New Titles available at The Book Case

We will try to keep you up to date with the best forthcoming titles, including new books of local interest, and latest titles by local writers. We highlight every month books we think are of particular interest, from adult fiction, non-fiction and children's books.

New Releases

Charles Dickens a life by Claire Tomalin

Claire Tomalin, author of Whitbread Book of the Year Samuel Pepys, paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius.

All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children.

Best Sellers

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The History of the Wartime Codebreaking Centre by the Men and Women Who Were There - Sinclair McKay

Sinclair McKay’s book is the first history for the general reader of life at Bletchley Park, and an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties – of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds (a depressed Angus Wilson, the novelist, once threw himself in) – of a youthful Roy Jenkins, useless at codebreaking, of the high jinks at nearby accommodation hostels – and of the implacable secrecy that meant girlfriend and boyfriend working in adjacent huts knew nothing about each other’s work.

How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran

There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain...

Death Comes to Pemberley - P. D James

P. D. James masterfully recreates the world of Pride and Prejudice, and combines it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly-crafted crime story.

The Thread - Victoria Hislop

Thessaloniki, 1917. As Dimitri Komninos is born, a devastating fire sweeps through the thriving Greek city where Christians, Jews and Muslims live side by side. Five years later, Katerina Sarafoglou's home in Asia Minor is destroyed by the Turkish army. Losing her mother in the chaos, she flees across the sea to an unknown destination in Greece. Soon her life will become entwined with Dimitri's, and with the story of the city itself, as war, fear and persecution begin to divide its people.

And Then It Happened - Linda Green (£6.99)

From the phenomenally successful local author, a new novel set in Cragg Vale/Mytholmroyd telling the story of Mel and Adam, a couple in their mid-thirties who have been together since their schooldays, and how they cope when Adam is involved in an accident which leaves him in a coma. "Quite possibly the new 'One Day'" says We Love This Book magazine/website! The Book Case will be hosting a signing session. Watch this space!

Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers - Janet Badia (£21.50)

Depicted in popular films, television series, novels, poems, and countless media reports, Sylvia Plath's women readers have become nearly as legendary as Plath herself, in large part because the depictions are seldom kind. If one is to believe the narrative told by literary and popular culture, Plath's primary audience is a body of young, misguided women who uncritically even pathologically consume Plath's writing with no awareness of how they harm the author's reputation in the process. Janet Badia investigates the evolution of this narrative, tracing its origins, exposing the gaps and elisions that have defined it, and identifying it as a bullying mythology whose roots lie in a long history of ungenerous, if not outright misogynistic, rhetoric about women readers that has gathered new energy from the backlash against contemporary feminism.

Local Interest

Now in Stock

Sowerby Tales by Jean Illingworth

It's finally arrived! New from best-selling local author Jean Illingworth, the follow up to the highly successful Growing up in Sowerby.

Sowerby Tales tells the stories of life in a Pennine village through the tales of those who have lived and worked there over the years. Not only is this a fascinating social history, but Jean's engaging and conversational writing makes this a wonderful read. Out just in time for Christmas this will makes a wonderful gift, not only for locals but for anyone intested in the social history of the area.

Folk Tales of Calderdale Volume 2

by John Billingsley

NEW IN!

Remains of Elmet - Ted Hughes (£9.99)

The original 1979 text, without Fay Godwin’s pictures. "The Calder valley, west of Halifax, was the last ditch of Elmet, the last British Celtic kingdom to fall to the Angles. For centuries it was considered a more or less uninhabitable wilderness, a notorious refuge for criminals, a hide-out for refugees. Then in the early 1800s it became the cradle for the Industrial Revolution in textiles ... Throughout my lifetime, since 1930, I have watched the mills of the region and their attendant chapels die." (Ted Hughes, Preface to "Remains of Elmet", 1979).

Details of the new Ted Hughes Society Journal can be found at http://www.thetedhughessociety.org/ - where you can also find information on the THOR Project which aims to collect as many online articles on Hughes that can be found.

Pennine Valley: a History of Upper Calderdale - ed. Professor Bernard Jennings.

Based on the research work of the Hebden Bridge WEA Local History Group (£14.99) We're delighted that Hebden Bridge Local History Society is reprinting this classic illustrated work from the early 1990s - "the most comprehensive history of the Upper Calder Valley that has ever been published."

Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge - ed. Takyoshi Andoh & Stephen Curry

Imagine what a Japanese man would make of living and working in a Pennine milltown in 1935! Koichi Andoh travelled by ship from Japan in 1935 to teach the technique of distinguishing the sex of one-day-old chicks to Hebden Bridge hatchery businesses. He kept a daily diary of his journey and life here which his son Takayoshi Andoh discovered in the late 1990s. In his turn,Takayoshi made the journey to Hebden Bridge and a collaboration began between him and Stephen Curry of Angeldale to translate Koichi's experiences and collate his photographs. This book brings to life the thoughts and observation of a sometimes homesick man.

Brighouse Through Time - Chris Helme (£14.99)

This fascinating selection of old photographs alongside the scene today traces some of the many ways in which Brighouse Town Centre has changed and developed over the last century.

West Yorkshire Railway Stations: From Aberford to Yeadon - Peter Tuffrey (£16.99)

The second of Peter Tuffrey's fascinating works on Yorkshire railway stations - with help from picture postcards, www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk, and the Yorkshire Post archives.

Savile Bowling Club: 100 Years of Bowling, compiled by Bill Green (£5.00)

A short history of the 100-year-old club built on a woodland clearing made available by Lord Savile in 1910. It's been compiled from old minute books and documents, with lots of old and new photographs.