A Swindon Radical Visits Venus
There’s been rather a lot of hobnobbing happening of late. By which I mean activities involving authors of the Hobnob Press stable. In the first instance, I’ve twice in recent weeks, dined at the Polish Club with David Bradshaw, author of Hobnob Press book Swimming without Mangoes. At those delightful dinners we swapped our respective titles. And there’s more about that in this Swindon in 50 Drinks post about żywiec Polish Pilsner Beer.
There’s been a lot of book talk on Born Again Swindonian of late. Well – we’re a very literary lot here in Swindon don’t y’know.
Having done 5 Swindon books to Read Now a few weeks back, here we have 5 More Swindon books.
I could go on almost ad infinitum with this as there are many Swindon books! But I’ll keep it to these two posts. But with a ‘See Also’ at the bottom of this one.
So, as with the first post, in no particular order here we go with 5 More Swindon Books worthy of your attention. Both during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.
Richard Wintle, known to many Swindonians as the man photographing Swindon’s history through the decades, is putting his retirement to good use. As you’d expect for a press photographer, Richard has a VAST archive of photographs. And he’s put some of them into a book: A Picture Is Only the Start of The Story.
So, we’re in the grip of the Coronavirus pandemic and at best are faced with a prolonged period of social distancing. Or at worst lockdown as we have at the time of reading.
So here’s five of the MANY Swindon books out there, fiction and non-fiction, written by Swindonians, with which to pass some fruitful time.
If you haven’t got them on your bookshelves now (and you might but not have read them) then head to the shop in Swindon central library as soon as you can. That said, some of the books included are available on mail order.
Well here’s a bit of a novelty, as Graham Carter himself commented. What is? Me attending someone else’s book launch for a change. Rather than them being at mine – info on my own publications here.
For today saw the launch, at Swindon Central library of a new Swindon book by Noel Ponting and Graham Carter: A Swindon Wordsmith: The Life, Times and Works of George Ewart Hobbs.
Wow! Yet another Swindon-related book. How fantastic. Hot on the heels of Swindon in 50 Buildings and the Ken White Bio/retrospective – both by me – and France Bevan’s recent book we have Last Orders by John Stooke.
Well this has been a wonderful development. A well or two back I received a contact from the head teacher at Nythe Primary school. She’d seen my posts on LinkedIn about my most recent book, Swindon in 50 Buildings.
Well, I say most recent. In actual fact another book, about Swindon-born artist and mural man Ken White, hit the bookshelves a few days ago.
So. My first book, Secret Swindon, had a gorgeous launch event at Swindon central library on the 28th July. I’ve been meaning to post about it since then but stuff got in the way. Namely some security stuff being done on the blog which was affecting access. So I figured I’d hold on until that was done. And now the lovely Linda Kasmaty has beaten me to it with her super blog on Gardens, Galleries and Walking Around. So I reckon I might as well share that, a few photos and one or two rather lovely reviews and job done.
5th June 2018 Secret Swindon: the book Hello listeners! I can't lie. I can barely sit still for the excitement! The reason? I’m soon to be a published author for the first time. ‘Secret Swindon’, via Amberley Publishing, is due for release in the middle of July 2018....
26th November 2017 Eastcott community book launch: Legacy of a rag and bone man Well listeners! Yesterday was what I call a good Swindon day. The being cold, yet bright and sunny I walked into town from Grange Park. My first stop when I do that is always Paolo's...
Ralph Bates Civil War Chronicler
Some time ago, in the tourist information centre in Bristol, I saw an information sheet on a literary trail round the city. And that got me thinking that Swindon could surely have such a thing here what with Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams – neither of whom I knew much about until recently. No sooner had I had this thought than, in one of those curious coincidences that punctuate our lives, what should appear on my social media stream than a piece from the Swindon Link magazine publicizing a forthcoming talk at the Museum and Art Gallery about Ralph Bates. No – I’d not heard of him either. And in his day he was rated as better than Hemingway. Who knew?
