publishers have created a lovely website for Phyrne and are very generous with downloadable extracts to preview all the books. It doesn't really matter if you read this series out of order, the novels are all appealing in their own right, so just see what appeals to you - do you prefer your sleuthing to be at sea, at the circus, on the train or at the fair?