Bookcase Editions

Bookcase Editions is the publishing branch of The Bookcase. We are a small publishing company who, to date, have published six books covering a variety of genres from fiction to food. All our books are written by local authors, including some local school children, but they will appeal to locals and non-locals alike. See the selection for yourself below:

Marcus Alton

Young Man, You’ve Made My Day

A Personal Tribute to Brian Clough.

Publication date: 8th December 2008
Retail price: £7.99 paperback

ISBN: 9780954782054

100 pages, 20 colour photographs

Young Man, You’ve Made My Day tells the story of how one fan’s admiration for his hero led to lasting tributes, on-line and in bronze, for the Master Manager

Leading the Blind: A Century of Guide Book Travel, 1815-1914 by Alan Sillitoe

Alan Sillitoe is well known for his fiction, including novels such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. He began writing in the 1950s and has had numerous novels and collections of short stories and poetry published. Over the years The Bookcase has built up a strong relationship with Alan and he has been a well-received guest at several of the Lowdham Book and Film Festivals.

Leading the Blind is a non-fiction title of Alan’s, inspired by his love of old travel guides written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Alan began collecting old guides from local Nottingham second-hand bookshops as a boy of thirteen and went on to travel with them. This is his history of travel as told through his old travel guides, and sheds interesting light on the early years of international tourism.

The Festival Cook Book by Jackie Skinner

The Bookcase is well-known for organising annual book and film festivals and the festivals are well-known for offering fabulous food. Now Bookcase Editions has published a cookbook containing all the favourite recipes from the festivals, written by the chef herself, Jackie Skinner. Jackie is a local Lowdham lady and often helps out by providing incredible catering for the many events organised by The Bookcase; she has become famous locally for her wonderful catering skills. To accompany her delicious recipes, mouth-watering photographs, taken by local photographer Ed Herington, illustrate the book; Ed is also the resident photographer for the festivals and other local projects, adding to the truly local feel of this book.

However, with simple recipes ranging from cakes to salads to canapés, The Festival Cook Book offers a delightful selection of sophisticated party food for those who haven’t yet experienced the festivals as well as for the long-term lovers of Jackie’s catering. This unique cookbook is packed full with new and interesting ideas to add a touch of simple class and creativity to any party.

Lowdham: A Village Through Time, 1800-2008 by the Lowdham Local History Society

The Local History Group in Lowdham published a book, Portrait of a Village, about life in Lowdham in the nineteenth century in 1986, and shortly afterward formed the Lowdham Local History Society. Fourteen years later, to mark the millennium, the society decided to publish a second book, The 20th Century in Lowdham, to detail all the changes to the village that had occurred in the last century.

Following this several years later, the society, together with Bookcase Editions have published Lowdham: A Village Through Time, 1800-2008, which collaborates both books with an additional chapter at the end to expand on village life in the early years of the 21st century.

The book is compiled of a series of articles written by local people about their own experiences or the history of others that they have researched. The book covers all sorts of factors of village life, including school, leisure, sport, religion, farming and even The Bookcase itself. The stories add a personal dimension to history as we know it and bring to life well-known past periods, such as the Victorian era and the World Wars, putting them in a local context.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in the details and personal and local views of historical life as well as local villagers who want to know more about the place they call home.

One by Nigel Pickard

One is local author Nigel Pickard’s debut novel, a sensitively written story of a couple trying to come to terms with their son’s autism. As the book blurb says, “Love Story, coming-of-age novel and exploration of the autistic condition. One is a moving, thought-provoking and sometimes very funny debut.”

Now We Are Ten by Children from Local Schools

To celebrate the tenth birthday of The Bookcase in 2006, Jane Streeter, the proprietor, ran a competition for children in four local primary schools to write short stories, poems or articles on the theme of ‘Ten’. The schoolchildren, from Bleasby Primary School, Gunthorpe Primary School, Lowdham Primary School and Woodborough Woods Primary School, rose to the challenge and entered numerous outstanding pieces, from which a selection were chosen and collected into this celebratory publication.

Now We Are Ten celebrates children, their wonderful imaginations and their unique ways of seeing the world around them. In addition, it celebrates ten years of The Bookcase being involved in the local community and with children from the local schools.

The book is entirely written by the children; their entries have not been corrected or edited, meaning that the pure joy of children’s writing is evident throughout. A book to make you smile and laugh and reminisce about the way you wrote as a child.