BOOKS OF LOCAL INTEREST
NEW INTO STOCK

See also a list of DVDs and videos of local interest (click here)

* = local author

The Book Case supplies information about all new titles which have a connection with Calderdale to Calderdale Libraries Service. The Book Case welcomes information about any title which is written by any author with a connection with Calderdale either as a resident or as a past resident and any title which has any reference to Calderdale. Please email the details to bookcase@btinternet.com.

July 2009

The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin's Legacy - Fern Elsdon-Baker,* £12.99

Dawkins has used his position to publicly attack 'unreason', in the form of organised religion, pseudo-science, or new age folly. This polarised representation of science is potentially fuelling the feud between Darwinism and Creationism. Hebden Bridge-based author Fern Elsdon-Baker, a rational pro-science atheist and specialist in the history and communication of evolutionary theory,
finds Dawkins' influence distinctly worrying. She argues that Dawkins is publicly misrepresenting science as a whole and asks - is Dawkins really acting to popularise science or to popularise Richard Dawkins?

Yelp! - Liz Almond,* £9.99

From the Hebden Bridge-based poet, a collection of poems about regeneration, recuperation, reclamation and retreat, in which the poet reflects on visits, both literal and virtual, to remote parts of Greece, Andalucia and Southern India. Rituals of travel are at the heart of Liz Almond's work; and travel, in her poems, can start anywhere: through a computer screen offering access to a satellite view of continents, to a pencil hovering like a bee at the start of a poem about a zoo for husbands. Departures and arrivals, free exchanges of words at the border controls of language - all these feed into poems that embody a rich and sensual sense of cultural difference, an understanding of the scale and fragility of our planet.

Yorkshire Dales Textile Mills - George Ingle, £9.99

It's mostly forgotten these days that there was a thriving textile industry in the Yorkshire Dales from the late 18th century onwards. George Ingle, the author of "Yorkshire Cotton", has located and describes over seventy textile mills in the Dales, with many illustrations. George gave a talk to Hebden Bridge Local History Society on the mills of the Dales earlier this year. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

June 2009

Hardcastle Crags, Past and Present - Ray Riches* and Peter Thornton*: DVD, £12.99

This welcome new DVD about the local beauty spot was launched at 2pm at the Little Theatre on 6th June. NOW IN STOCK AT THE BOOK CASE!

Last Mad Surge of Youth - Mark Hodkinson, £8.99

From the locally-based national sports writer, a novel about a washed-up alcoholic rock star who after a string of humiliating public incidents summons an old friend to ghost write his autobiography. Together they reflect on fame, addiction, girls and everything that ever went wrong. Published by Pomona of Hebden Bridge. Now in stock.

Mary Towneley Loop Guide, 2e

Full colour photos and relevant local information within this comprehensive pocket sized book of the Loop ensure it is an appropriate guide for horse riders, cyclists and walkers alike. Second edition has a couple of minor alterations.

They're All Foreigners Abroad! - Stuart Wright,* £7.99

From an ex-Halifax author, now resident in Spain, a light-hearted inventory of Brits on holiday abroad. Let's be honest, we Brits are not difficult to take the mickey out of whilst on our hard-earned holidays!

Landscapes in Watercolour - Paul Talbot-Greaves,* £7.99

From the well-known local painter and writer, the latest of his instruction books on watercolour painting. This practical and inspirational guide, in a handy sketchbook format, is aimed at the practised beginner. By working with just a few materials and focusing on the key techniques it is possible to achieve successful, realistic landscape paintings in no more than half an hour. And for those artists who already have a little painting experience, learning to work more quickly enables them to free up their style and paint more spontaneously.

Stone Tree - Gyrthir Eliasson, trans. Victoria Cribb, £7.95

Published by Mytholmroyd publishers Comma Press, and translated from the Icelandic, a collection of stories set on the shores or in the lava fields and mountains of Iceland, each one a study in self-exile.

The following books on ghostly Halifax are available direct from GM Productions in Halifax at http://www.gmproductions.tv/. Prices include postage. Most of the books are spiral-bound A4.

Union Cross: History & Times of the Inn (£6.00)
Dark secrets of the past at the Union Cross Inn, Halifax

Disturbing Halifax (£8.00)
There is so much history in Halifax that people do not know about.

A house with a past - Boothtown House (£6.00)
A 1600s house with a history, renovated from being derelict to present day modernisation.

Haunted & Alternative Halifax (£8.00)
Welcome to haunted Halifax in West Yorkshire, where so many buildings have come and gone over the years, many of them haunted.

Kershaw House (£7.00)
I have had the pleasure of filming here for many years, and finding out the history of this Elizabethan inn.

Haunted Halifax (£8.00)
This book specialises in the haunted side of Halifax.

Portman and Pickles, Halifax (£7.00)

The Old Silent Inn & its Infamous Past (£8.00)
The story & history of the coaching inn where Bonnie Prince Charlie is said to have stayed, with reports of ghost investigations.

May 2009

All Points North - Simon Armitage, £8.99

A welcome return (revised and expanded) for this account of growing up in the north of England.

Ted Hughes (Faber 80th Anniversary Edition) - poems selected by Simon Armitage , £8.00

Beautiful gift hardback edition with striking hawk print cover.

The Adventures of Molly - Mary Nevins*, £9.50

From a Halifax author, a children's book aimed at 4-7-year-olds, about a little girl who feeds a robin through the cold winter and learns the importance of nature.

Yorkshire Geology - Paul Ensom, £22.50
A big colour illustrated hardback account of the 540 million years of Yorkshire's geological past.

Footpaths for Fitness: West Yorkshire - Peter Young, £7.99
20 graded circular routes, ranging from just over a mile to 8 miles in length, and including the Hebden bridge area.

The Final Interview: Studs Terkel - Peter Devine*, £5.00
Hebden Bridge-based Peter Devine interviewed the legendary historian and broadcaster in 2005. Studs Terkel died last autumn at the age of 96.

Alice Longstaff historical postcards, 35p ea.
We're now stocking postcards of some of Alice Longstaff's extraordinary collection of historical photographs of the area.

Not Ready Yet! written and illustrated by Tamsin Walker*, £5.99
Cheerful picture book with a rhyming story about a little boy who has an exciting time going camping with his mum and her partner Fran - but he's always too busy doing something to do the next thing! Hebden Bridge-based author and illustrator.

Cool Canals - Slow Getaways and Different Days, £14.99
Different, eco and budget-conscious things to do on the inland waterways, including a chapter on Hebden Bridge.

April 2009

Recital - An Almanac - John Siddique*, £12.99

"On love, loss and hope, these poems are imbued with a beautiful, tender melancholia." Forthcoming from SALT - click here for more details. John Siddique was Poet in Residence for Blackpool in 2008, and this year will be Los Angeles Writer in Residence.

Tender - Mark Illis *, £8.99

A new novel from Hebden Bridge author Mark Illis, telling the story of an ordinary family trying to cope with life, and each other, revisiting the family on key occasions over thirty years and seeing things from different points of view.

We're hoping to have a joint launch of "Recital" and "Tender". Details to follow.

The Richard Matthewman Stories - Ian McMillan and Martyn Wiley, £8.99

From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona, the stories of a Yorkshire miner who has moved south. The stories were originally broadcast as a series on Radio 4 and a new instalment has been written specially for the book. Ian McMillan is well known as a broadcaster and performer.

We'll Trace the Rainbow - Jean Brown, £17.00
From the author of "We'll see the Cuckoo". Jean Brown likens her life to the Pennine hillside on which the Brown family has lived for forty years. Their sixteenth-century farmhouse was bought in 1929, rescued from ruin and finally covenanted to The National
Trust in 1987. It tells the story of Jean Brown's experiences with children on holiday in the Hebrides.

We'll Blow with the Wind - Jean Brown, £17.00

More about the Pennine hill farm, Currer Laithe.

Birdwatching Walks in the Yorkshire Dales - Brendan Threlfall, £7.95

Well designed walks is set in gorgeous countryside where there is also every chance of seeing some of the birds which abound in the area. Both novice and experienced birders can enjoy the dippers at Aysgarth, or great spotted woodpeckers in Grass Woods, as well as the rarer black grouse, wood warbler, pied flycatcher and nightjar, to name but a few. With helpful guide maps, interesting bird and habitat information, travel hints and a bird reference section.

March 2009

10 Reasons Not to Fall in Love - Linda Green*, £6.99

A novel set in Hebden Bridge, from the Todmorden-based author of "I Did a Bad Thing". Jo, a local TV news reporter, returns to work after a lengthy maternity leave, only to find that her new boss is her ex. Then she meets Dan, an enigmatic man who lives on a canal boat ... Linda was at The Book Case on Saturday 7th March signing copies of her book..

City of Lists - Brigid Rose, £8.99

From a local author, a novel set in a dystopian future where contemplation is illegal. Big anxious Neeve and beautiful withdrawn Valentine struggle to shake off their state-imposed psychological fetters with the help of unrepentant law-breaker Lol. One of the novel's themes is the threat posed to shallow capitalist society by Eckhart Tolle's ideas.

The Mixenden Treasure - John Billingsley*, £6.00

A true tale of magic in 16th-century Yorkshire from the well-known local historian and folklorist. Stand by for an exciting tale of treasure, demons, Oberon and a motley crew of priests, commoners, a "cunning-man" and gentlemen who set out on a nasty February night to claim the Mixenden Treasure from the demon that was sitting on it!

Exit Moonshine - Coming Out and Carrying on - Joy Howard, £6.50

From the Keighley-based editor of "Twist of Malice", ten years in the life of a lesbian-come-lately. Joy will be presenting three contributing poets from the popular "Twist of Malice" anthology at Hebden Bridge Library on 28th March, 1.45-2.30pm.

Second Bite - Joy Howard, Hilary J Murray and Gina Shaw, £3.00

Poems by Older Women - these are from the West Yorkshire group of Second Light, a national network of older women poets.

Pearls of Light - Julie Rose Clark*, £5.95

Words and pictures to enlighten us and guide us toward the new consciousness of love and light.

Shafted: The Media, the Miners' Strike and the Aftermath - ed. Granville Williams, £9.99

From the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a look back at the miners' strike and in particular at the media and the miners. Authors include locally-based Peter Lazenby, President of the Trades Club and Industrial Correspondent of the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Reichian Growth Work: melting the blocks to life and love - Nick Totton* & Em Edmondson, £12.99

Revised and updated edition of this body psychotherapy classic. Nick Totton has written a number of books on psychotherapy and lives in Mytholmroyd.

February 2009

An Artist in the Dales - Keith Melling, £19.50

From landscape painter Keith Melling, a hardback book of glorious paintings, drawings and wood engravings of scenes of the Yorkshire Dales and further afield, including the well-known painting of Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike.

January 2009

Halifax Pubs - Stephen Gee, £12.99
An illustrated tour of the most interesting pubs, inns and taverns of Halifax with lots of old photos.

In the Image of Love - Peter Coles* (£8.00)

To celebrate Peter and Enid Coles' Golden Wedding in 2008, a collection of poems on wide-ranging subjects including local people and scenes, illustrated with colour photographs.

Hope Street - Hebden Bridge WEA members* (£4.75)

First collection of poems from Hebden Bridge WEA poetry class, meeting at Hope Baptist Church.

Ted Hughes - Terry Gifford (£14.99)

Clear and detailed discussions of Hughes' poetry, stories, plays, translations, essays and letters; includes new biographical
information, and previously unpublished archive material, especially on Hughes' environmentalism; provides a comprehensive account of Hughes' critical reception, separated into the major themes that have interested readers and critics; offers useful suggestions for further reading, and incorporates helpful cross-references between sections of the guide. Part of the "Routledge Guides to Literature" series.

Shepherdess - Brian Crowther * (£9.99)

A well-researched tale of life and love set in the Lakes and the Dales of the 1850s. The author lives in Greetland and is a retired lecturer with many years of involvement with the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards and the Scouts; he has owned border collies for forty years. Lots of info on shepherding!

Ray of Hope (CD) - Tony Pye* (£10.00)

Guitarist Tony Pye from Northowram recorded this CD to raise money for the liver research charity Rays of Hope to thank the Leeds teaching hospitals for his two transplants. Tunes include Andrew Lloyd Webber and Bond themes.

December 2008

Men at Odds - Guy Meyler* (£16.99)

From a Hebden Bridge author, eighteen engaging short stories examining universal themes of the human condition and the inevitability of human frailty - many of which have less of a twist in the tale than a barb!

Swanny: Confessions of a Lower League Legend - Peter Swan and Andrew Collomosse* (£17.99)

Hebden Bridge sports journalist Andrew Collomosse has helped the former Burnley, Hull, Leeds and Port Vale defender tell his story.

Mourning Ring: Bronte related poems by Ian M Emberson* (£3.00)

From the Todmorden-based poet, a book of poems relating to the Bronte sisters, their lives and the landscapes which influenced them.

Cheers! A History of Hostelries in the Upper Calder Valley - Issy Shannon* (£6.95)

Lavishly illustrated book about all the pubs between Colden and Luddenden with photos past and present, fascinating facts and gory details. Expected in time for Christmas.

Exploring West Yorkshire's History - Nigel A. Ibbotson (£16.99)

A journey through West Yorkshire that examines its rich history through contemporary colour photographs. Well-known historical sites and lesser-known quirky places of interest.

Dementia Diary - Poems and Prose - John Killick* (£9.95)

From a Hebden Bridge author renowned for his work with people suffering from dementia a book of poems and prose based on his experiences with people living with the condition and poems based on transciptions of their speech.

A Rough Path near the Holly Tree - Rosemary Stevenson (£17.50)

A story about the Hollinrakes and related familes around Todmorden, West Yorkshire, from 1558 to 2008. The related families are Astin, Haigh, Shackleton, Hartley, Travis, Hackett, Greenwood, Marshall, Taylor, Kershaw and Lord. Seventeen years' worth of research with lots of photos and original documentation. (£17.50)

More about the fascinating world of Burnley Football Club ("No Nay Never Vol 1" has sold out!). Todmordeb-born Dave Thomas has spent years researching key moments in the club's story and its stars. Now in stock.

Russians Don't Land Here - Dave Thomas* (£9.99)

Entertainingly commemorates 125 years of Burnley FC. Includes "Things to do in Burnley when there's no football."

Relief - L E Butler* (£9.00)
Debut novel from an American-born Todmorden author, a former dancer, telling the story of a young American widow, who is a painter, and a ballet girl in the Bohemian world of 1912 Venice. The author will read from the novel at The Pulse Cafe Bar in Water Street, Todmorden, on Wednesday 21st January at 6pm

D-I-Y Coaching: drawing your life plan - Dr Eden P Fazel* (£5.99)
Anger: a very healthy emotion - Dr Eden P Fazel* (£3.49)

Growing Out of the Blues - Dr Eden P Fazel* (£5.99)
Dr Eden Fazel, who is based in Hebden Bridge, is the founder of Survive and Thrive and firmly believes in DIY coaching, psychology and therapy: these books are essential and exciting reading for anyone who wants to take their physical and emotional health into their own hands. See www.surviveandthrivecoach.org.uk

November 2008

Some Girls' Mothers - ed. Anne Caldwell (£8.99)

Do daughters step into their mothers' shoes? How does this central relationship color women's lives? The tales in this anthology address these questions with honesty and vigor, weaving humor and warmth into the telling of small but significant tragedies. Local authors include Clare Shaw and Char March.

Small Town Saturday Night: More Pop Music Memories of the Halifax in the Sixties 2- Trevor Simpson (£16.95)

Another look at the dance halls, groups an music festivals from 1954-1970. Includes Donovan, Lulu, Screaming Lord Sutch - and the Mytholmroyd group, Jay West and the Sinners! Published 20 November.

Helen of Four Gates - Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (£20.95)

A facsimile reprint of the 1917 novel about hard times in the Pennines, the 1920 silent film of which was shot around Hebden Bridge.

The Fastest Man: Steeple Jack's Adventures in Lancashire - Chris Aspin (£4.95)

During the 1850s, James Duncan Wright, a Scotsman who had settled in Ramsbottom, astonished vast crowds in Lancashire by hurtling down on ropes from factory chimneys and tall masts at more than 100 miles an hour. Illustrated, with visits to Preston, Burnley, Padiham, Failsworth, Bury and more, entertainingly reported from contemporary newspaper accounts.

Lancashire's Forgotten Heroes - Stephen Barker and Christopher Boardman (£18.99)

8th (Service) Battalion, East Lancashire Rgiment in the Great War. The soldiers came from Manchester, Liverpool, Burnley, Darwen, Preston, Nelson, Bolton, Colne, Accrington and Oldham - their everyday lives are described and the actions in which they fought examined. The book takes us from the initial euphoria of recruitment, through initation into trench warfare to the battles of the Somme, Arras and Passchendaele.

The History of Ingleton - John Bentley (£21.00 hardback, £15 paperback)

The story of a unique Yorkshire village. Detailed illustrated history of Ingleton from the Brigantes on, with in-depth chapters on aspects such as law and order, schools, inns, agriculture, mills, collieries, transport, river names - and stories, personalities and old customs!

October 2008

Infamous Lancashire Women - Issy Shannon* (£12.99)

The well-known local journalist follows up her entertaining illustrated book about wicked women of Yorkshire with a companion volume on Lancashire!

TAG - Stephen May*(£8.99)

From the director of the Ted Hughes Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank in Heptonstall, a darkly humorous debut novel involving a gifted but unpredictable teenage girl and a teacher who's a recovering alcoholic who meet at a residential course for talented youth in Wales.

Necropath - Eric Brown* (£7.99)

Science fiction meets crime noir, as Jeff Vaughan, jaded telepath, employed by the spaceport authorities on Bengal Station, discovers a sinister cult that worships a mysterious alien god. We follow Vaughan as he attempts to solve the murders and save himself from the psychopath out to kill him. From a local author who is also a Guardian columnist.

The Ted Hughes Trail in Crimsworth Dean - the Elmet Trust, Donald Crossley*, Nick Wilding* & Lesley Alston* (£2.50)

This colour illustrated booklet with sketchmap takes you on a circular walk from Midgehole visiting places significant in some of Ted Hughes' poems, many of them from Elmet.

Portrait of the Pennine Hills - John Morrison (£14.99)

From the ex-local author and photographer, 144 pages of atmospheric colour photos. including some very nice and new local ones. Now finally in stock.

Priestley's Wars - Neil Hanson (£16.99 at The Book Case)
Written with the cooperation of Priestley's sons, this book opens with Priestley's account of his enthusiastic enlistment in 1914 and continues with his letters from the Somme, which mark the beginning of his transformation into a campaigner for peace and disarmament; there are copies of his "Postscript" radio broadcasts from WWII, and the book ends under "the shadow of the Bomb" - Priestley was a co-founder of CND.

The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the Way We Live - Daniel Dorling; Mark Newman; Anna Barford* (£29.95)

366 cartograms cover a vast array of subjects, providing a definitive reference on how regions and countries compare in resources, production, consumption, and more. Sophisticated software combined with comprehensive analysis of every aspect of life represents the world as it really is. Anna Barford lives in Hebden Bridge.

A Twist of Malice: Uncomfortable Poems by Older Women - ed. Joy Howard (£8.00)

A collection of work by 36 contemporary poets exploring the darker side of the female imagination. Here are poems that disturb and disconcert but also gleam with humour and delight in subversion. Grey Hen, the publishers, are West Yorkshire-based, and several poems by local authors are included.

Solid & Drift Geology Map (77) - Huddersfield (£12.00)

We're now stocking these maps from the British Geological Survey, showing the distribution of various types of rock and deposits. This one goes from Hebden Bridge to Dewsbury and Bradford to Emley.

Small Town Saturday Night: Pop Music Memories of the Halifax in the Sixties 1- Trevor Simpson (£15.00)

Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield, Rolf Harris and a host of other stars - they all appeared in Halifax and this well-illustrated and entertaining book by local author Trevor Simpson gives details.

September 2008

The Adventures of Tom Leigh - Phyllis Bentley (£5.95)
First young Tom, newly arrived in the Calder Valley from Suffolk in 1722, loses his father; then he himself is threatened when as a weaver's apprentice, he uncovers a crime. The third of the popular Halifax author's historical novels for young people that we are publishing and the furthest back in time. This one involves tenterfields.

Fanny Eliza Johnson: A Thoroughly Modern Victorian Headmistress, Bolton High School for Girls 1888-1893 - Veronica Millington (£6.99)

A story of the founding of Bolton High School for Girls and one of its early Headmistresses at a time of great social change. It includes many quotations from Miss Johnson's logbook detailing complaints and visits from parents. To be launched later this month. To order direct from Bolton School, send £7.99, which includes postage to Mrs L Frew, Librarian, Bolton School Girls’ Division, Chorley New Road, Bolton BL1 4PB. For further information telephone 01204 840201 or email: lfrew@girls.bolton.sch.uk

The Art of Being Dead - Stephen Clayton* (£7.99)

From Hebden Bridge publishers Blue Moose, a visceral and edgy novel set in a bleak Northern English town in the late 1960s - "Rhinehart's Dice Man transferred to the North West of England". The author, who lives locally, is a founder member of the Lancashire band Tractor which were championed by the late John Peel. The book will be launched at Machpelah Mill on Saturday 6th September at 6pm.

Halifax and Calder Valley Memories (£12.99)

From True North in Halifax, photographs and descriptions of scenes in Halifax, Elland, Brighouse, Hebden Bridge and Todmorden from Edwardian times on, covering events, street scenes, the war years, royal visits, the shops, leisure and transport.

The Joy of No Self - Mandi Solk*

From local healer Mandi Solk, reflections on the Nondual nature of everything. There's a meeting on Non-duality at the Hope Centre in Hebden Bridge on October 4th, 2-5pm.

Radiants - Glyn Hughes (£2.00)
Little booklet with quiet and perceptive poems mostly about aspects of nature.

Lancashire's Sacred Past - Linda Sever (£14.99)

From Prehistory to the Viking Period - monuments, buildings, copses, stone circles and early churches. We're waiting to see which geographical areas are covered.

Before the Mast: In the Grain Races of the 1930s - Geoffrey Sykes Robertshaw* and Elvin Carter (£12.99)

More than 70 years ago Mytholmroyd-born Geoffrey Robertshaw was an able seaman on the tall ships during the 12,000 mile voyage between Australia and Falmouth. During the four month voyages he took photographs and kept a personal log and these have now been edited into a fascinating book by relative Elvin Carter, with a stunning collection of Mr Robertshaw's photos of daily life on a square rigger complete with storms!

August 2008

"Discover Hebden Bridge" - Town Centre Trail (£2)

From Hebden Bridge Local History Society and Hebden Bridge Walkers' Action, a colourful new guide to a 45-minute walk around the town, giving details of points of interest and photographs of the same scenes in times gone by. The trail is accessible by wheelchair.

Made in Yorkshire - Tony Earnshaw (£25.00)

A glorious celebration of all the feature films shot in the county from the inception of film to the present day, including in-depth accounts of more than 30 movies. With a foreword by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood, whose film The Dressser, shot in Bradford, York and and Halifax, features prominently.

Other Beasts - Sarah Corbett* (£7.99)
The first half of this new volume is devoted to poems that re-create scenes from a youth haunted by trouble, but redeemed by a strong attachment to the beauties of nature. The latter half focuses on in-depth and often scary narratives of other lives, while closely identifying with survivors of trauma.

A Load of New Rubbish by Chris Aspin (£4.99)

New from our own Royd Press and Rossendale-based historian Chris Aspin, light-hearted verse reflecting on the absurdities of modern life, with a Grand Opera included! The cover picture was done by Book Case member of staff Simon Manfield.

John Ramsbottom - A Victorian Engineering Giant by Robin Pennie* (£9.95)
This well-illustrated book about Todmorden-born John Ramsbottom is publshed by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Society and will be launched in Todmorden onm 16th September.

Waiting for the Other Shoe - Maggie Handsley* (£7.99)

The story of a family turned upside-down by the adoption of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder, a first novel from a Huddersfield-born author now based in Halifax. Her knowledge of damaged children came from witnessing the struggles of a friend who adopted one, and from her years in teaching.

July 2008

The Yorkshire Water Way 2 - South Pennines and Peak District - Mark Reid (£3.99)
A 62-mile walk between Ilkley and Langsett, via Haworth, Hebden Bridge and Marsden. Instructions, line drawings and sketch maps.

Cross-Stitch Countryside Collection - Carol Thornton*, Claire Crompton, Caroline Palmer and Lesley Teare (£18.99)

Eight detailed cross stitch designs capture moments of timeless tranquillity, including one of our local canal and a West Country harbour from Book Case member of staff and artist Carol Thornton. Each major design has a collection of matching keepsake gifts to make.

Teach Yourself Creative Writing - Stephen May* (£9.99)

From the director of Lumb Bank Creative Writing Centre in Heptonstall, a guide to unlocking your creativity, finding your voice and choosing a genre of writing that suits you best. Fourth edition.

Narrowboat Dreams by Steve Haywood (£7.99)
"A cantankerous old git" travels by traditional narrowboat from Banbury to "the trendy affluence of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire's answer to London's ciabatta belt". He's rude about Huddersfield and Mytholmroyd and has an exciting time in a pieshop in Brighouse. (£7.99)

Around and About Yorkshire 1 (DVD) (£5.99)

Three Peaks Fell Race, Rescuing Ilkley Moor, Restoring York Minster, Denby Dale Walk, Yorkshire Flat Caps, Whitby's Penny Hedge, Knaresborough's Hidden Treasures - and Gervase Phinn talks to Geoff Druett about his formative years in Rotherham. 110 minutes.

Around and About Yorkshire 2 (DVD) (£5.99)

Auction Marts, Pork Pie Championship, the "Tom Puddings" of Goole, wooden shops, agricultureal shows (Otley, Great Yorkshire, Bingley, Malham, Kilnsey and Nidderdale), Giggleswick and the carved rocks of Ilkley Moor with Gavin Edwards. 115 minutes.

Ladies of the Night by Barbara Green* & Jean Wilkinson (£9.99)
A snapshot of how the real district nurses operate in the modern day - a long way from the beloved but outdated lady on the bike!

Barbara Green is a retired registered general and psychiatric nurse, a state certified midwife and qualified district nurse based in Brighouse; Jean Wilkinson has worked in district nursing for over twenty years as a nursing auxiliary.

Postcard Yorkshire (DVD) (£4.99)
A 35-minute journey through Yorkshire's most inspirational scenery with narration and music, on a colourful DVD packaged to look like a big postcard.

June 2008

Growing up in Sowerby ... and more - Jean Illingworth* (£9.99)

The ancient hilltop village of Sowerby with its fine Georgian church can be seen for miles around. Jean Illingworth’s engaging history weaves her own memories with the recollections of others in her local community to reveal a rich and detailed picture of the life and character of this “very special” place.

Ndae's Promise - Jill Hopkins* (£5.99)

This book for children by Halifax-based journalist Jill Hopkins was tested on the pupils of Heathfield School, Rishworth, and their enthusiastic reviews appear on the back cover. The story is about a swallow who migrates across Africa and to the Island of Smoke.

Huddersfield Narrow Canal: a towpath guide - Dr Bob Gough (£4.99)

Nicely produced, sturdy and colourful guide to what you might see along the towpath of Huddersfield Narrow Canal. From Huddersfield Canal Society. Spiral bound.

The Romans Came This Way  - by Norman Lunn, Bill Crosland, Bonwell Spence and Granville Clay, pub. Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society (£12.99)

The story of the discovery and excavation of a Roman Military Way across the Yorkshire Pennines. The fascinating story of how a dedicated group of amateur archaeologists found themselves challenging all the accepted theories of where and how the Roman army built a major military way across the Pennines. A4, many colour photos and maps, CD with extra info.

Fire Horses - Mark Piggott

"Fire Horses" views England over the last 25 years, from small town to the grimy metropolitan underbelly, through the eyes and lens of one deeply troubled individual and his complex relationships with his childhood friend and the women in his life. Mark Piggott grew up in Hebden Bridge and will be taking part in the Ted Hughes Festival in October.

Anatevka - Joseph Krasniansky (£9.50)

"From Russia with Love. And Death." A first novel from an author based in Hebden Bridge.

Rhyme and Storytime - Kathleen McBurney* (£6.99)

Verses, thoughts and memories with colour photos from a Halifax great-grandmother. This collection includes Ackroydon Model Village, Halifax Borough Market, Banksfield Museum and more!

May 2008

Two football books this month!

A Century of Stars: Hebden Royd Red Star AFC 1908-2008 - Peter Thomas* (£4.00)
Hebden Royd Red Star AFC, under its various names, is the oldest continuously-existing club in the Halifax League and celebrates its centenary in October this year. This colourful new book is full of memories, interviews, anecdotes and photographs, and now in stock!

Foul Play - Tom Palmer* (£5.99)

Danny is obsessed with two things: football - especially City Football Club - and investigating crimes. So when England and City footballing hero Sam Roberts is reported missing the day after Danny saw him being taken, blindfolded, into the bowels of the City FC stadium late at night, he's determined to get to the bottom of it. But is Danny getting into something he can't handle? From the Todmorden based writer and reader-developer, an exciting new story for young football fans, published by Puffin.

In Search of Thinking: Reflective Encounters in Experiencing the World - Richard Bunzl* (£10.95)

What are our memories and feelings? What are ideas? What is the nature of time? How do our thoughts connect with the world at large? Is freedom of thought an illusion, or a possibility worth striving for? Hebden Bridge-based writer and musician Richard Bunzl addresses some of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical questions. Published by Rudolf Steiner Press and to be launched Sunday 8th June at the Rudolph Steiner centre, Macpelah.

The Scent Trail: A Journey of the Senses - Cecilia Lyttleton* (£7.99)
Follows one woman's journey across the world as she explores the magic and history behind the ingredients of her own bespoke perfume. Now in paperback. Author lives in Hebden Bridge.

The Old and the New: A History of the Two Heptonstall Churches (£1.50)

Illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bride Local History Society with full information on the two churches and a nice picture of the old one as it was.

Mud, Toil and Tears - Irene F Priestley (£6.00)

Tells the story of Bleakholt Animal Sanctuary 1967-9 from the point of view of one of the kennel maids during two difficult years in the Sanctuary's early history. The Sanctuary is on a hillside overlooking Ramsbottom and the Rossendale Valley and is one of the largest of its kind in the northwest of England. Lots of illustrations, including colour ones, and lively detail! The sanctuary has enthusiastic support in Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd, and all proceeds are going to the Sanctuary.

Halifax and the Calder Valley - Railway Memories 11 - Jack Wild and Stephen Chapman (£13.95)

Back in print! Celebrates the glorious time when Calderdale's railways carried top link expresses, Saturday excursions packed with holidaymakers bound for Blackpool, and a seemingly endless process of freight - when Heckmondwike, Cleckheaton, Brighouse and Ripponden all had a place on the railway network, when trains left Halifax  for Bradford and Keighley "over the Alps" and Sowerby Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Mirfield were important railway centres. And takes us up to more recent years.

April 2008

Ned Carver in Danger - Phyllis Bentley* (£5.95)
The second of our reprints of the respected Halifax novelist's exciting historical novels for young people - a 13-year-old boy starts work at a Calder Valley cropping shop in 1812 just as his friend's mill-owning father introduces the cropping frames that will put his skilled companions out of work. Ned's sympathies are with the Luddites who plot violence.

A Century of Stars: Hebden Royd Red Star AFC 1908-2008 - Peter Thomas* (£4.00)
Hebden Royd Red Star AFC, under its various names, is the oldest continuously-existing club in the Halifax League and celebrates its centenary in October this year. Full of memories, interviews, anecdotes and photographs, and hopefully out later this month.

Farewell Britannia: A Family Saga of Roman Britain - Simon Young*
From brilliant young ex-Hebden Bridge historian a multi-generational family, part Roman, part Celtic (invaders intermarrying with natives) to tell the dramatic story of 400 years of Roman rule in Britain. Now in paperback. (£8.99)

Milltown Memories - back issues (£2.50 or £2.80 each)

We're delighted to have in stock copies of the Upper Calder Valley quarterly magazine featuring aspects of local history and old photographs: a list of contents can be found at http://www.milltownmemories.org.uk/. We don't have issue 2. Milltown Memories ran from 2002 to 2006

Facsimile Mill Rules poster of 1851 from Waterfoot Mill, Haslingden, £1.00

21 rules laid down for the Hands, covering lateness, untidiness, damage, Talking, behaviour in the Necessaries, Oaths and insolent language, Smoking and especially personal cleanliness: “The Masters would recommend that all their workpeople Wash themselves every morning, but they shall Wash themselves at least twice every week, and any found not washed will be fined 3d for each offence.”

British Orchids: A Site Guide - Roger Bowmer*
Author lives in Littleborough. A handy reference to the locations of the 51 species of wild orchid native to the British Isles; each one is covered individually, with a brief description of its habitat and natural history, and an explanation of its botanical name, with two colour photographs, and artworks provide details of specific points of interest. A full listing of sites gives national grid references for easy location, and there are complete listings of the relevant Wildlife Trusts responsible for each site.

March 2008

The Backbone of England: Landscape and Life on the Pennine Watershed - Andrew Bibby*, photos John Morrison (£20)
Hebden Bridge-based journalist Andrew Bibby walks the route of the watershed in England that separates the water flowing westwards to the Irish Sea and the Atlantic from the water heading towards the North Sea and explores various aspects of the area's history, ecology, geology and culture, and meets many of the people whose lives are shaped by the landscape. Ex-Hebden Bridge John Morrison supplies atmospheric colour photos. To be launched in Hebden Bridge just before Easter.

Collected Poems for Children - Ted Hughes*

Paperback version. The book is presented by reading age, beginning with poems for younger readers and working up to Hughes's material for young adults. Illustrated by Raymond Briggs. (£9.99)

February 2008

Hebden Bridge: a short history of the area - Peter Thomas* (£5.99)

As Royd Press, we're delighted to be publishing an updated and revised version of a very readable history of the area first written by local author Peter Thomas back in the 1970s!

Poetry in the Making - Ted Hughes*(£9.99)
A reissue of his 1967 publication which accompanied his broadcasts to schools. The purpose throughout is to lead on, via discussion of the poems, to some direct encouragement to the children to think and write for themselves. He makes the whole venture seem enjoyable, and somehow urgent.

The Future Control of Food: A Guide to International Negotiations and Rules on Intellectual Property, Biodiversity and Food Security - ed. Geoff Tansey*; Tasmin Rajotte (£18.99)
The first wide-ranging guide to the key issues of intellectual property and ownership, genetics, biodiversity and food security - "the best single summary of the political choices facing food and agriculture policymakers that has been written in this decade". Hebden Bridge-based writer and consultant Geoff Tansey is working for a fair and sustainable food system.

A Cotton-Fibre Halo: Manchester and the Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£7.95)

Companion to our "Fabrics, Filth and Fairy Tents" which covered the West Yorkshire textile districts, Angus Bethune Reach's graphic reports on Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, Oldham, Egerton, Macclesfield, Middleton and Saddleworth with many interviews. Published by Royd Press at The Book Case.

One Autumn: work, family life and Rugby League in the 1990s - Geoff Lee* (£9.95)

Last in a series of four novels on the general theme of Northern working-class life in the Rugby League heartlands in the second half of the twentieth century, from a former Halifax draughtsman. 1992 and 1993 were tough years in the south Lancashire town of Ashurst.

Speech with Humans - Clark Coolidge & Glen Baxter (£9.99)

Arc Press of Todmorden have published an unusual book, , in which American poet and jazz drummer Clark Coolidge and Leeds-born surrealist cartoonist Glen Baxter collaborate in a quirky combination of text and pictures.

January 2008

Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society 2007 (Vol. 15, new series) - (ed.) John A. Hargreaves,* £15.00

The new edition includes: The location and operation of demesne cattle farms in Sowerby graveship c. 1300 - Nigel Smith; The room numbering system of the Halifax Piece Hall, 1778-2007 - Peter W Robinson; Benjamin Rushton: handloom weaver, radical agitator and nonconformist preacher - John A Hargreaves; Trade union activity in the Halifax area, 1800-1960 - W L Horsfall; The experience of Oweniste Socialism and anti-Socialism in Halifax, 1829-1845 - Simon J Cross; Demagogues or debaters? A study of Halifax Chartist speeches reported in the Halifax Guardian and the Northern Star between 1838 and 1839 - Sheila Graham; The Twentieth Century remembered: Arnold's Odyssey, 1917-18 - Peter Thomas; Halifax during the Second World War: the struggle for victory 1940-45 - Derek Bridge; De-industrialisation in Calderdale and the changes it made in local employment, 1921-91 - Stuart Noble and Brian Burkett.

Two Marriages by Glyn Hughes* (£7.00)

From the prize-winning local author, a long autobiographical poem in two sections, the first of Hughes’s books to be illustrated by the writer himself who began his career at art school. NOW IN STOCK:

Enkelit CD (£12)

From the sensational locally-based upper-voice group who performed so memorably at Square Chapel last year, their first CD. They sing contemporary vocal music primarily from Finland, strongly influenced by folk traditions and characterisd by beauty and melancholy. See their website at http://www.enkelit.org.uk/. The leader, Richard Pomfret, is Todmorden-based.

December 2007

Twenty More Parish Poems - Geoffrey Whiteley* (£4.00)
From a local author and ex-English teacher, more poems inspired by memories, local scenes and Biblical references.

November 2007

Todmorden Hippodrome : 100 Years of Theatre, 1908-2008 - Freda and Malcolm Heywood*, £19.95 hb, £14.95 pb
Celebrating the first hundred years of this popular Edwardian theatre! The book is packed with narrative, information, pictures, production photos and reproduced advertisements and programme covers telling the theatre’s story from the glory days of music hall to the present day. More than 200 pictures, many of them in colour.

Ted Hughes: Selected Translations, ed. Daniel Weissbort (£12.99)
A broad selection from Hughes' numerous translations, together with hitherto unpublished material (versions of Paul Eluard
and of Yves Bonnefoy), and excerpts from essays and letters.

Looping the Loop DVD and video - Peter Thornton* and Ray Riches*, £12.99

A journey on the Mary Towneley Loop in the South Pennines, a 48-mile circular spur off the Pennine Bridleway. Using ancient packhorse trails and bridleways, it visits hidden villages and hamlets, taking you through spectacular scenery, across wild moorland and into green wooded valleys. 78 mins.

Calder Valley Offcuts

These are based on Leslie Goldthorp*'s historical lectures in the 1970s, transcribed by Mrs Irene Mallinson, and are £2.50 each unless otherwise stated. Since June, the following titles have been published:

4. Overseers of Highways - Roads and Turnpikes

5. John Wesley's visits to the area (£1.50)

6. The Cragg Vale Coiners

7. The Rochdale Canal and the Coming of the Railway

8. Conditions in the Textile Factories in 1833, Part 1

9. "Tyrants and Hypocrites" - the local fight against child labour (Conditions in the Textile Factories Part 2); Interview with a Handloom Weaver; the Typhus Epidemic in Heptonstall Slack 1843-4.

The Yorkshire Church Notes of Sir Stephen Glynne, ed. L.A.S. Butler, £30
Yorkshire Archaeological Society, vo. 159. Sir Stephen Glynne (1807-1874) was one of the greatest church enthusiasts of his time, visiting over 5500 churches in England and Wales, and making careful notes and sketches of their architecture, plans and furnishings. His particular interest lay in the Gothic style, and in High Church principles, as his notes make clear. This volume contains architectural descriptions of 400 Yorkshire churches and abbeys compiled during his many visits. Interesting in their own right, they also provide an extremely accurate and valuable record of the fabric and fittings before their removal in restoration or the total demolition of churches. An introduction places Sir Stephen's life and work in the wider context of developing architectural and ritual scholarship. The text is accompanied by 250 contemporary water-colours and drawings, the majority from record sources and published for the first time. Together they provide a significant contribution to the study of Yorkshire church architecture at a time of rapid change.

The Best of John Hartley: an account of his life and "The Clock Almanack" - John Waddington-Feather, £6.99

Born in Halifax in 1839, John Hartley was well-known for his Yorkshire dialect poetry and prose, published in his "Clock Almanack". This book includes some of the best as well as a biography and a glossary of Yorkshire words.

Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Around Rochdale - John Cole, £12.99
Takes the reader on a journey into the dark secret side of Rochdale's long history - from crimes of brutal premeditation to crimes born of passion and despair, with ghosts, skulduggery, forgery, betrayal, highway robbery and public executions thrown in for good measure.

October 2007

A Village Childhood - Gertrude M. Attwood, nee Ogden (£12)
A personal recollection of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in the 1920s and '30s. Gertrude looks back at those early years and describes how they influenced her life. Sumptuously illustrated, with lots of fascinating detail about everyday life.

The Deafening Sound of Silent Tears: the Story of Caring for Life - Juliet Barker*, £8.99
From the renowned local historian and biographer, a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Leeds-based charity Caring for Life, who help vulnerable young adults make a new start.

Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual - ed. Kathleen Connors; Sally Bayley (£25)

A side of Sylvia Plath that is scarcely known: her serious involvement in the visual arts from a very early age. She moved between art-making and writing constantly, integrating their elements with ease and pleasure. It was only at the age of 20 that she decided to leave fine art behind her as her chosen career, and opt for the written word. Eye Rhymes presents a magnificent range of Plath's art, most of it seen in print for the first time: childhood sketches, illustrated diaries, portraits, rich modernist and expressionist paintings, fashion images, photographs, and more.

Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid (£30)
At the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter writing as 'excellent training for conversation with the world', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of a life at once resolutely private but intensely attuned to other lives (including both adults and children): a life pared down to essentials and yet eventful, peripatetic, at times publicly controversial.

Lost Railways of South and West Yorkshire - Gordon Suggitt (£10.99)
The story of the railway age in South and West Yorkshire, beginning in 1755. Includes Bradford and Oxenhope.

September 2007

Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley* (£5.95)
Hilltop handloom weaver's son Dick Wade is pleased to find a boy of his own age to play with, but is he a true friend? Whose is the injured dog found on the moors? And who is flooding the area with clipped and forged coins, bringing the London authorities in with their questions and house searches? A gripping story based on the real history of the Cragg Vale Coiners, giving a fascinating insight into life in the Calder Valley and the local weaving industry over 200 years ago.

Antiquarian Yorkshire Books on CD-rom:

"The History and Antiquities of Halifax", "Ancient Halls in and Around Halifax" and  "Halifax Courier's Almanack 1937" - 3 books on one CDrom - Rev. John Watson, Arthur Comfort and Halifax Courier - £15
"Todmorden" 4 books on one CDrom - John Travis - £12
"The Yorkshire Coiners & Old and Pre Historic Halifax" - H. Ling Roth - £12
"The Northowram Nonconformist register", "Oliver Heywood's Diaries" (4 Volumes) and "Northowram, its History and Antiquities" - 6 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner and Mark Pearson - £20
"The History of Brighouse, Rastrick and Hipperholme"  and "Independency at  Brighouse" - 2 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner - £15
"Halifax, Families and Worthies", "History of Halifax" and "Halifax Guardian Almanack, 1908" - 3 books on one CDrom - J Horsfall Turner, John Crabtree and Halifax Guardian - £15

Over the Land - John Killick* (£10)

Hebden Bridge-based John Killick is best known for his work on communication with people with dementia and has broadcast on BBC Radio. This collection contains 23 poems inspired by the Scottish landscape with images from pastel drawings and oil paintings by a young Edinburgh artist, Alison McGill. Exclusively available in Hebden Bridge from The Book Case, and post free.

August 2007

Infamous Yorkshire Women - Issy Shannon* (£12.99)

From the well-known local journalist, a collection of remarkable women with Yorkshire connections - ranging from Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes to Mary Newall of the Cragg Vale Coiners. Nicely presented and well illustrated.

Fabrics, Filth & Fairy Tents: The Yorkshire Textile Districts in 1849 - Angus Bethune Reach, ed. Chris Aspin (£6.99)

In 1849 Scottish investigative journalist Angus Bethune Reach toured the textile areas of the West Riding to report on the condition of the working class for the Morning Chronicle (which also published Mayhew's famous London reports). Reach visited Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Batley, Halifax, Bradford and Leeds; he praised some employers (Holdsworth's in Halifax, Marshall's in Leeds) but also found filth, squalor, extreme poverty, lethal working conditions and official apathy. His reports and the words of the people he spoke to bring to life how the glory days of the Yorkshire textile industry felt from the underside. Royd Press's first publication.

Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley (£5)

Colour-illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alternative Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area. 48pp, colour and b-&-w illustrations, nicely produced.

Woodenface - Gus Grenfell (£5.99)
The author is aka ex-Hebden Bridge resident Gus Smith. Meg is a Maker, pouring life into the wooden dolls she carves. Accused of witchcraft, she flees to Halifax, only to find her father in jail, facing death by the gibbet. Desperate to save him, she must first learn what being a Maker really means. Local history and folklore combine in a compelling debut novel full of magic and suspense. Ages: 9-12 yrs

July 2007

Spirit of Yorkshire - John Morrison (£4.99)
From the well-known ex-local author and photographer, a neat little hardback book of colour photographs from all over Yorkshire. No pictorial book about Yorkshire is complete without a picture of Stubbings School and this one is no exception! Now in stock.

Curiosities of West Yorkshire - Robert Woodhouse (£12.99)
A guide to the remarkable and curious sites to be seen in West Yorkshire, including a few around our way.

Chelp and Chunter: how to talk Tyke - Ian McMillan (£5.99)

From the Brontes and James Herriot to the Arctic Monkeys, Yorkshire has a rich culture reflected in its dialect. Discover the origins of many well-known phrases and learn a few more!

The Scent Trail - Celia Lyttelton* (£15)

“A Journey of the Senses.” A travel memoir and vividly-drawn portrait of today's exotic world of perfume. Entering the heady, exotic world of oils and essences at a bespoke perfumer’s, the author (who lives in Hebden Bridge) was transported from a leafy London square to a place of long-forgotten memories and sensory experiences and felt compelled to trace the origins, history and culture of the many ingredients that made up her unique perfume.

June 2007

Pennine Perspectives: Aspects of the History of Midgley - Midgley History Group, ed. Ian Bailey, David Cant, Alan Petford and Nigel Smith (£18)

Launched at Midgley Pageant on 30th June, and two-and-a-half years in preparation, this splendid well-illustrated book covers many aspects of Midgley’s past, from pre-history, through to medieval times, the Victorian era and the early twentieth century. Topics include religion, railways, Murgatroyds’, quarrying, farming, self-help, housing, pubs, leisure, riots, geology and folklore. The whole of the ancient township of Midgley is covered, including Midgley Moor, Luddenden, Luddenden Foot and Mytholmroyd as well as the village. It has 352 pages, hardback with over 160 illustrations of photos, maps & archive documents.

Helix - Eric Brown* (£7.99)
From local author and Guardian columnist Eric Brown, an SF adventure about a group of human spacers who find themselves in a very strange star system, and the aliens who live there. Eric's book for younger readers, An Alien Ate Me for Breakfast, was published earlier this year.

Pennine Way: Edale to Kirk Yetholm - Keith Carter (£11.99)
Second edition of this Trailblazer publication. Includes itineraries for all walkers, whether walking the route in its entirety over one or two weeks or sampling the highlights on day walks.

The March and the Muster - Frank McManus (£7.99)
From Todmorden Labour Councillor Frank McManus a daybook and commonplace book with thoughts, observations, quotations or poems for each day of the year.

A Laureate's Landscape: walks around Ted Hughes's Mytholmroyd - John Billingsley (£4.50)

Engrossing and informative illustrated booklet that takes us around the area in which the ex-Poet Laureate grew up and which inspired some of his most memorable work. The relevant poems are referred to (but not quoted! - the copyright is closely guarded) in the text. Local historian John Billingsley has led many Ted Hughes walks around Mytholmroyd, and here is a permanent memento - or a good substitute if you are unable to take part.

Three Waymarked Walks from Hebden Bridge (50p)

A colourful folded leaflet with instructions and maps for visiting Hardcastle Crags avoiding the road, Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike.

A History and Guide to the Parish Church of Hebden Bridge, St James the Greater (£2)
Members of the Church and Local History Society produced this little nicely-illustrated booklet with a history of the church, built in the 1830s and guide to some features still to be seen. The 1933 centenary booklet was used as a basis. Profits to the church.

Mind Control: the ultimate revelation - David Shuttleworth (£7.99)
From a Keighley author and publisher, "the book Derren Brown wanted to ban!" Highly praised book with twelve mind control effects as used by stage hypnotists.

NW15: the anthology of new writing No. 15 - the British Council (£9.99)

Including Hebden Bridge-based poet John Siddique! See his website at http://www.johnsiddique.co.uk/

Calder Valley Offcuts

A new series of local historical pamphlets published by Royd Press at The Book Case, based on Mrs Irene Mallinson's transcription of Leslie Goldthorp's lectures in the 1970s. Available so far are:

1. The Normans and Medieval Times in the Calder Valley, £2.50

Three pamphlets on aspects of life in the 17th and 18th centuries as gleaned from the local Township books. The original source material quoted in these notes can be found amongst the township holdings held at West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale.  For further information please contact calderdale@wyjs.org.uk/

2. Law & Order: Constables, Punishments and Prison (£2.50)

3. Overseers of the Poor - Paupers, Doctoring, Apprentices, Bastards and Workhouses; & Churchwardens (£2.50)

In preparation:

4. Overseers of Highways - Roads and Turnpikes

5. John Wesley's visits to the area

6. The Cragg Vale Coiners

The Bronte Connection - Ann Dinsdale (£6.95)

From the Collections Manager at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, a collection of 43 photographs associated with the Brontes' lives and works, with dates and information. Published by Hendon in Nelson.

A Guide to the Historic Haworth & the Brontes - Mark Ward, Ann Dinsdale and Robert Swindells (£5.99)

A new edition of an entertaining and informative guide to Haworth and the surrounding moor, written as a series of four walks with illustrations and lots of historical information. Also from Hendon of Nelson.

Romantic Wycoller: a haunt of the Brontes - E W Folley, photographs Charles Green (£2.99)

At a special price, a facsimile reprint of a book first published in 1949. Covers the history of Wycoller Dene and Hall, the arrival of the Cunliffes, the Bronte connection and local legends, with a surmise that Ferndean Manor of "Jane Eyre" was based on Wycoller. Many b&w illustrations.

May 2007

Folk Tales from Calderdale, Vol. 1 - John Billingsley* (£7.50)

The eagerly-awaited collection of tales from the moorlands of the Upper Calder Valley - the first of a projected series on the folklore of Calderdale by the well-known local historian. The Witches of Eagle Crag, the Cliviger Boggart, the Bride Stones, the Eve Stone, Stoodley Pike, Great Rock, Tom Bell's Cave, the Miller's Grave and Churn Milk Joan are included.

Rune - Michael Conneely* (£8.99)
Another magical and visionary novel from the local spiritual teacher - Cathal decides to seize the magic of the Runes on his 14th birthday and together with Lucy sets out to save the Nine Worlds. A powerful re-telling of Norse spirituality and Ragnarok.

April 2007

L. S. Lowry: A Life - Shelley Rohde*, £25.00
To coincide with the 30th anniversary of Lowry's death, this fascinating biography includes extracts from private letters which have come to light since Lowry's death and facsimile reproductions of major exhibition catalogues.

Ariel: the restored edition - Sylvia Plath, £9.99
The draft of "Ariel" left behind by Sylvia Plath when she died in 1963 is different from the volume of poetry eventually published to worldwide acclaim. This facsimile edition restores the selection and arrangement of the poems as Sylvia Plath left them at the point of her death. In addition to the facsimile pages of Sylvia Plath's manuscript, this edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of the title poem "Ariel" in order to offer a sense of Plath's creative process, as well as notes
the author made for the BBC about some of the manuscript's poems. Pre-amble by Frieda Hughes.

Farewell Britannia: a family saga of Roman Britain - Simon Young, £14.99 at The Book Case
From a former Hebden Bridge man who "wears [his] considerable learning lightly", a historical novel telling the dramatic story of 400 years of Roman rule in Britain via a Roman-Celtic family saga.

Rambles of a Pennine Way-ster - Richard Pulk, £9.99

One man's account of the Pennine Way, which of course includes the local section - he's not very enthusiastic about our gradients.

Drive and Stroll in West Yorkshire - Ron Freethy, £7.99

20 short walks, incorporating eating places, that you can drive to, with b&w photos.

March 2007

Wordsworth: a Life in Letters - ed. Juliet Barker*, £12.99

Reissue as a Penguin Classic of this selection by award-winning local author from the poet's letters and autobiographical fragments, showing him as a rebel, a radical, a devoted family man and a revered patriarch.

I Did A Bad Thing - Linda Green*, £19.99

"Sarah Roberts used to be good. Then she did something bad. Very bad. Now, years later, she's living a good life, working as a local newspaper reporter and living with her saintly boyfriend Jonathan. ... Until Nick walks back into her life. And suddenly, what's good and bad aren't so clear to Sarah any more." The author, a freelance journalist, lives in Walsden with her husband and young son.

February 2007

Poems from a Northern Soul - John Siddique*, £6.95

Through poignant homecomings cinematic street scenes and candid portraits, this poetry collection aims to take the reader to the limits of human experience. 

Heart in My Head - John S Peart-Binns*, £16.99

A Biography of Richard Harries. The first biography of the Bishop of Oxford, written with his full approval, using personal papers and interviews. 'Throughout his life, ministry and episcopate, Harries has explored the reasonableness of Christianity. He has not abandoned orthodox belief to fit the current climate, and presents a mature vision of Christian faith which can meet contemporary criticism.'

Exploring Oxenhope: where to go and what to see - Reg Hindley, £9.99

Nine walks or rides around the former milltown in its surprisingly varied "highland" setting, with much detailed historical information along the way. Maps and b-and-w photos.

Heartsease - Judith Blaydes*, £15.00
From an ex-Halifax librarian, a family saga set in the Calder Valley against the backdrop of the moors, Sowerby Bridge and the Great War.

Hebden Bridge Treasure Hunt on Foot, £2.99
An attractive new version of this quirky walk around town. There's also a chance to win "buried treasure" by solving the baffling puzzle inside the front cover!

January 2007

The Backpacker's Guide to the New Spirituality by Michael Conneely*, £9.99
A magical child has been conceived in the modern west. A new spiritual form has been born out of Hinduism, Buddhism, the Pagan religions of Northern Europe, Shamanism, utopian community and astrology. This reforging of ancient traditions gives us new spiritual tools: ritual, meditation, tantra, body-energy-work, trance and vision; we find new beauty and power in what it means to be a woman or a man. Local astrologer and counsellor Michael Conneely reports on this spiritual revolution, based on the findings of a five-year field study in Glastonbury, now a world-wide centre of pilgrimage.

Believe in the Sign - Mark Hodkinson*, £9.99

From a respected national sports writer based in Hebden Bridge, a collection of pieces taking an in-depth look at football, with interviews (including Paul Gascoigne), the darker side of the game and his love-hate relationship with Rochdale FC. Published by Pomona of Hebden Bridge.

Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society 2006 (Vol. 14, new series) - (ed.) John A. Hargreaves,* £15.00

This year's issue contains: The landscape history of Erringden Park from the 12th to 20th century - J A Heginbottom; A History of Cripplegate - John H Patchett; James Crossley (!800-1883) in Halifax: 'The learned boy', 1800-1817 - Stephen Collins; Chapel Culture: Methodists at King Cross, 1803-2007 - Lewis Burton; Joseph Horsfall (1818-1889): transformation from handloom weaver to cotton manufacturer, 1857-1873 - W L Horsfall; The People's park (1857-2005) - J G Washington; Halifax houses between the wars, 1919-1939 - Merial Evans; Halifax and the Second World War: the prelude to war and defensive precautions, 1937-1940 - Derek Bridges; The Twentieth Century Remembered: a 1920s and 1930s boyhood - Eric Webster; Reviews: "Images of England, Brighouse and District" by C. Helm & "Seeing It Through" by Peter Thomas (see below) - John Hargreaves; Enquiry & research; Reports for 2005; Obituary: Eric Webster.

Ideas Above Our Station - ed. Ian Daley, £8.99
Someone is waiting for a train - or a bus, or an aeroplane. They are alone. For company, they are carrying a book of stories: what would be the perfect read for them to find there? Fifteen writers have risen to the challenge, including two local authors, Penny Aldridge and Daithidh Maceochaidh.

December 2006

Heptonstall: A Village of Memories - Nick Wilding, DVD, £14.99, 1h22m

New from the Excalibur stable, a DVD devoted to Heptonstall: who is the strange and beautiful carving in the far corner of the old St Thomas-a-Becket Church, and what disturbing discovery was made in the loft above it? How did the old dialect affect communication with those from the south, and how did the original Church organ survive the anti-popish onslaught by soldiers of Elizabeth I? "Heptonstall, Village of Memories" embarks onto a fascinating journey into the past and brings to life many tales from long ago, with the usual mix of strange facts, quirky reminiscences and archive stills and video.

Valley Shadows: short stories by Bill Marsden, poems by Peter Coles, £5.00

The latest in the entertaining Shadows series with photos, poems and anecdotes.

Yorkshire Lives and Landscapes by Ian Emberson*, £12.99

The county and its people exploredby the local poet, playwright and artist in a series of gentle anecdotes such as: Life in a small village, Asian dancing in Huddersfield, walking the Pennine Way, the choral singing tradition, even gardening and studying local history.

Todmorden Buses: a Century of Service by Ralph Wilkinson*, £8.95

To mark the centenary of the establishment of Todmorden's municipal bus service, this book covers the history of Todmorden's passenger transport over the last hundred years, with links over the Pennines to Bacup, Burnley, Keighley, Littleborough, Oxenhope and Rochdale, and with particular emphasis on the all-Leyland fleet with its dark green and cream livery. The author is a native of Todmorden.

Benjamin Rushton, Handloom Weaver and Chartist by John Hargreaves*, £5.00
From well-known local historian Professor Hargreaves, the story of a Halifax local hero who struggled for justice for the handloom weavers from the time of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 until the final years of Chartism in the 1850s.

Burnley Boys - P J Fyles, £9.99
A novel about Peter Frank Heaney and his mates growing up on the back streets of Burnley in the 1970s: the boys stumble through a male-dominated world of boyhood, encountering superstition violence, racism and death, getting by with the only weapon at their disposal - humour.

November 2006

Selected Translations by Ted Hughes*, ed. Daniel Weissbort, £20

A broad selection from his numerous translations, with unpublished material, and excerpts from essays and letters. The present volume selects from his versions from a wide variety of ancient texts - "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", "Aeschylus", "Euripides", "Ovid", "Seneca", "Racine" - and equally from a range of twentieth-century European poets and dramatists.

Discovering Calderdale Part 2 (video & DVD) - Peter Thornton* and Glyn Lee*, £12.99
This addition to the series starts in Todmorden, moves on to Cornholme, Lumbutts and Mankinholes climbs to Stoodley Pike, then continues through Mytholmroyd, Sowerby, Warley, Ripponden and Elland. The commentary is by Glyn Lee and photography - including aerial shots - by Peter Thornton. Due for release on 4 Nov. Part 1 covered Norland, Midgley, Luddenden, Cragg Vale and Walsden.

Todmorden Album 4 - Roger Birch* (£20)

This long-awaited fourth album provides a further fascinating insight into a century of life in Todmorden. The book contains 229 black and white photographs selected from private collections, family albums and picture archives, with detailed and informative captions.

The Tribe - Michael Conneely*(£9.99)

The Magic Land - Michael Conneely* (£8.99)
Two new novels from local spiritual teacher Michael Conneely - The Tribe is the story of Liam's passage to manhood, the development of his spiritual vision, and his people's progress to meet their destiny; in The Magic Land, Martin leaves his loveless home, where his father only cares about exam results and career, and goes to live on a protest site formed to protect a Bronze Age stone circle, where he finds happiness for the first time.

Look for the Silver Lining - Stephen Lockwood*(£15)
Tells of growth from a difficult childhood into adulthood - a book of landscapes, both internal and external, and of how nature can preserve us in the face of the increasing contingencies of modern life.

Sculpture Trail at Hebden Bridge 1995-2005 - Liza Blezard and Paula Chambers (£15)
Colour photos of the best of the (sadly now finished) annual sculpture trail at Hardcastle Crags, with artists' statements.

Bitch Lit - ed. Maya Chowdhry and Mary Sharratt (£8.99)
A smart and subversive celebration of female anti-heroes - who take the law into their own hands and refuse to be victims - with stories by two local authors.

The Last Coiner - Peter Kershaw (£6.00)
The story of the Cragg Vale Coiners in graphic novel version, linked to a potential film.

The Brontes at Haworth by Ann Dinsdale (£20)
Life for the Brontes in 1840s Haworth, and their novels and poetry in the context of their surroundings - with images from the Haworth archives, drawings by Charlotte and Emily, and photos by Simon Warner.

Cassini Historical Maps: Leeds and Bradford (104) & Blackburn & Burnley (103) (£6.49 each)

A new series - Victorian maps printed to coincide with the modern Ordnance Survey map areas. We also stock the Godrey Edition Old Ordnance Survey Maps of Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd 1905, £2.20 each.

Heritage Cartography - Map of Todmorden 1844 & Map of Hebden Bridge 1851 (£8.50 each)

Yorkshire Customs and Traditions, vol. 1 (DVD) (£14.99)

Filmed this year, presents Yorkshire customs from across the county.  West Yorkshire is in particular represented with the Bradford Race Walk, Hepworth Plague Feast, Saddleworth Brass Band Contest and the Dock Pudding Championship in Mytholmroyd.  Organisers and participants provide the voice-over.  Each custom is presented individually (ranging between 5 and 10 mins) on
this 85 mins film.

The Father of the Brontes: his life and work at Dewsbury and Hartshead - W W Yates, ed. Imelda Marsden (£14.99)
Facsimile edition of this biography of Patrick Bronte first published in 1897 - W W Yates was by profession a journalist and editor of the Dewsbury Reporter, but his passion was the novels and lives of the Brontes, and in the early 1890s helped in the campaign to found The Bronte Society and establish the Bronte Museum. Mrs Marsden has made additions to the original W W Yates book from her research into the Bronte family, including details of Patrick Bronte's niece, Rose Ann Heslip, who is buried at Whitechapel Church in Cleckheaton. Proceeds from the book go to Holly Bank School at Mirfield, for severely-disabled young people, which was originally Roehead School attended by Charlotte Bronte.

Full Spectrum: inspired healing for the 21st century - Leigh O'Regan* (£20)

From a Hebden Bridge author, a powerful synthesis of transpersonal psychology, quantum physics, eastern spirituality, philosophy and vibrational medicine, using self-selective non-intrusive tools.

The A-Z of Christmas - Arnold Kellett (£12.99)
Only "local" in the sense that the author is well-known for his Yorkshire Dialect books, and lives in Knaresborough - but the content of this cheerfully red book ranges through time and place.

October 2006

If You Fall: It's a New Beginning - Karen Darke*, £9.99
A few years ago, former Mytholmroyd resident and Calder High School pupil Karen Darke was on a rock-climbing expedition on sea cliffs in Scotland. She fell, and was paralysed. This is Karen's story about coming to terms with her loss of movement from the chest down and regaining the will to live. Out of her disability comes strength to embrace, challenge and transform it into an opportunity to learn and grow. It is also about the borderline between body and spirit. Karen is drawn into the world of faith healing and spirit surgeons in the Brazilian jungle. Combining wheels with wilderness, Karen escapes the city and embarks on an evermore daring series of adventures by hand-cycle, ski and kayak. Karen's story is inspiring and energizing; it will help everybody who reads it to respond positively, to overcome adversity, and to strive for their dreams.

Don't Wear It On Your Head, Don't Stick It down Your Pants - John Siddique*, £4.95
A book of poems for young people with a great cover! A celebration of who we are: the good stuff, our amazing senses, language, love, gossip and cheese.

Halifax Passenger Transport from 1897 to 1963: trams, buses, trolleybuses - Geoffrey Hilditch, £27.50
Geoffrey Hilditch remembers seeing a series of lights climbing into the night sky in 1931 - this was a tram or bus climbing to Southowram against the backdrop of Beacon Hill. In 1954 he was appointed head of the Engineering Department of Halifax Passenger Transport and when he returned as General Manager in 1963, he decided to put together a history before it was too late. 336 pages, 220 illustrations, hardback with printed endpapers and dustjacket.

Hannah Hauxwell's Winter Tales (DVD), £12.99
Not too far afield - this DVD combines "Too Long a Winter" and "A Winter Too Many" when Hannah was living at Low Birk Hatt Farm in North Yorkshire.

September 2006

Anthills and Stars - Kevin Duffy*, £7.99

From new Hebden Bridge publishers Blue Moose, a novel set back in 1968 when the Permissive Society was arriving in a grey northern town 20 miles east of Manchester in a multi-coloured VW camper van. The scene is set for a clash between laid-back hippy offcomer Solomon and his neighbour, a beige-dressing resident matriarch. Long-term Hebden Bridge residents may think this all sounds rather familiar ...

The Bridge Between - Nathan Vanek, £7.99

The author, a well-known Canadian yogi and guru, muses on the lessons learnt from returning to Canada after 25 years in India, with insights into the contrasts between the two countries. Another Blue Moose publication.

Ghosts and Gravestones of Haworth - Philip Lister, £8.99

Join local guide Phil Lister as he takes you on a tour of Haworth's dark and ghostly side: meet the ghost of Room 7 at the Old White Lion, the Grey Lady of Weavers Restaurant, and Ponden Hall's harbinger of doom, Old Greybeard. Tour the famous graveyard, in use for over 700 years ago and believed to house over 40,000 souls! Rediscover the Haworth of the Brontes, the blackened-stone buildings, washed by Pennine rain, the ginnels and alleyways of a forgotten time, overcrowded candlelit cottages, woolcombers, weavers, clogs, poverty and pride.

Sycorax - J B Aspinall, £11.95

In the credulous squalor of Medieval Yorkshire, a peasant girl is accused of being a sorceress and the tale is told many years later by a flawed monk at Byland Abbey (now Ampleforth). A satire on patriarchal prejudice and superstition.

Straight Ahead - Clare Shaw*, £7.95
First collection from a local poet - firmly based in the social and physical landscape of northern England, the poems capture intimacy, loss, fragmentation and delight, and follow the trajectory of a life through childhood, breakdown and love.

August 2006

Circular Walks along the Pennine Way by Kevin Donkin, £12.99

A series of fifty circular walks along and around the route. All of them can be accomplished in a day; all of them finish where they started. Completing the Pennine Way in one go will inevitably mean missing some of the best views, as the weather will certainly descend sooner or later to obscure the landscape. The walks included in this guidebook were adopted by the Countryside Agency for its 40th anniversary celebration of the Pennine Way, with an event entitled 'Walk the Way in a Day' held on 24 April 2005.

July 2006

Agincourt by Juliet Barker*, paperback, £8.99

Now in paperback, this brilliant narrative by a local prize-winning author commemorates and analyses a canonical battle in British history. Agincourt took place on 25th October 1415 and was a turning point not only in the Hundred Years War between England and France, but also in the history of weaponry. Azincourt (as it is now) is in the Pas-de-Calais, and the French were famously defeated by an army led by Henry V. His stunning victory revived England's military prestige and greatly strengthened his territorial claims in France. "Agincourt" was serialised on Radio 4.

Yorkshire Post Calendar 2007 (£5.50)

New format and featuring Yorkshire recipes as well as colour photos of the county.

Moods of Yorkshire - John Morrison (£14.99)
The many faces of Yorkshire from moors and valleys to coast, and from great houses built with slave-trade money to back-to-backs, all captured in John Morrison's stunning photos.

Hebden Bridge Treasure Hunt on Foot (£2.99)
New edition in booklet form of this walk around town visiting places of interest, historical and otherwise.

June 2006

Deliciously Dales - Sally Scantlebury and Rebecca Roberts (£6.99)

Colour-illustrated book of local food trails around the Dales, introducing some of the finest producers and outlets from the region.

Student Guide to Sylvia Plath - Marnie Pomeroy (Greenwich Exchange Student Guide), £9.99
Interested readers can see how Plath's prose relates to her poetry. "The Unabridged Journals", where Sylvia practised her craft, stand without the poems. "The Bell Jar" and the short stories are the result of the practice that went into the "Journals", illustrating stages in Sylvia's career as well as aspects of herself.

Millstone Grit by Glyn Hughes* (£3.95)
We're delighted to have back in stock some copies of the 1985 Pan edition of this local classic.

Textile Voices: A Century of Mill Life - Olive Howarth & Tim Smith (£12.95)

An updated edition of this acclaimed collection of oral history and over 100  photographs of mill life in twentieth century Bradford. Click here for a selection of photographs.

CalderCask Real Ale Guide – CAMRA (£2.99)

May 2006

Rebel Girls: their Fight for the Vote - Jill Liddington* (£14.99)
Rejecting the deadening conventions of their Victorian elders, the rebel girls demanded new freedoms and new rights. They took their suffrage message out to the remotest Yorkshire dales and fishing harbours, to win Edwardian hearts and minds. 16-year- old Huddersfield weaver Dora Thewlis on arrest was catapulted onto the tabloid front-pages as Baby Suffragette. Her life was transformed. Dancer Lilian Lenton waited till her twenty-first birthday - then determined to burn two buildings a week until the
Liberal government granted women the vote. Rebel Girls shows how this daring campaigning shifted from community suffragettes to militant mavericks. And includes Hebden Bridge's very own Lavena Saltonstall of Unity Street!

L S Lowry - Shelley Rohde* (£18)

A new illustrated biography of the artist. The author, who lives in Cragg Vale, met Lowry several times, and collections of his letters were made available to her.

Her Husband - Diane Middlebrook (£7.99)

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six and a half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world and brought new significance to his poetry. In this biography of their marriage, Diane Middlebrook renders a portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet and as a husband, haunted - and nourished - his entire life by the aftermath of his first marriage. Middlebrook presents Hughes as a complicated, conflicted figure: sexually magnetic, fiercely ambitious, immensely caring and shrewd in business. She argues that Plath's suicide, though it devastated Hughes and made him vulnerable to the savage attacks of Plath's growing readership, ultimately gave him his true subject - recreating himself for posterity through his marriage to Sylvia Plath and his struggles within his own historical circumstances. New paperback edition.

Moortown Diary - Ted Hughes (£8.99)
Updated version of Ted Hughes's acclaimed Devon farming sequence, 1979 and 1989.

Green Networks of the Dales - Colin Speakman (£10.99)
From the originator of the Dales Way, twenty linear walks of 12-25 miles designed to appeal to the serious walker who wants to leave the car behind - they all tie in with public transport. With

photos and maps.

Homer's Odyssey - Simon Armitage* (£14.99)
"The Odyssey" is a book of changes, and Simon Armitage's retelling of Homer's epic quickens and revitalizes our sense of it as oral poetry: as indeed one of the greatest of tall tales. His version bristles with the economy, wit and guile that we have come to expect from one of the most individual voices of his generation.

Odsal Odysseys: the history of Bradford Rugby League - Phil Hodgson (£19.99)

The glory years and dramatic transformations in fortunes since the original Bradford club was formed in 1863, becoming in turn Bradford, Bradford Northern and Bradford Buls, the reigning Rugby League world champions.

A History of the Lord Nelson (Luddenden) - J. A. Heginbottom (£3.00)
Published in 1991, this little booklet, illustrated by Abigail Edgar, gives the history of the Luddenden pub and its local connections.

Four Fathers - Tom Palmer* (ed.), John Siddique*, Ray French and James Nash (£8.99)
Four sons reveal the bonds that exist between themselves and their very different fathers; then turn the tables and consider their own roles as fathers and father figures. Mixes memoir with fiction. Tom Palmer is Todmorden-based, and the poet John Siddique lives in Hebden Bridge.

Pocket Pub Walks in West Yorkshire - Keith Wadd (£4.99)
From the chairman of the West Riding Ramblers' Association, 15 walks, max 7-8 miles, encompassing Ilkley Moor in the north to Holme in the south, and Lumbutts and Hebden Bridge in the west to Fairburn Ings in the east. Instructions, sketch maps, photos, recommended pubs, convenient size.

L S Lowry Edition MEMORY card game (£9.99)
In a nice clunky box, a Lowry version of Kim's Game, featuring details from seventeen of his works. Put together by local author Shelley Rohde, who is the author of two books on Lowry.

Brass Castles: West Yorkshire New Rich and Their Houses 1800-1914 - George Sheeran (£14.99)
The West Yorkshire families who grew rich through commerce and industry during the Industrial Revolution used their newly acquired wealth to build houses and gardens that were markedly different from those of older landed and commercial families. "Brass Castles" is the first book to explore these nineteenth-century mansions as a group in their own right and examines the urban as well as the rural homes of ninety-two of the wealthiest "New Rich" families.

Magical Cross Stitch - pub. David & Charles (£18.99)

Hebden Bridge textile designer and Book Case member of staff Carol Thornton is one of the contributors to this new book on cross-stitch. The front cover features one of Carol's designs, "Phoenix Rising".

The Brontes' Haworth  - S R Whitehead (£6.95)

The place and the people the Brontes knew. Drawing on previously unpublished material, this book explores the physical and social fabric of Haworth at the time the Brontes lived there. With over eighty early photographs, portraits and diagrams.

April 2006

The Laughter of Foxes: A Study of Ted Hughes - Keith Sagar (£18.50)
Second revised edition of the first study to survey the whole of Hughes's achievement. Includes extracts from Hughes's letters to the author, a detailed chronology of his life and work by Anna Skea, and the first publication of the background story of "Crow".

Dr. James Graham's Celestial Bed - Gaia Holmes* (£7.95)
From a Luddenden-born poet a debut collection which digs beneath the surface of mundane urban life to reveal a remarkable seam of exoticism. Her carnival of characters - bingo callers, burger sellers, critical theorists - are all cast from the least expected places but, rejuvenated by Gaia's verse, find a new voice and a new ability to captivate. 

The Playroom - John Connor (£5.99)

Another thriller about Bradford-based DC Karen Sharpe from a locally-based senior criminal lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service. In this one, the daughter of a Bradford judge is kidnapped.

Local Routes: touring England by Bus, Boat and Train: the North Country - Jean Morris (£7.95)

Six flexible tours, each about a week long, around the North of England, by bus, boat and train, with public transport and accommodation info as well as activities and history.

March 2006

Milltown Memories No 15 - Spring 2006 (£2.80)
Sadly this is the last issue but the publishers will continue as part of the Pennine Heritage organisation to which the Alice Longstaff Gallery Collection has been gifted. This issue focuses on floods in the Calder Valley - with some splendid photos, Sir Bernard Ingham looking back on his early days in journalism, a Todmorden bus crash in 1921, events of 1896, and an index to issues. The website address is www.milltownmemories.org.uk and e-mails should be sent to info@milltownmemories.org.uk

New Freedom to Roam Guides from Andrew Bibby*, £8.99 each:

Wharfedale and Nidderdale: The Southern Yorkshire Dales

Wensleydale and Swaledale: Northern Yorkshire Dales

Three Peaks and the Howgill Fells by Sheila Bowker, ed. Andrew Bibby

North York Moors by Judy Armstrong, ed. Andrew Bibby

Andrew Bibby, The Book Case and Francis Lincoln will be launching the books at Mooch Wine Bar, Market Street, Hebden Bridge, 6.00-7.00pm on Monday March 6th. All welcome!

Shaking Hands with Michael Rooney - Tom Palmer*, £2.99
“It’s a book aimed at reluctant readers between eight and 11, as well as older children who haven’t learnt to enjoy reading. I called him Michael Rooney as a composite of Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney. I couldn’t get permission to use a real footballer’s name and it sounds better than Wayne Owen. It’s the story of a boy with a hand tremor who overcomes his fear of collecting the Golden Boot prize for scoring the most goals in his league.” From the Todmorden-based Co-Ordinator for the Reading Partners project.

All-Terrain Pushchair Walks: Yorkshire Dales - Rebecca Terry, £7.95
30 tried and tested pushchair walks – including routes by river sides, high-level moorland rambles, and strolls around the many country estates, castles and abbeys. All the walks are graded – from simple low-level strolls to more ambitious moorland stomps. Each comes with a simple at-a-glance key making walk selection easy; there’s a map and route description for each walk and information on refreshments and changing facilities.

Nicholson Guide to Waterways 5: North-West & the Pennines (£12.99)
New edition.

Oxford Companion to the Brontes - Christine Alexander
Comprehensive and detailed information about the lives, works, and reputations of the Brontes, aiming to evoke the milieu in which they lived and worked and revealing the complex interrelation between their lives, writings and times. (£14.99)

Todmorden Travellers - E. M. Savage (£2)
"A snapshot of what life was like for some of the intrepid travellers to the New World" - including Canada, Australia, American and New Zealand. I'd been wondering why when I typed "Todmorden" into Google Earth it took me to Ontario - blame the Helliwells!

Kafka in Bronteland - Tamar Yellin (£9.99)

Thirteen stories from a Haworth area author, giving voice to a rich mix of characters living outside traditional patterns of identity, in a world of complex migrations and tumultuous change. In the title story, a Jew and a Muslim cast adrift in a Yorkshire landscape find momentary sisterhood over a copy of the Koran.

180 Not Out - A pictorial history of cricket in Halifax, Huddersfield and District: Vol.1: Calderdale - Dr Peter Davies & Rob Light (£10)

A product of a two-year project designed to preserve and celebrate the rich cricketing heritage of Calderdale and Kirklees and provides a fascinating insight into the history of local cricket in West Yorkshire. The other two volumes are on North and South Kirklees.

Northern Earth 105 (£1.95)
Of particular local interest this month, this issue has an illustrated article by Dr Eddie Cass on the Pace Egg Play.

Peter Pegnall: Foul Papers (£5.95)
A new collection from the local poet - "a poetry of pain and loss, decay in the secretive lives of fearful souls who must put on a bold face, tell a joke and blank out their hidden terrors". Also back in stock Through the Rock (£7.00) and Broken Eggs (£5.95)

February 2006

All-Terrain Pushchair Walks: West Yorkshire - Rebecca Terry and Rebecca Chippendale, £7.95
Pushchair-friendly routes in the spectacular country side around Keighley, Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield.
There’s wood land, moor land, canals, parks, and walks with a train journey in the middle – visiting Ilkley Moor, Hardcastle Crags,
Hebden Bridge and the River Wharfe.

AD 500: a Journey through the Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland - Simon Young*, £8.99
From a former Hebden Bridge man, and now in paperback, a novel written as a practical survival guide for the use of civilised visitors to the barbaric islands of Britain and Ireland. The Romans have left, and the islands are now fought over by Irish, British Celts, Picts and Saxons. It is a dangerous world, full of tribal war and social pitfalls. Cheviot bandits, bizarre forms of Christianity, boat burials, peculiar haircuts, human sacrifice, poetry competitions, slave markets, the legend of King Arthur - these are the realities of life in the sixth century AD.

The Brontes (Authors in Context) - Patricia Ingham

Shows how the Brontes’ works reflect the preoccupations of the age in which they lived and address the burning issues of the day: class, gender, race, religion, and mental disorders; how film and other media have reinterpreted the novels for the twenty-first century. Includes a chronology of the Brontes, suggestions for further reading, websites, illustrations, and a comprehensive index. (£7.99)

From local publishers Pennine Pens:

A Kink of a Life - Paul Goodchild, £8
Autobiography of a child of the '40s from a dysfunctional family who went from an orphanage to the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll of the '60s, travelled widely and met all sorts of famous people, from Chuck Berry to the Dalai Lama.

January 2006

Orchid - Deborah Wales, £6.99
From a Rochdale author, a "chilling yet disturbingly erotic thriller from the dark side".

December 2005

L. S. Lowry Card Games: Child's Play, £5.99; Quartet, £7.99
From local author Shelley Rohde, who wrote "L. S. Lowry: a Biography", two card games based on details from Lowry's paintings. The "Child's Play" cards are regular card size and the game is a version of Happy Families - you collect animals or mills or whatever. "Quartet" has larger cards and the players collect all four of a series - when put together you see the whole picture.

Rembrandt: An A-Z - (ed.) Shelley Rohde*, £16.99
Celebrating the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth: 140 colour illustrations.

Country of the Broad Acres: a History of Yorkshire - David Hey, £24.00
The history of Yorkshire is more varied than that of any other English county. Lavishly illustrated account from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age, Angles, Vikings, Normans, Reformation, Civil War and onwards, explaining the effects of the developments on each of of the Ridings - and the influence of upper Calder Valley farmsteads on family names (Ackroyd, Murgatroyd, Midgley ...) The author has ancestors from all three Ridings! Initial info on price was incorrect - apologies

Yorkshire's Picture Post, £14.99
Over 250 images taken from the Yorkshire Post's photographic archives depicting Yorkshire in all its seasonal glory.

Pilgrims from Loneliness - Ian Emberson*, £9.99
From the Bronte Society, an interpretation of "Jane Eyre" and "Villette"

From Halifax publisher Mark Metcalf:

The Night Shift - Ian Newton (£4.99)
Six episodes of sit-com from Ian Newton of "Dustbingate". The world of the night shift worker is a strange place indeed and it breeds its own crusty characters who find the darkness and the absence of the bosses an excuse to have some real fun.

Radical and Revolting: The English Working Class (£2.50)
Nine chapters deal with episodes of revolt in English working class life from the Diggers to the 21st century.

From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona:

Zone of the Interior by Clancy Sigal, £9.99
"First UK publication of the classic and controversial novel which defined, described, and indeed was, a radically profound moment of madness."

A fictional account of his experiences and experiments in drug-taking and consciousness alongside R D Laing in the 1960s. Laing himself was unhappy with the book and it was banned until his death.

Mean with Money by Hunter Davies, £9.99
Mean With Money, inspired by Hunter Davies’ well-loved column in The Sunday Times, is wilfully short on practical advice but offers instead good humour and much-needed empathy as we face the corporate horror of high-handed and indifferent financial institutions.

November 2005

Milltown Memories 14: Winter 2005, £2.80

Sad news - this is to be the penultimate issue - although the publishers have exciting new plans in the pipeline. This issue has a centre-spread of a pre-clearance Bridge Lanes and a panoramic view of Old Town, plus Christmas Past, John Travis of Todmorden, the Heptonstall Players, the snowy winter of 1947, ghosts at Broadbottom and more.

Seeing It Through (Halifax and Calderdale during World War II) - Peter Thomas*, £10.00
A major local event, this book brings together local memories and photographs from the War years, beginning with "That Fateful Broadcast". Look out for the picture of Savile Park under the plough to Dig for Victory! NOW IN STOCK.

Dancing Out of the Dark Side - Glyn Hughes*, £8.95
A welcome return to print with his first book of poetry for over twenty years, to be launched at Artsmill Gallery on 12th November, 7-9pm.

Bronte Ways Video/DVD, Part 2 - Ray Riches & Peter Thornton, £12.99 ea.
A walk on the Bronte Way from Haworth via Top Withins ("Wuthering Heights") and Wycoller Village ("Jane Eyre") to Gawthorpe Hall (home of Charlotte Bronte’s friends the Kay-Shuttleworths).

Halifax Corporation Tramways - Eric Thornton & Stanley King, £17.99

Illustrated history of this traditional double-deck tramway system, from the late 19th-century launch through their spread to the surrounding area (including Hebden Bridge) to their demise in 1939, with a melancholy poem in the Courier. "Halifax is in the shadow of the Pennines so many routes were steep, greatly adding to the interest," say the publishers. With maps, photos and route details.

First Ever Vegetarian/Vegan Guide to Yorkshire - Mary & David Brown, £2.00

Lists shops, cafes, restaurants, clubs and B&Bs all over Yorkshire, including the Calder Valley.

The Summer the Dictators Fell - Glyn Hughes*

Short stories set in Greece in 1974-5 - to be launched at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bretton Hall, Wakefield, on 17th December.

Pandemonium in the Pennines - Kathryn Summersgill, £5.99
From a Keighley author, a "humorous chronicle of extraordinary events with an unpredictable climax" - including two guinea pigs eating the church's commemoration hassocks.

From Halifax great-grandmother Kathleen McBurney*, an ATS veteran of the Second World War, three books at £6.95 each: Bend the Bough Gently, a collection of reminiscences from the pit disaster that took her father, through her ATS experiences, to the deaths of her husband and mother; and Little Gems and Poems with Little Gems, which recall special moments, special people and special sights.

The Outlaw Robin Hood: His Yorkshire Legend - Barbara Green*, £4.99

A reissue of this booklet f rom the founder member of the Yorkshire Robin Hood Society, claiming Robin Hood back from Nottingham. History of the legend, maps and local references. See www.robinhoodyorkshire.co.uk

Cards from local artist Lynn Breeze*, Star Baby and Snow Baby, based on pictures from her new books, "My New Baby" and "My Day Out", £1.50 each

October 2005

Collected Poems for Children by Ted Hughes*, £16.99
illustrated by Raymond Briggs
Collects, for the first time, four decades of Hughes's children's poems, from Meet My Folks! (1961) to The Mermaid's Purse. illustrated by Raymond Briggs, with two hundred original illustrations, the book is presented by reading age, beginning with poems for younger readers and working up to Hughes's material for young adults.

Yorkshire Greats: the county's fifty finest - Bernard Ingham, £19.99
Sumptuous colour-illustrated hardback on Yorkshire characters ranging from Guy Fawkes to Alan Bennett.

Agincourt by Juliet Barker*, £20

In this landmark study, prize-winning author Juliet Barker draws upon a huge range of sources to give a compelling account of the battle, when on a rainy October day in 1415 against all the odds, 9,000 exhausted English men claimed victory from an army of 20,000. She also looks behind the action on the field to paint a portrait of the age, moving from the ambition of kings to the dynamics of daily life in peace and war.

That's the Forecast: the Best and Worst of Yorkshire Weather - Paul Hudson, £10.99
The region's weather at its most stunning with lots of photographs.

The Prize by John Siddique,* £7.95
First full collection of poetry from Hebden based poet, currently the Poet in Residence for Commonword and BBC Manchester. His subjects range widely and he has worked with young offenders and psychiatric patients. His webpage can be found at
http://www.johnsiddique.co.uk/ and for a recent interview published in the Guardian, go to http://society.guardian.co.uk/publicinquiry/0,14099,1099079,00.html

Untold Stories - Alan Bennett, £20
Alan Bennett's first major collection since 'Writing Home', a compendium of some of his finest and funniest writing from the last nine years, including significant unpublished work. Also in double CD form, Parts 1 & 2, at £12.99 each.

Yorkshire in a Crombie - Craig Bradley*, £6.95
When the author inherited his Uncle Jim’s coat, it smelt of the past, full of flat caps, muck and brass. This book asks what Yorkshire is today.

Craig is Reader in Residence for Calderdale Libraries. Go to http://www.craigbradley.com/crombie.html for more info. (£6.95)

The Letters of the Reverend Patrick Bronte, ed. Dudley Green, £16.00
First ever complete collection of his surviving letters, some never before published. This book helps rehabilitate the Reverent Bronte's reputation and reveals a very human side to this misunderstood man.

A Portrait of Bradford - John Morrison*, £12.99

From the well-known local photographer, a collection of stunning colour images of Bradford to make Bill Bryson eat his words.

My First Tooth - My New Potty - My Day Out - My New Baby - Lynn Breeze*, £3.99 each
Colourful board books about these big experiences!

Together Again - Willy Irvine with Dave Thomas, £17.99
Willy Irvine was a star goal-scorer with Burnley in their glory days, but after he broke a leg against Everton he was never the same, drifting into lower leagues with Preston, Brighton and finally Halifax. He touched bottom with a suicide attempt and now works part-time for Burnley FC. This is the story of his life.

Wonderwall - ed. Anthony Cropper & Ian Daley, £8.99
Including a story, "Rich Tea and Custard Creams" by Todmorden author Penny Aldred, who won first prize in the Northern Echo/Orange short story competition in 2004.

September 2005

Centenary Souvenir Booklet of the Hebden Bridge Literary and Scientific Society 1905-2005, £3.00
The Lit & Sci celebrates its first hundred years with some relevant extracts from Milltown Memories and historic Hebden Bridge photos not published before.

Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead*, £7.99
Strange and incredible events from the Calderdale area, ranging from UFOs in Todmorden to a vampire infesting Robin Hood's grave near Brighouse. New revised edition with two new chapters and substantial updates.

August 2005

Milltown Memories 13: Autumn 2005, £2.80
This issue celebrates 100 years of Hebden Bridge's excellent Literary and Scientific Society, pays tribute to the late and much-missed Lloyd Greenwood, visits Slack and Catholes Stones, objects to Mytholmroyd Station 1871, traces William Holt Greengrocers back to its roots on Market Street 125 years ago, revisits Keep Fit (including bloomers) through the years and also includes the Little Theatre, a murder on Wadsworth Moor, a handdrawn picture of the opening of Todmorden Town Hall and a striking b-&-w photo of Keith Astin descending steps at the bottom of Birchcliffe in 1962.

Owl's Supper by Jacki Reed* (£5.65)
Lovely colour-illustrated story for young children by local teacher and headteacher about a short-sighted mouse out alone in the dangerous woods when Owl is out hunting. First of a series: this one deals with safety, loyalty and friendship.

July 2005

Collected Poems of Ted Hughes* (£16.99)
This massive work now in paperback - 1376 pages. Delayed at printers, but due late August. Now in stock.

Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes - Janet Malcolm (£8.99)
New edition. Examines the biographies of Sylvia Plath, with particular focus on Anne Stevenson's controversial 'Bitter Fruit', to discover how Plath became the enigma of literary history, and how the legend continues to exert such a hold on our imaginations.

Pendle Calendar 2006 - Alastair Lee (£8.99)
Panoramic photographs of the Pendle area in calendar form.

The What? Where? Guide to South & West Yorkshire (£3.50)
56-page colour booklet to the main towns and their attractions, colour-coded and mentions The Pace Egg Play and Hebden Bridge Festival, as well as the Little Theatre, Picture House, Trades Club and Alternative Technology Centre, etc. in the case of HB. And geographically covers an area spanning Todmorden, Ilkley, Tadcaster, Doncaster and Rotherham.

Hebden Bridge Calendar, 2006 - Geoff Boswell* (£4.50)
Twelve colourful and atmospheric views of the area from well-known local photographer and room to write your notes.

Ramblers' Association Book of Kiddiwalks - 70th Jubilee Edition (£5.99)
Thirty short Family Rambles in and near West Yorkshire, including five around Calderdale. This revised edition contains some of the old favourites but also a selection of new walks. Kiddiwalks are short circular walks from 1.5 to 4 miles with lots of interest for small children.

Recollections of the Brontes - George Sowden (£3)
Personal recollections of the Brontes by theVicar of Hebden Bridge, first published 1894, republished by Ian and Catherine Emberson.

Sinner Saved by Grace - Michael Haslam* (£8.95)
The title of Michael Haslam's new poetry collection comes from the inscription on a lonely and isolated gravestone the the poet came across while walking on the moors above his home in the Calder Valley.

History of Hauntings in Halifax - Linda Francis (folder with CD of photos, £7.50)
For other publications from Haunted Truths, click here.

June 2005

Pennine Way - Tony Hopkins, £16.99
This year sees the 40th Anniversary of the Pennine Way. This is a large format, illustrated celebration of Britain's most famous long distance footpath. The background text provides the reader with information on landscape, flora, fauna, agriculture, rural life along the path and the history of the Pennine Way.

White Stuff - Simon Armitage*
Felix and Hannah are happily married, living somewhere in the Pennines, but there is a sadness in their lives - they've been trying to have a baby for five years with no luck. (£7.99)

The Other Ariel, ed. Lynda K Bundtzen, £9.99
Sylvia Plath's second collection 'Ariel', published posthumously in 1965, received superb reviews and became one of the best-selling books of poetry published in the 20th century. What is less well known is that the poems it contains are not the ones Plath herself selected when she assembled her manuscript. This book compares Sylvia Plath's original typescript to the published version.

Hebden Bridge publisher Pomona (www.pomonauk.co.uk) have two titles by Barry Hines (Kestrel for a Knave) coming out: The Price of Coal (£9.99), first published in 1979 when Britain still had a coal industry, and adapted for TV by Ken Loach, and Looks and Smiles (£9.99), a gritty social commentary about teenagers growing up in the late 1970's and early 1980's in a working class suburb of Sheffield.

May 2005

Milltown Memories 12: Summer 2005, £2.80
The summer issue seasonally includes holiday excursions in times past with photos, royal celebrations, the orphans of Luddendean Dean, old Todmorden, memories of Martin Parr and two more of his splendid local photos, events of 1932, Henpecked Husbands, the fire at St Peter's, Walsden, pigeon fanciers, and the history and conversion of Pecket Well Mill.

Electric Edwardians: the Films of Mitchell & Kenyon, DVD, £19.99
A second and more comprehensive selection of highlights from the 'Mitchell And Kenyon Collection' of films of everyday in Edwardian Britain under five distinct themes. This collection is close to that shown at Hebden Picture House and films include: "Tram Ride into Halifax 1902", Youth and Education: Audley Range School, Blackburn (c1904), Blackburn (1905), Morecombe Church Lads Brigade (1901), Birmingham University degree day procession (1901. Workers: Lumb and Co leaving the Works, Huddersfield (1900), Pendlebury Colliery (1901), Lord Elswick Works, Newcastle on Tyne (1900), Glebe Mills, Hollinwood (1901), Parkgate Iron and Steel Co, Rotherham (1901), North Sea Fisheries, North Shields (1901), Cunard Vessel at Liverpool (1901). High Days and Holidays: Whitsuntide Fair at Preston (1906), Manchester Band of Hope Procession (1901), Blackpool Victoria Pier (1904), Leeds Athletic and Cycling Club carnival (1902), Dewsbury v Manningham (1902), Sedgwicks Bioscope Show Front (1901), Accrington v Church Cricket Match (1902), Halifax Catholic Procession (1905), Burnley v Manchester United (1902), Sheffield United v Bury (1902), Preston Egg Rolling (1901). Plus items not listed above. 30th May.

suelawty - rock - raphia - linen - lead, £12.50
From local textile artist Sue Lawty a book of fantastic colour photographs of her work with textures, published by Bankfield Museum.

Body Shots to the Heart - Phil McGrath* (£5.99)
Autobiographical novel from Halifax ("Trufax") ex-boxer about local boy Tyrone Fallon about to confront the British Featherweight champion but also fighting his own past and the ghost of his father.

Addict - Stephen Smith (£6.99)
Autobiography of a London East Ender who started thieving as a teenager, was sent to an asylum by his parents and got into drugs and crime. He ended up sleeping on the streets of Mixenden and St John's, Halifax, where he remembers the local people as being kind and practical, eventually helping him back to London and a stable life. The book sold well on its first release in the 1990s and it's now going to be filmed, partly in Halifax, by Andy Serkis of Gollum fame.

Haworth: a History - Steven Wood, £7.99
Haworth is mainly known for its association with the Brontes, but this book looks at other aspects of its history, its former farming, textile and quarrying industries, its houses, shops, inns, churches, reservoirs and gasworks, 19th-century popular beliefs, and some less well-known aspects of the Brontes connection.

April 2005

AD 500: a Journey through the Dark Isles of Britain and Ireland - Simon Young*, £13.99 at The Book Case
From a former Hebden Bridge man, a novel written as a practical survival guide for the use of civilised visitors to the barbaric islands of Britain and Ireland. The Romans have left, and the islands are now fought over by Irish, British Celts, Picts and Saxons. It is a dangerous world, full of tribal war and social pitfalls. Cheviot bandits, bizarre forms of Christianity, boat burials, peculiar haircuts, human sacrifice, poetry competitions, slave markets, the legend of King Arthur - these are the realities of life in the sixth century AD.

Railway Moods: the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway - Mike Heath, £12.99
Photographic journey highlighting the diversity of the landscape, the effect of the changing seasons and weather, and the various events associated with the railway. The railway is of course also famous for its association with the original film of The Railway Childrenby E. Nesbit. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the book, Jenny Agutter is visiting Haworth Park on 1st May to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust

March 2005

British Railways Past & Present: Yorkshire, the West Riding, Part 1 (No. 48) - John Hillmer & Paul Shannon (£15.99)
One of a series of books featuring photographs of railway locations taken several decades ago and comparing them with the same scene today. This one covers Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds, plus Skipton, Airedale, Wharfedale, Dewsbury, Harrogate and York.

One Summer: Romance, Redundancy and Rugby League in the 1980s - Geoff Lee* (£8.95)

Third in a series of four novels on the general theme of Northern working-class life in the Rugby League heartlands in the second half of the twentieth century, from a former Halifax draughtsman. This one's set in the fictional town of Ashurst on the old South Lancashire coalfield, just before the 1984 miners' strike. The main character is from Mytholmroyd.

Yorkshire's Great Houses - Sir Thomas Ingilby(£19.99)

Pennine Way North, Central and South maps (£9.95 each)

Each map covers a section suitable for a comfortable week of walking. Includes day walks. Waterproof, with accommodation and service info.

Ted Hughes Reading His Poetry (Double CD) (£12.99)

Hebden Bridge Treasure Hunt on Foot, £2.99
This little pack consists of 25 clues to take you on a 2-hour stroll around town getting acquainted with some of the less-familiar local history as well as old favourites! Answers supplied in a sealed envelope.

The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon - ed. Vanessa Toulmin (book), £15.99
The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon (DVD), £19.99
Between 1900-1913, filmmakers Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, based in Blackburn, roamed the country filming the everyday lives of people at work and play. Discovered some seventy years later, the film, discovered and restored by the BFI, includes footage of Halifax amongst many other northern areas. The book contains essays from leading historians covering film history, popular entertainment, the seaside, transport and the social and economic context of Edwardian Britain, providing a vivid commentary on the collection of films.

Heptonstall Trail - Pennine Heritage & HB Local History Society (£1.95)
Now available again in a new edition, a walk around Heptonstall with information on historical points of interest, with map and photos old and new.

Remnants of a Youth Club - Alice Cachjeka (£7.99)
Not strictly local, as Burnley-based, but two of the authors worked at Mons Mill! Features on the Guardian's Readers' Books of the Year page at http://books.guardian.co.uk/booksoftheyear2004/story/0,15602,1381091,00.html, which calls it "a true story of how five friendships formed and developed. It starts in the early 1950's, graphically depicting life in a poor East Lancashire town and how they coped in leaner times. It follows the girls' friendship through their teenage years and beyond." It's got its own website at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/guardiansofavalon/remnants.htm The "author"'s surname is an amalgam of the first letters of the women's Christian names.

February 2005

From Hebden Bridge author Andrew Bibby, three Freedom to Roam Guides at £7.99 each:
South Pennines and Bronte Moors
Forest of Bowland with Pendle Hill and West Pennine Moors, and
The Pennine Divide: Walking the Moors Between Greater Manchester and Yorkshire.

Produced in association with the Ramblers' Association, they offer an introduction to the area: its landscape, history and natural history; 12 free-range rambles, graded for difficulty; a full-page 4-colour OS map for each walk; plus points of interest, practical info and a guide to public rights of access. Launch on 4th March - more info when available.

Milltown Memories 11: Spring 2005, £2.80
The spring edition features Knur and Spell, which looks a bit violent, Alice Longstaff, Todmorden 109 years ago, the Moderna Drama Society, Nazebottom Baptist Church, Martin Parr's wonderful local photos in the 1970s, holidays in Hardcastle Crags in the 1940s, and lots more.

Calder Valley Pace Egg Play video, £10

Documentary plus recordings of two versions of the Calder Valley Pace Egg Play in 2004, researched and produced by a group of young people at Calder High School. Includes interviews with one of the leading experts and some of the performers.

Leeds & Liverpool Canal Part 1 video, £12.99
"A heavy duty canal, not for the faint-hearted." This video covers the Eastern section from Leeds to the summit tunnel at Foulridge.

Easy Read West Yorkshire Street Atlas, £12.99
Extra-large scale, covering streets, courts, alleys, houses and estates as well as the main roads, and with enlarged maps of Bradford, Halifax, Leeds and Wakefield city centres.

Licensed to Sell - Andrew Davison*, Geoff Brandwood and Michael Slaughter, £14.99
From English Heritage, a book celebrating traditional pubs throughout Yorkshire, including The Three Pigeons and the Big 6 in Halifax. One of the authors is from Sowerby Bridge, and the foreword is by Bill Bryson.

Yorkshire Villages - Bernard Ingham (£8.99)
Now in paperback, a photographic portrait.

January 2005

From Todmorden author and illustrator Dan Crisp, four new board books with die-cut holes for babies to peep through: Where's That Cat?, Where's That Duck?, Where's That Fish? and Where's That Monkey?, £4.99 each.

December 2004

A Race through Time (video/DVD) - Nick Wilding,* DVD £12.99, video £9.99
From the "Tale of Two Towns" team, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd's first road movie - a high-speed fast-film car journey from Cragg Vale to Heptonstall Road shot in 1947 by Kenneth Crabtree with members of the Literary & Scientific Society, placed alongside a modern version shot in autumn 2003. The film also includes archive photographs and commentary and memories from Lloyd Greenwood, Doris Hurst, Donald Crossley and Clara Manning who died last year at the age of 103. Due 9th December.

Cornerstones of Calderdale - Glyn Lee, £4.00
Potted histories of all the major settlements of the Calder Valley, from Halifax to Walsden, with photographs.

Out of the Shadows in the Calder Valley - Bill Marsden & Peter Coles, £5.00
Humorous and thoughtful stories and poems from the well-established partnership, with illustrations.

The South Pennine Ring (video/DVD), DVD £19.99, video £12.99
The Ring, which also includes The Ashton Canal, Sir John Ramsden's Canal and the Calder & Hebble Navigation, takes us across the Pennines from Central Manchester to Huddersfield, follows the Calder Valley to Sowerby Bridge, and brings us back across the Pennines to Manchester. 57 minutes.

Talli's Secret - Julie Noble, £6.99
Cassie Edwards survived the car accident which killed her sister and crippled their father. She's having a bad time at school, too, because she's dyspraxic and dyslexic - but then she visits Haworth Parsonage where she meets the strange Talli ... The book is based on Juliet Barker's biography of the Bronte sisers and is raising money for the Dyslexia Institute and the Dyspraxia Foundation. "All the Brontes had bad handwriting and spelling and no punctuation until their late teens!" says the author's 12-year-old son, and you can find out more at www.tallissecret.com

November 2004

Alice's Album - the Story of a Hebden Bridge Photographer's Studio - Issy Shannon* and Frank Woolrych,*£10.95
The illustrated story of Alice Longstaff and her studio, and of Crossley Westerman who founded the studio in the early 1890s.

Milltown Memories 10: the Upper Calder Valley Captured on Camera, £2.80
Winter issue with a 1960 photo of Midgley schoolchildren enjoying the snow. Contents include 200 years of the Rochdale Canal, an article from Donald Crossley on Ted Hughes, with photos, extracts from a book of local historical snippets published in 1896, memories of the Post Office, butchers and Japanese chicken-sexers, a 1946 plan to modernise Todmorden, snow scenes, the Uttleys, a most unusual Royal Couple from 1925, and more!

Portrait of Leeds - John Morrison* £12.95
Affectionate and revealing photographic survey of of the local author and photographer's home city.

Ariel (restored edition) - Sylvia Plath, £14.99
The draft of Ariel left behind when Sylvia Plath is different from the volume of poetry eventually published to worldwide acclaim. The restored facsimile edition shows the selection and arrangement of the poems as Plath left them at her death, and also includes the complete working drafts of the title poem and notes the author made for the BBC about some of the manuscript's poems. Sylvia's daughter Frieda Hughes explains the difference between this version and that edited by her father Ted Hughes in a Foreword.

Bronte Ways Video/DVD, Part 1 - Ray Riches* & Peter Thornton*, £12.99 ea.
A walk on the Bronte Way from Oakwell Hall ("Shirley country") to Haworth, with live interviews and spectacular scenery. 52 mins. Part 2 will explore Haworth and "Wuthering Heights" country more fully, then proceed to Gawthorpe Hall via Wycoller Village ("Jane Eyre")

Discovering Calderdale, Part 1 - video/DVD - Glyn Lee* & P J Thornton*, £12.99 each
A journey through some of the most interesting towns and villages of Calderdale, including Norland, Midgley, Luddenden, Cragg Vale and Walsden

Thrumhall Greats - Robert Gate (£12.99)
Halifax Heroes 1945-1998: Halifax have enjoyed and suffered wider extremes of success and failure than most clubs. This book gives at least a page plus b&w photo of 100 notable Thrum Hallers from the post-WWII period. The author is a native of Halifax and a Thrum Hall faithful for 42 years.

Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead* (£7.99)
Strange and incredible events from the Calderdale area, ranging from UFOs in Todmorden to a vampire infesting Robin Hood's grave near Brighouse.

October 2004

Pennine Pioneer: The Story of the Rochdale Canal - Keith Gibson, £16.95

Follows the life of the Rochdale Canal, from its success to its abandonment, and tells of the more recent battle for its preservation.

Killer Catchers - Andy Owens* and Chris Ellis

Tells how some of Britain's wickedest murderers were finally tracked down, using recent advances in forensic techniques, especially in the fields of psychological, psychic and DNA profiling.

September 2004

South Pennines Explorer Map OL21, £6.99
New edition including up-to-date information on Access Land.

Brief Candle - Kate Pennington, £6.99
From Ilkley author Jenny Oldfield, a novel for teenage readers about the Bronte sisters as seen through the eyes of Tabitha Ackroyd; young Emily meets a servant lad who becomes her inspiration for Heathcliff.

Scary Shorts for Hallowe'en - Kathryn Brennan,* £6.99
From a Halifax author, a collection of true contemporary ghost stories from across Britain in support of Breast Cancer Campaign.

August 2004

Milltown Memories 9: the Upper Calder Valley Captured on Camera, £2.80
2nd birthday issue includes the two churches of Heptonstall, Thornber & Finney chicks and eggs, the navvies' encampment Dawson City, Caldene Bridge, the 1954 Mytholmroyd flood and a preview of "Alice's Album" (see above).

Gone Walkabout: 24 Walks in the Upper Calder Valley - Anna Carlisle, £6.00
From local publishers Pennine Pens, a collection of 24 walks which have appeared in the Hebden Bridge Times and Todmorden News. The walks are designed for the moderately and supremely fit, and are graded for distance and difficulty.

Baptisms at the Chapels of Heptonstall and Cross Stone in the Parish of Halifax, £12.50 per vol.
Heptonstall 1594-1812, Cross Stone 1678-1837. Four vols. A-F, G-J, K-Stancliffe, Stand-Y (Marriages and Burials also available)

Creepy Crawly Calypso - Tony Langham, £9.99
Jump and jive with this band of insects to the creepy crawly calypso beat! From spiders to fireflies, butterflies to centipedes, the illustrations match the Caribbean spirit of the rhyming text, which introduces children to ordinal numbers. A CD of calypso music is included with the book.

Blackpool Highflyer - Andrew Martin, £10.99
Whodunnit set in Edwardian Halifax and on the railways of the time. Mentions the Courier!

Bronte Country, Lives & Landscapes - Peggy Hewitt, £12.99
Updated illustrated version of a book first published in 1985, full of stories and reminiscences from people who have lived and worked around Haworth. Introduction by local author and Bronte authority Juliet Barker.

July 2004

Branwell Bronte's Barber's Tale - Chris Firth, £6.99
Was Branwell Bronte really the author of Wuthering Heights? Literary historical novel from Whitby author.

South Pennine Walks - Jack Keighley, £5.99
Spiral-bound handwritten and illustrated with hand-drawn maps, 30 circular walks, from 4 to 8.5 miles.

June 2004

Marriner's Yarns - George Ingle (£9.95)
The story of the Keighley Knitting Wool Spinners

Tackler's Tales: a humorous look at Lancashire - Geoffrey Mather (£7.95)

We'll See the Cuckoo - Jean Brown (£17.00)
First of a series of books about a Pennine hill farm, Currer Laithe.

May 2004

Milltown Memories 8: the Upper Calder Valley Captured on Camera, £2.80
With some authentic "railway children" posing on a Blake Dean railway engine, the summer issue covers Dawson City and the building of the Walshaw Dean reservoirs - plus the railways involved - Valley's agricultural societies and shows, the Lord Brothers Mill explosion and Co-op fire in Todmorden, Geoffrey Coning, Lloyd Greenwood, Mons Mill and lots more. We're also reminded of two important anniversaries this year - the bi-centenary of the Rochdale Canal, to be covered in a later issue, and the 150th anniversary of Heptonstall Parish Church.

Moods of the Bronte Moors: exploring the Moors and Mills of the South Pennines - John Morrison*, £12.95
Another sumptuous book of photographs, this time closer to home. There's a prize for anyone pictured in the book who turns up at the launch!

Cloth Caps and Cricket Crazy: Todmorden & Cricket 1835-96 by Freda, Malcolm & Brian Heywood*, £16.00
The fortunes of Todmorden Cricket Club from 1835, including financial crises, riots, a players' strike, intense rivalries with Bacup, Burnley andRochdale, a visit by W G Grace and matches against the United England and All England elevens. All thanks to John Fielden! With 130 photographs, maps and reproductions of original documents.

Mytholmroyd Heritage Walk - Mike Darke*
Five walks with lots of history, photos and sketchmaps. Revised version of booklet first published 1987. (£2.95)

Pennine Way, £10.99
Britain's best-known National Trail winds for 256 miles over wild moorland and through quiet dales following the backbone of Northern England, and crossing three National Parks - the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland. Scale just under 1:20,000 (8cm or 3 1/8 inches to one mile. With colour photos, maps and plans

Cougars Going Up! - ed. David Kirkley, £7.99
Keighley Cougars Rugby League 2003 Yearbook

The Day the Sun Went Out - John Billingsley*, £2
Accounts of the 1927 Eclipse as seen from Yorkshire and the Pennines. Originally published as a background to the 1999 total solar eclipse.

Iron Roads North of Leeds, £5.99
Leeds to Morecambe, Settle to Carlisle and Leeds-Harrogate-York. Illustrated guide to scenic rail routes.

Huddersfield: the Corporation Motorbus Story - Peter Cardno and Stephen Harling, £13.50
For the first time ever, the story of Huddersfield buses, with numerous illustrations and pages of colour photos. Landscape format.

Hebble - D. Bentley, K. Healey & N. Harris (£16.95)
Illustrated guide to the stormy history of "one of the best loved of all the many Yorkshire operators". Services to Heptonstall & Blackshawhead began in the 1920s and by the 1950s the company was running to Scarborough and even Blackpool.

Walking the Animals - Carola Luther*, £6.95
From a Triangle author, born in South Africa. This is her first published collection and "brings together inner and outer landscapes, the wet skies of the Pennines and the drought of the South African lowveld; landscapes of loss, landscapes of longing."

April 2004

The Owl and the Crag Rat - Marc Chrysanthou* et al, £5.95
This anthology of climbing poetry reworks well-known poems by Eng Lit greats in "acts of creative plagiarism".

Pennine Bridleway: Derbyshire to the South Pennines , £12.99
Britain’s first purpose-built long-distance bridleway, from Buxton to the east of Hebden Bridge, where it splits to form the Mary Towneley Loop.

Yorkshire: The Sinister Side, Book 1, 1850-80 - Steve Jones
Stories from the annals of Yorkshire crime, with contemporary illustrations and photos. Maybe you'll find a black sheep in the family!

Love Songs - Crass
From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona, a collection of poetry from a rural collective based in Essex 1977-1984.

Sum Total - Ray Gosling
From Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona, an autobiographical novel by the broadcaster and journalist, first published when he was 21.

March 2004

The Pace-Egg Plays of the Calder Valley - Eddie Cass, £6.99

The pace-egg play is similar to other forms of English traditional drama, but uniquely, it occurs at Easter, rather than Christmas. This book supplements Dr Cass's The Lancashire Pace-Egg Play in that it deals with the one area of west Yorkshire in which this Easter play was widely known. It covers the history of the play in the Calder Valley and outlines the story of the revival of the play. Schools were vital to the revival and continuance of the tradition, notably the Midgley School in the 1930s and in the 1950s, Calder High School. The Midgley pace-egg play, which has traceable, personal links into the nineteenth century, is discussed at length. The book also considers the revival of the play at Heptonstall where, on Good Friday, large crowds come to witness one of west Yorkshire's most popular calendar customs. Texts of both plays are included.

Dr Eddie Cass is an Honorary Research Fellow at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield, part of the James Madison Carpenter Collection Project team, and a member of the Traditional Drama Research Group.

Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths In and Around Halifax - Stephen Wade (£9.99)

Tales of violence and death from the sixteenth century until recent years.

It's Water Under the Bridge - Mollie E. Sunderland (£4.00)

The story of flooding in Mytholmroyd incorporating the history of Mytholmroyd Bridge; all proceeds to Guide Dogs for the Blind. Many photographs.

Cragg Vale: a Pennine Valley - Stephen Welsh, £4.95
Back in stock, this history of settlement and conquest from prehistoric times to the 20th century.

February 2004

Milltown Memories 7: the Upper Calder Valley captured on camera, Spring 2004: £2.80

The Co-op's beginnings in Todmorden and spread to Charlestown and Hebden Bridge; memories of the Co-ops of Midgley, Mytholmroyd, Blackshawhead and Heptonstall; Digging for Victory in Walsden; Rock 'n' Roll at Nickie's; and a wonderful picture of a milk-donkey near Mytholmroyd.

Phoenix by John Connor* (£9.99)

The story of West Yorkshire Detective Constable Karen Sharpe's investigation into the killing of a policeman and police informer on moorland above Halifax. John Connor is a Crown Prosecution barrister who has worked in Halifax, Bradford, Leeds and London.

Sex, Gender and Power - Professor Michael Smith* (£7.95)

"The Enigma of the Public House" - examines the place of the pub in society and the different meaning it has for men and women.

January 2004

Her Husband: Hughes & Plath - a Marriage - Diane Wood Middlebrook (£20.75)

Ted Hughes was a young man and already something of a literary star when he married Sylvia Plath. When she committed suicide severn years later, he became the executor of the substantial body of her work which had made her a powerful political icon - and cast a shadow over Hughes's career and reputation. In this fresh approach, Diane Middlebrook looks at Hughes's poetic capabilities, ambitious literary career and its inflection by the reputation of his dead wife, draw on interviews and his unpublished letters and papers.

Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society (2004) £12.00

Including the opening of Halifax Town Hall by the Prince of Wales in 1863, the Patchetts of Midgley, the diary of Halifax piano-maker Henry William Pohlmann, and Mons Mill, Todmorden.

December 2003

Milltown: an Unreliable History - John Morrison*(£5.95) - the story of a small characterful community in the South Pennines. Can a small gritstone town have too many juice-bars?

Halifax - John A Hargreaves, £20
The definitive history back in print, updated and expanded.

Sing No Sad Songs - Christian Thompson*
Second in the PI Chris O'Brien series

Sons and Lodgers - Jill Robinson, £6.95
More comic relief from the author of Berringden Brow. All Jess wants is a quiet life. All her friends want is somewhere to stay ...

Video: A Walk on T'Long Cut : a journey on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from Leeds to West Marton - Ray Riches and P J Thornton;VHS £12.99
Focuses on the Aire Valley section of the longet man-made waterway in Britain. Includes the Bingley Five Rise Locks, Skipton, East Riddleston Hall, Kirkstall Abbey and Salts Mill, plus interviews.

November 2003

Milltown Memories 6: the Upper Calder Valley captured on camera, £2.80
Cragg Vale features prominently with articles on the Hinchliffes and Cragg Hall; also covered are Wilson's Bobbin Mill in Cornholme, memories of Old Gate and Market Street in Hebden Bridge, Eastwood, two strange deaths, and icicles in Hardcastle Craggs.

Making of the West Yorkshire Landscape - Anthony Silson (£9.99)

How West Yorkshire's landscape has changed since the area emerged from under a sea some seventy million years ago.

Wordsworth: a life in letters - Juliet Barker* (£9.99)

Now in paperback, Wordsworth's progress from rebellious schoolboy to radical poet to revered patriarch - in his own words, from letters and autobiographical fragments selected by prize-winning local author.

The Fan - Hunter Davies (£9.99)

Collection of hilarious and well-observed pieces on football originally published in The New Statesman. Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona's Christmas lead title.

Weather or Not! - Paul Hudson & Bob Rust (£9.99)

Highs & lows of Yorkshire weather with dramatic pictures of storm, flood, drought and snow.

West Riding Steam 1955-1969 - a pictorial diary by Robert Anderson (£12.95)

208 previously unpublished photographs of 78 classes of steam locomotives around Halifax, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, and further afield in West Yorkshire.

October 2003

Collected Poems of Ted Hughes (£40 hardback)

"The Dreamfighter" & Other Creation Tales
In one volume, the creation stories from the 1960s through till 1995, illustrated. (£14.99)

The Old Stones of Elmet - Paul Bennett (£13.95)

"A total guide to the archaeology, folklore and geomancy of the ritual stone sites in an old Yorkshire kingdom", foreword by Aubrey Burl. Catalogues with photos and sketches many of the old stone sites of Elmet, including Todmorden, Mytholmroyd, Luddenden, Hebden Bridge, Blackshawhead and Halifax area.

Wintering - Kate Moses

Fictional account of the last months of Sylvia Plath's life, based on the "Ariel" poems. (£7.99)

The Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier - editor Christopher Fifield (£25, increasing to £30)

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Blackburn-born contralto's tragically early death. Kathleen Ferrier "was a mix of extreme modesty and self-determined ambition, and a mischievously blunt sense of earthy Lancastrian humour".

Canals of the Aire and Calder Navigation

This pictorial history demonstrates how the Calder became one of the UK's most successful inland waterways. £9.99

One Spring: Romance, Rock 'n' Roll and Rugby League in the 1970s - Geoff Lee* (£8.95)

Back in stock from former Halifax draughtsman "a vivid and humorous account of working class life at home, work and play" - set in an engineering drawing office with a main character from Mytholmroyd! The book was enjoyed by the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Yorkshire Evening Post and Stan Barstow. Others in the series are One Winter and in the pipeline One Summer taking us into the 1980s. Also available at The Book Case are the same author's Bamford: Memoirs of a Blood and Thunder Coach, fondly remembered by Halifax Rugby League supporters (£9.95) and Wars of the Roses: a history of Lancashire v Yorkshire Cricket Matches (£16.95).

The Great Bev by Robert Gate* (£14.95)

The rugby league career of Brian Bevan. Author is from Ripponden.

I, George Nepia by George Nepia and Terry McLean (£13.95)

Autobiography of a Rugby legend - perhaps New Zealand's greatest ever Rugby Union player, who played for Halifax in the 1930s.

Martin Parr Postcards (£14.95)

In a solid box, 45 postcards representing the photographer's work including several Hebden Bridge and Halifax ones.

Back in stock: Peter Brook in the Pennines (£12) and In and Out of the Pennines Even (£20): he "paints the Pennines in all their brutal beauty."

Historical Atlas of North Yorkshire - ed. Robin A Butlin (£20 paperback)

Not strictly all that local - Skipton is about as near as it gets, but very nicely produced with loads of maps covering everything from population change through geology, ancient woodland and managed rabbit warrens to lead mining and jet. Lots of photos too.

September 2003

Forgotten Landscape - Alastair Lee (£12.99)

From Burnley-born photographer and climber Alastair Lee, a books of colour photographs focussing on the stunning natural beauty found in the Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley areas. Gets as near to us as Widdop, "possibly the most beautiful place in the UK, if not Europe". For sample pics go to http://www.posingproductions.com/ where you can also watch a 360-degree panoramic view of bouldering at Widdop if your computer's up to it!

VIDEOS

"Walks around Calderdale": from Pennine Country Productions, a series of four videos of historically-based local walks, 50 mins ea., £11.99 each -

1. Historic Villages and Hilltop Views (Mytholmroyd, Cragg Vale, Boulderclough, Luddenden, Midgley)

2. Woodland Crags and Secluded Valleys (Hebden Bridge, Hardcastle Crags, Crimsworth Dean, Pecket Well, Old Town)

3. Ancient Townships and Waterside Mills (Heptonstall, Slack, Colden Valley, Blackshaw Head, Jumble Hole Clough)

4. Pennine Town and Packhorse Trails (Todmorden, Langfield, Lumbutts, Mankinholes, Lobb Mill, Cross Stone, Whirlaw Rocks)

August 2003

Milltown Memories 5:the Upper Calder Valley captured on camera, £2.50
First Birthday Issue!
Featuring a "Where Is It?" quiz. Articles include 100 years of Mytholmroyd parades, Temperance in the Calder Valley, a Heptonstall murder, Lady Royd's and Midgley Schools, George VI, Mons Mill and smallpox, a tribute to Colin Spencer, the 1912 Charlestown rail crash and more, including many photographs from the Alice Longstaff Collection..

Sylvia Plath: A literary life - Linda Wagner-Martin

This study examines the way Plath made herself into a writer. Close analysis of Plath's reading and apprenticeship writing both in fiction and poetry sheds considerable light on Plath's work in the late 1960s. This updated edition discusses of the aftermath of Plath's death including the publication of her "Collected Poems" edited by Ted Hughes which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982. Biographies of Plath are examined along with the publication of Hughes's "Birthday Letters". A chronology maps out key events and publications both in Plath's lifetime and posthumously. Due 29 Aug 2003. £14.99

July 2003

A Pennine Saunter Around Hebden Bridge by Glyn Lee*

Expected mid-July, this £3.00 book will take you on a historic walk through Hebden Bridge, Hardcastle Crags, Crimsworth Dean, Pecket Well and Old Town

Hebden Bridge Calendar 2004

Twelve colour photos of the town and surroundings from Geoff Boswell (£3.95)

The Death & Life of Sylvia Plath - Ronald Hayman
"Not a conventional biography, this book offers an explanation of Sylvia Plath's death in 1963. The author looks back on Plath's life in an attempt to offer an objective account of why she killed herself, and discusses her life with her husband Ted Hughes. This brand new edition will bring the story full circle, as it includes the publication of 'Birthday Letters', the death of Ted Hughes and Elaine Feinstein's biography of him, along with Erica Wagner's book 'Ariel's Gift', and the Al Alvarez autobiography which includes new material. Contains previously unpublished photographs." (£7.99)

Nature's Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire

This new book on eccentric Halifax lesbian landowner Anne Lister by local historian Jill Liddington follows Anne Lister's return to Shibden Hall in 1832 with her dreams of high society shattered after she is betrayed by another woman. (£7.50)

Northern Voices: Our Urban Environment, No. 1 (Summer/Autumn 2003)

New Northern libertarian bi-annual journal, published in Hebden Bridge. First issue ranges from the on-site death of Simon Jones in Shoreham and urban decay in Burnley to art in Stalybridge. (£1.20)

A Man of Stone: his life and loves - Jack Wood*

Novel set in Victorian Yorkshire, from former Haworth joiner, undertaker and builder, now aged 80. Foreword by Peter Harland, ex-Telegraph & Argus and Sunday Times. (£14.99)

June 2003

Rule of Night by Trevor Hoyle

Back in print, a gritty novel about people having a bad time in Rochdale in the 1970s, published by new Hebden Bridge publishers Pomona. They are also regional representatives for people like Robbie Williams and the Red Hot Chili Peppers ....

Footnote by Boff Whalley

- who's also a founder member of Chumbawamba! Also published by Pomona of Hebden Bridge, this is the true story of a boy from Burnley reconciling Mormonism and punk rock, industrial courtesy and political insurrection - and how his pop group Chumbawamba finally made it big.

Forget You Had a Daughter - Sandra Gregory (£6.99)

"Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton". Sandra Gregory of Halifax served seven years of a 22-year sentence imposed by a court in Thailand, after being caught smuggling 87 grams of heroin through Bangkok airport in 1993. Initially she faced the death penalty. She spent four and a half years in the notorious Lar Yao women's prison - dubbed the Bangkok Hilton - before being repatriated in 1997 to serve the rest of her sentence in Britain. She was freed in July 2000 after being granted a royal pardon by the King of Thailand.

Saddleworth Villages (£14.95)

New from Saddleworth Historical Society, nicely illustrated hardback on Delph, Denshaw, Diggle, Dobcross, Grasscroft, Lydgate & Roughtown, Greenfield, Springhead and Uppermill.

May 2003

John Morrison*, he of Milltown Trilogy infamy, has a new humorous book, Dawdling Through the Dales - out. It details a walk from the house, in Leeds, where he lost his virginity, to the shores of Lake Windermere. (£12.95).

Milltown Memories No. 4, Summer 2003 (£2.50)

With a 1920s charabanc full of people in hats on the cover, this new issue covers Tommy Stansfield the Master Builder, the Nudger Inn that preceded the Woodman, Todmorden's & Gauxholme's railway viaducts, lark singing competitions, the 1947 mudslide at Cornholme, holiday fun at Slack, Hardcastle Crags and the Hawden Hall Holiday Camp (with a picture of Billy Holt with Trigger), Luddenden undertakers Patchetts, the late Jack Uttley (with a super photo of the Buttress), St. George's Square in times past remembered by Lloyd Greenwood, a visit to Hebden Bridge by Liszt in 1840, Eastwood and the chopping down of Callis Woods for the war effort remembered by Arthur Robinson, the story of Ashley House aka Linden House, now Angeldale, a recipe for roasted rhubarb - and the Pace Eggers and Moderna models of last season's issue named, plus much more, including many photographs from the Alice Longstaff Collection.

April 2003

The Lancashire Pace-Egg Play - Eddie Cass

A Social History. A detailed study of the origins of the different components of the Pace-Egg Play as we know it today and the different versions on record. Rochdale is the nearest place to the Calder Valley to be discussed; the Calder Valley version is mentioned, but there's a new book in the pipe-line about that! Published by the Folk-Lore Society. (£13.95)

South Pennine Ring map
New canal cruising map from Geoprojects showing the Huddersfield and Rochdale Canals and connecting waterways, with information for boaters including locks, bridges and warnings of difficult places, recommended craft dimensions, useful phone numbers, a history of the canals, local places of interest and cross-sections. (£4.75)

Supernatural Pennines - Jenny Randles

Now in paperback, this colour-illustrated look at strange phenomena at work in the moors and valleys of the Pennine hills - "one of the most haunted places on earth". (£11.99)

Yorkshire Encounters - Lin Watts

The author has chosen seven of the landscapes of Yorkshire and devotes one chapter to each, travelling from North Yorkshire via Haworth and Wensleydale to York. Colour illustrated. (£15.99)

March 2003

Milltown Memories 3

This issue covers the Midgley Pace Egg Play, Moderna, the postmen Uttleys of Heptonstall, Slack Cricket Club, the eccentric Curate Crabtree of Todmorden and world roller-skating champion Arnold Binns, completes the series about Alice Longstaff, and has articles by Bill Marsden and Lloyd Greenwood. As always, there are splendid old photos. (£2.50)

The Tournament in England 1100-1400 - Juliet Barker*

Local acclaimed biographer's first book, on the first emergence of the tournament in England, with its political, social and military implications - including its propaganda value - to its demise for technological reasons in the 15th century. It's being re-published in paperback with eight new pages of colour plates. (£16.99)

The Wages of Spin - Bernard Ingham *

A first hand account of how spindoctoring developed, from Sir Bernard who spent 24 years as a press officer for Labour and Conservative governments, the last eleven of them as Margaret Thatcher's chief press secretary. (£18.99)

Winter's Edge - Lorenzo Dali*

Novel from Halifax-born author, set on present-day Haworth moors, with echoes of Wuthering Heights. (£4.95)

Over the Hills and Back for Tea - Christine Delves and Mary Atkinson

From the South Pennine Packhorse Trails Trust, a guide documenting a maze of ancient tracks and highways within 30 miles of Hebden Bridge and Haworth. (£4.99)

I Haven't Unpacked - William Holt*

Autobiography of the famous self-educated Todmorden character who saw active service in the First World War at the age of 16, travelled through Spain, Canada, Japan and China, sold coal in Yorkshire, tried to start a new religion, became a revolutionary, organised the unemployed, was imprisoned after a mass-march on Leeds Town Hall, started motor libraries in England, ran the Franco naval blockade, and returned to his looms. He then rode his horse Trigger through Europe for over a year, sleeping in the open. This book was first published in 1939, but these editions are 1960s, with covers to match! (Hardback £3.00, paperback £1.50.)

February 2003

Nicholson Guide to the Waterways 5: North West and the Pennines (new edition) £9.99

Pennine Way South (new edition) (£12.99)

January 2003

Seen on the Packhorse Tracks by Cliviger historian Titus Thornber *published by the South Pennine Packhorse Trails Trust.
With colour and b&w illustrations, it tells the history of the packhorse tracks and how they coped with different kinds of terrain, and examines the features still visible today - bridges, causeways, guidestoops and marker posts. £15.00 paperback.

Songs of the Ridings: the Yorkshire Musical Museum,
collected by Mary and Nigel Hudleston,
transcribed, compiled and annotated by Mark Gordon & Richard Adams with Nigel A. Hudleston. (£25.00)
Chunky A-4 spiral-bound collection of Yorkshire songs converted from recordings of up to 50 years ago ("some of the singers were practically drowned out by mooing cows and bleating lambs!"). with 22 categories ranging from "Farming and the Land" and "Work and Industry", to "Folk and Calendar", "Political" and "Women's Revenge", and including songs from Todmorden, Bradford and Burnley.

Don't Cry Nanna - Heather Coupland
A family's struggle to survive the harsh Pennine winters (Marsden) and daily life of 1950s Yorkshire, seen through the eyes of a child. £7.99

Bethany - Freda Kelsall*
A play covering the last weeks of Jesus's life and his relationship with the two sisters and brother living at Bethany outside Jerusalem. performed to mark the first anniversary of September 11th 2001. (£6.00)

December 2002

Annals of Todmorden 1552-1913
A record of people, events and circumstances from earlier times
Compiled by Dorothy Dugdale from Todmorden and Hebden Bridge Historical Almanacks
Full of fascinating detail, including visits by John Wesley and road-building in the earlier records and a rich and varied community life in the Victorian period, with brass bands, picnics, pigeons, canaries, cricket and days out amongst other occupations. Getting knocked down by trains and horses-and-carts and drowning also seem to have been common occurrences.(£19.95)

Watergrove: a history of the valley and its drowned village - Allen Holt
Pictorial record of the lost hamlets on the moorlands above Wardle, destroyed or submerged by Rochdale's biggest reservoir in 1938. (£10.99)

Eclipse of the Son - Roy Shepherd*

A collection of poetry in six parts: "Unclouded Glass", "Unbroken Spirit", "String of Pearls", "Knell of Heaven", "Afflicted in Armley" and "Tailpiece".

November 2002

Wordsworth: a life in letters - Juliet Barker*

Newly transcribed from the manuscripts, with previously unpublished material for almost 600 letters and journals. Acclaimed local author. (£25.00)

Wells of West Yorkshire - Valerie Shepherd, (£4.99)

Todmorden Album III - Roger Birch*

Now at amazing price of £6.00, Roger Birch's third collection of old photos of Todmorden.

King Charles' Mine - Titus Thornber

Historical novel based on the history of the Thieveley Lead Mine, Lancashire, 1627-1635. A commission of King Charles I took it over but the men from London were unable to cope with the complications. Now £3.99.

Letters to Ted - Daniel Weissbort (£8.95)

A collection of poems in memory of the late Poet Laureate. The two men met as students in the 1950s and co-founded Modern Poetry in Translation in 1965.

Two Weavers: Two Ways - Sue Lawty* and Meira Stockl (£10.00)

Colour illustrated catalogue of their exhibition at the University Gallery, Leeds. Sue Lawty's postcards also available.

Luddenden Saga: a brief history of a Yorkshire Village - Vikki Egerton* (£7.99)

Based on the narrative used in the village's celebration of the Millennium, with b&w photographs.

The Calder and Hebble Navigation - Mike Taylor (£12.00)

The River Calder rises in the Pennines north of Todmorden, receives the Hebble Brook at Salterhebble and reaches the Aire & Calder Navigation at Wakefield. It was made navigable in the 1770s and became part of the Mersey-Humber trade routes. By the 1940s it was in decline, but commercial traffic continued till 1981 when shipments to Thornhill Power Station ceased. The book contains numerous black and white illustrations of canal boats, furniture and activity along the navigation.

A Walk on t'Cut: a Transpennine Journey on the Rochdale Canal
(video £12.99; DVD or US-compatible video £14.99)
A walk along the Rochdale Canal from the centre of Manchester to Sowerby Bridge, showing the changing landscapes, industrial features, boats and wildlife, with interviews and aerial views. From Ray Riches* and P J Thornton.

The Anatomy of Canals: the Mania Years - Anthony Burton and Derek Pratt (£16.99)

Vol. 2 in the series, covering the 1790s to the 1820s when most of the UK's canal network was constructed. Chapter 7 is on "Manchester and the North", including the Ashton Canal, Rochdale Canal (with a special mention for Stubbing Wharf pub) and Huddersfield Canal, amongst others. B&w photos.

Milltown Memories 2:the Upper Calder Valley captured on camera, £2.50
The second issue covers Alice Longstaff's early years, Lloyd Greenwood and Hebden Bridge Station, cinemas of the Upper Valley, snow, hippies, Home Rule for Mytholmroyd, a death on the moors and more, and includes photos of the original Stoodley Pike, the demolition of Bridge Lanes, and Stansfield View.

Ee Up Lad! A Salute to the Yorkshire Dialect - Len Markham, ill. Richard Scollins (£5.95)
A feast of linguistic fun including a Yorkshire view of nursery rhymes and well-known scenes from English history, superbly illustrated by Richard Schollins, plus dictionary.

Pennine Dreams: the story of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Keith Gibson, £16.99
How and why the canal - which has the longest, deepest, highest canal tunnel in the British Isles - was built, and how it was restored. B&w illustrations.

Amanda Dalton* is one of the authors featured in Comma: anthology of short stories, ed. Ra Page, £9.95

A new collection of Black Performance Poetry (book and CD), Moving Voices edited by Martin and Asher Hoyles, includes work by John Lyons* (£16.99)

October 2002

The Cat and the Cuckoo - Ted Hughes, ill. Flora McDonnell (£10.00)

Illustrated collection of animal poems for younger readers.

September 2002

Milltown Memories: the Upper Calder Valley captured on camera, £2.50

The new quarterly local history journal with photographs from the Longstaff Collection and articles of local interest. The first issue has articles on Alice Longstaff, the Cragg Vale Coiners' murder, Todmorden buses, Buttress Brink, and more, with some lovely old advertisements.

August 2002

Ted Hughes - the Life of a Poet - Elaine Feinstein, £8.99
A biography of the former Poet Laureate and an exploration of his marriage to Sylvia Plath. The author argues that they were both flawed geniuses and that the truth about the failure of their marriage must incorporate her fragility and his recklessness.

Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath, £16.99
All her mature poetry from 1956 to 1963. Won 1981 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. New edition.
Selected Poems - Sylvia Plath, £8.99
New edition of selection made by Ted Hughes.

Universal Home Doctor - Simon Armitage, £12.99
Poems that range from the rain forests of South America to the deserts of Western Australia set against the landscape of the human body. First new collection for five years.

July 2002

Yorkshire Surnames 3: Halifax & District by George Redmonds, £3.60
Fascinating account of the origins of Greenwood, Sutcliffe, Akroyd, Gaukroger, Murgatroyd, and many others.
Also Vol. 1: Bradford & District and
Vol. 2: Huddersfield & District

Building with Straw Bales: a practical guide for the UK and Ireland by Barbara Jones*, £9.95
Author lives in Todmorden and founded the women's roofing firm Amazon Nails, which has now become a specialist training, advice and consultancy for environmental building, especially using straw bales.

The Home Crowd by Graham Kershaw, £9.99
Novel set around Stoodley Pike and Todmorden, by Australian emigre from Rochdale.

That Which Does Not Kill You by Christian Thompson*, £15.99 at The Book Case.
Debut thriller, set in Bradford and concerning a wise-cracking kung fu Private Investigator.

Forget You Had a Daughter: doing time in the Bangkok Hilton by Sandra Gregory*, £16.99
Halifax author tells the story of how she was arrested smuggling heroin for a stranger and sentenced to 25 years in prison, first in Bangkok, and then in the UK. She was pardoned by the King of Thailand in 2000. She hopes this chilling account of her experiences will stop others from doing the same.

Supreme Self-Confidence in 150 Days - Jim Byrne*, £23.95
From a Hebden Bridge Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapist and Counsellor, a comprehensive self-training manual, "Becoming Your Own Counsellor, vol. 2".

The Shut Drawer by Liz Almond*, £6.95
Her first full-length collection of poetry

June 2002

Aspects of Calderdale, ed. John Billingsley*, £9.99
Subjects covered include Early Prehistory, External decoration on 17th-century houses, Ted Hughes, Alice Longstaffe, and the impact of modern technology.

Todmorden Book of the Dead by John Morrison*, £4.95 From the author of the infamous Milltown Trilogy and Men are from Mytholmroyd, , a further volume designed to upset people at the upper end of the valley, in “an unpretentious place where people still point at aeroplanes.”

Ted Hughes: Beginner's Guides series - Charlie Bell, £5.99
Aimed at anyone needing a clear but intelligent guide to Ted Hughes, useful to adult learners returning to literature, A-level and undergraduate students and the general public. Contains a biography and advice on how to tackle his poetry, investigates his themes and major works and also some modern critical approaches including ecocriticism and ecofeminism. Concludes with a "Where To Next" chapter. Expected late June.

Giving Up: the Last Days of Sylvia Plath by Jillian Becker, £5.00 paperback, £10 hardback . A memoir from a writer who knew her during her last few months.

Voices from a Silk-Cotton Tree by John Lyons*, £6.95. In this new collection, his third, he mines a rich vein of childhood memories and experiences of Trinidad and Tobago, where he grew up. "The silk-cotton tree is a place of haunting energies, secret lives and experiences of people who have died, a powerhouse of personal histories whispered on the wind."

The Witch Bag by Sarah Corbett*, £6.95. New collection of poems by local author.

May 2002

Charles Horner of Halifax by Tom J. Lawson (£45)
- celebrating the life and work of the local jeweller, who worked in Hebden Bridge through the 1850s and 1860s before setting up shop in Halifax. The book contains information on the company pattern and price books, oral history from employees and over 600 illustrations.

The Minute Taker's Handbook by Lee Comer* and Paul Ticher. (£9.95)
Published by the Directory for Social Change, it gives guidance to all aspects of minute-taking.

April 2002

The Person in Social Psychology by Viv Burr* (£9.95).
It challenges the assimption that the person has an already-existing nature which becomes subject to the influence of social environment.

Craft and Art - the Business by Elizabeth White* (£9.99)
Author is owner of the giftshop Past and Present on Crown Street, and business editor for The Craftsman magazine.s Covers all aspects of the craft business for anyone wanting to convert a hobby into a livelihood.

Reckless by Sue Mayfield* (£4.99)(Hodder Bites series)
A new novel for teenagers. Author acknowledges the help of drama students from Brighouse High School who role-played scenes from the book. The main character, 15-year-old Josh, is sporty and daring but irresponsible.

Cobbles, Candles and Clogs by Margaret Duffield* (£15.00)
Memoirs of a Halifax nurse who lived through World War II, with poems and photographs

March 2002

On Ilkley Moor - the story of an English Town by Tim Binding (£8.99)
Interesting and well-researched book It includes historical, geographical and travel-book aspects.

Todmorden Antiquarian Society's pamphlets Stoodley Pike (£2.50), Walsden - A Century of Change 1780-1880 (£1.50), Walsden Words: how we used to live and speak (£1), Todmorden Cameos (£5.50), The Development of Todmorden 1700-1896 (£3.50) and Portrait of a Town: mid-19th century Todmorden (£2.50).

February 2002

The Twentieth-Century String Quartet edited by Douglas Jarman* (£10.95)
"The first - and as yet only - volume to give an overview of the development of the String Quartet in the twentieth century."

UMMA - Poems from Three Recent Commissions by John Siddique* (£3.00)
Book includes poems from the film "Home from Home", based on photos and oral histories of British Pakistanis, and poems based on his time as Writer in Residence at HMP Wetherby. It costs .

Poems by Liz Almond* included in Reactions 2: New Poetry, published by pen&inc, University of East Anglia, at £7.95.

January 2002

The Office of Nostalgia by Roderick Ogley* of Calderdale Amnesty (£3)
His first book of poetry at the age of 72. The title is , and it costs available at The Book Case.

Berringden Brow - Memoirs of a Single Parent with a Crush by Jill Robinson (£6.95)
A local humorous book : about "the struggling but still optimistic middle-aged women of Berringden Brow" - Bridget Jones' elder sisters! It's published by Pennine Pens..

December 2001

Ten Years of Woodcraft Folk in Hebden Bridge (£1.00)
An assortment of reminiscences from members. It costs £1 and is on sale at The Book Case.

Put Your Hands Together by Daniel Bath* (£4.95)
An attractive collection of progressive pieces and exercises for new pianists. Includes pieces such as "Slidin' Blooze" and "Hurdy-Gurdy Dance", as well as hints for practice.

Manchester & Leeds Railway - The Calder Valley Line by Martin Bairstow* (£10.95)
Reissue of the popular book, first published in 1987, with 32 extra pages; tells the story of the local railway from first plans in the 1830s right up to today. Photographs, maps, diagrams and drawings. . See below for details.

Beastly Bites by John and Jackie Eames* (£4.99)
A humorous alphabet about the eating habits of animals! from The Book Case

Feather and Bone by Gus Smith* (£8.99)
A dark fantasy set on the Northumberland moors. Gus lives in Crimsworth Dene and will be known to many as a writer of SF, folk musician and Chairman of the Ecology Building Society

Chasing More Shadows in the Calder Valley by Bill Marsden* and Peter Coles* (£5.00)
Follow-up to their previous popular venture Chasing Shadows.

Life in Pictures "Extracts from a Visual Diary" by Mike Barrett* (£5.00)
A spiral-bound mini-collection of pictures from his exhibition on show at Studio Gallery, Hangingroyd Lane.

The Hepton Singers - Live at Square Chapel CD - The Hepton Singers (£5.00).

Introduction to Politics and Society by Shaun Best* (£17.99).
For students and lecturers, published by Sage Publications.

Hebden Bridge Heritage Trail (0.99p)
A walk around Hebden Bridge with information on aspects of its history. Colour photos.

Yorkshire Villages/Yorkshire Castles by Bernard Ingham, £11.99 ea or £20 for both:
Photographic histories by native son.

Yesterday's Yorkshire: a Celebration of the Industrial West Riding - Terry Sutton, £17.99
Beautifully illustrated portrait of the West Riding at a time when it stood poised between its industrial heyday and a new less certain future.

Calderdale Way (Walking Country) - Paul Hannon (£3.99)
48-page booklet with guide, outline maps, sketches, points of interest

Ted Hughes: the Life of a Poet by Elaine Feinstein (£20)
The first biography.

Collected Plays for Children by Ted Hughes (£6.99)
Collects six plays suitable for performance by children, including The Pig Organ, never before published. The others are The Coming of the Kings, The Tiger's Bones, Beauty and the Beast, Sean, the Fool, the Devil and the Cats, and Orpheus.