Literary Events | Broad Conversation

February 1, 2013 • 1:15 pm 1

Top Tips for Couples from Lucy Beresford

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, author of ‘Happy Relationships at Home, Work and Play’, Psychologies agony aunt and psychotherapist, Lucy Beresford divulges her top tips for couples.

Lucy will be joining us on Tuesday 5th February at 7pm to talk about her new book with broadcaster, David Freeman. Tickets cost £3 and are available from our Customer Service Department, Blackwell’s Bookshop, 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford. Telephone: 01865 333623.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and so the thoughts of some of us turn to love and intimacy. Some of us will be in relationships, some of us are looking for a partner, but all of us need to be reminded that long-lasting love must be worked at, consciously, every day.

To begin with, we need to recognise that we often have unmet needs or hopes left over from childhood. Without realising it, we could be trying to repeat a childhood relationship in which we felt unloved or rejected or disrespected. By unconsciously repeating the same kind of relationship as grown-ups, we are trying to repair it. By taking responsibility for what needs we bring to our present-day relationships, we can stop blaming our partner for failing to meet that need.

We also need to pay attention to what happens in the bedroom. For example, porn is having a negative effect on relationships. Recent research has shown that women of all ages are feeling under increasing pressure to look a certain way in the bedroom, and that men speak of being bored by ‘ordinary’ sexual activity. As a result, couples are becoming increasing dissatisfied with their love lives.

But of course, porn is not an accurate representation of intimate relationships. So even if we are newly married, we need to find time to talk sensitively to each other about sex in general and our sex life in particular. Sex isn’t about recreating the same excitements which existed at the beginning of your relationship, but about maintaining a sexual journey, which fulfils and nourishes you and your partner.

beresford Criticism corrodes relationships, so we need to keep cross words to a minimum. It’s helpful to bear in mind how we would feel if someone criticised us all the time. Even if we grew up being criticised in childhood and therefore believe we can’t help ourselves, we do possess the capacity to change. By catching ourselves about to criticise, we can make a choice about whether to carry on doing so. Instead of always looking for the negative, we can try competing with our partner to be the one to say positive, encouraging things, and do loving or helpful things.

Above all, whether we are currently in a relationship or looking for that someone special, remember that the more we put in, the more we put ourselves on the line in a relationship, the more rewarding our intimate relationships can be.

Filed under: Bookshop news and events, Guest Blogs, Literary Events

January 10, 2013 • 3:09 pm 0

It’s a Dog’s Life : Capturing Animal Behaviour Through a Lens by Andy Hughes

In his first guest blog for Broad Conversation Andy Hughes, the author of ‘I, Jack Russell’, writes about the human-animal bond from a photographer’s perspective. All images are taken from Andy Hughes’ book, ‘I, Jack Russell’.

Andy will be joining us in conversation with renowned author of ‘In Defence of Dogs’ Dr. John Bradshaw, next week, on Wednesday 16th January at 7pm. Tickets cost £3 and are available from our Customer Service Department, or over the phone on 01865 333623.

Photographers, artists, writers and other ‘creatives’ are diverse in motivation, interests, experiences and insights. Much of my photographic practice deals with issues concerning the marine and coastal environment, however recently, I realized or perhaps discovered by accident that I had many more images of my two dogs than I did of my family and friends and this lead to a new field of research. I began this project about Jack Russell dogs by looking to find as many family snapshots, which included our dogs. I found a few and these are included in my recent book I Jack Russell which attempts to encourage readers to think about their own snapshots of dogs and about the dog human bond.

Many people come across images (photographic ones) in their daily life. Ubiquitous to some and unique to others there are millions of photographic images in the word today. In Roland Barth’s seminal book Camera Lucida he coined the term punctum, this denotes a type of ‘wounding’, a sort of personal touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it. The re-discovery of my own family snapshots containing images my own pet dogs as a young child brought Barth’s concept sharply in focus and led me to enquire further leading me to a number of books which became key in my search to understand the relationship between people and dogs.

For instance, after reading John Bradshaw, Alexandra Horowitz and Mark Derr it became clear to me that my thinking about my own dogs and dogs in general was far from complete or fully developed.

As well as published material, social networks such as DogBook that have photographic images of dogs seem as important to us as do images of other humans on Facebook. Collections of these images can often be found in our own albums or more readily in this day and age on our mobile phones or via our personal webpages. One very interesting historical survey can be seen in the book Dogs by Catherine Johnson where one can look at hundreds of images of dogs; it is a book filled with amateur, anonymous snapshots of dogs from the turn of the century to the early 1950s.

In I Jack Russell my motivations were driven by something more than simply capturing a sense of likeness. Something more akin to Barth’s concept. In a wonderful precise and short essay titled ‘Dogs’ Robert Adams [1] beautifully describes various relationships between artists and their dogs. Two sentences in particular resonate.

‘Art depends on there being affection in its creator’s life, and an artist must find ways, like everyone else, to nourish it. A photographer down on his or her knees picturing a dog has found pleasure enough to make many things possible.’

‘Artists live by curiosity and enthusiasm, qualities readily evident as inspiration in dogs. Propose to a dog a walk and its response is absolutely yes.’

The bond between creative enterprise, artistic interpretation and the sciences are re-bonding and revealing new insights. Research into the relationship between the dog and human is set to continue – we should all keep our nose to the blogosphere and bookshelf to help fully understand the dog and human world.

[1] Robert Adams: Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture (1994)

Andy Hughes January 7. 2013-01-07

www.andyhughes.net

http://cabiblog.typepad.com/hand_picked/

Filed under: Guest Blogs, Literary Events

November 20, 2012 • 11:43 am 0

30 Great Myths About Shakespeare

Guest bloggers, Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith, write for Broad Conversation on their new book, ’30 Great Myths About Shakespeare’. We will be holding the launch of their new book on Tuesday 27th November. See below for more details.

We are thrilled to be launching our book Thirty Great Myths About Shakespeare at Blackwell’s on 27 November. We wrote the book to explore what we think we know about Shakespeare and why these beliefs are important to us. For us a myth is a widely-held perception or assumption, which is not necessarily untrue but which exaggerates, speculates, constructs or simplifies some aspect of Shakespeare’s life, theatre, and works. In our book we try to evaluate evidence for and against these myths to show not just how historical material – and the lack of it – can be interpreted and misinterpreted, but what this reveals about our own personal investment in the stories we tell about our national poet. Myths about Shakespeare, we discover, recapitulate deeply held ideas about genius and popularity, but also about emotions including love and grief.

Our short chapters scrutinise issues such as ‘Shakespeare was a Catholic’ or ‘Shakespeare detested his wife’ or ‘Queen Elizabeth loved Shakespeare’s plays’. Where possible we try to redirect speculation away from biography and back towards the works – the real reason Shakespeare is important to us today. At Blackwell’s we’ll be talking about some of the myths and discussing them with you. Who knows… maybe we we will get the material for the next thirty.

Laurie Maguire and Emma Smith on ’30 Great Myths About Shakespeare’. Tuesday 27th November at 7pm. Tickets cost £3 and can be obtained by telephoning or visiting the Customer Service Department, Blackwell Bookshop, Oxford. 01865 333623.

Filed under: Guest Blogs, Literary Events

August 17, 2012 • 10:06 am 1

And Other Stories

On Tuesday 28th August at 7pm Christoph Simon appears at the shop in conversation with Barbara Trapido talking about his new novel, Zbinden’s Progress.

Winner of the Bern Literature Prize 2010, Zbinden’s Progress is the newly translated fifth novel from Christoph Simon. Described by Barbara Trapido as “a little Odyssey, a little Ulysses”, Zbinden’s Progress is both heart-rending and hilarious.

The publisher , And Other Stories, has already earned a glowing reputation for publishing interesting, exciting novels and producing them beautifully. We love them.

I asked them if they would write a piece about their journey so far for the blog – Matthew Crockatt, erstwhile bookseller at Daunts and Waterstones and co-founder of cracking indie Crockatt & Powell, is one of their very small team, here’s his take on an exhilarating, success-filled and no doubt exhausting year:

And Other Stories is a very young publisher. Its first books were only published in September 2011. As the most recent person to join And Other Stories, I’ve been pretty curious to know how it started. In case you’re interested, here’s the story so far.

It all started in 2009 when Stefan Tobler wrote an article titled Supply + Demand + Magic for the British translation journal In Other Words.

Would you agree that a lot of the best contemporary fiction gets passed over in favour of reasonably good books that present publishers with less of a risk?

A commercial publisher has to balance its books, whether it is one of the ‘big boys’ with shareholders or an independent. Sales figures are naturally the driving concern (survival concern), and the sales and marketing people have a larger say than ever in determining publishers’ book choices.

This was especially true for translated fiction, he argued. The extra costs involved made it even less likely that challenging books from other languages would be published in the UK. When the article appeared Stefan was contacted by a number of people in the translation community and realised he was not alone. Stefan began to explore ways of drawing on this core group of people and using their support to raise advance funds that could then be used to publish books. This led to his founding And Other Stories Publishing as a Community Interest Company and the development of the And Other Stories subscription model.

Although the idea of paying for something before you know what it is completely opposes the normal laws of consumer markets – put the products out there and let people choose what to buy – it attracted enough subscribers to make starting And Other Stories possible. What’s more, these subscribers were not passive but very active members of the reading community.

Discussions were held and people were invited to suggest books that deserved to be published. Many but not all of these were in other languages. Some, such as Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, were simply excellent books. Sophie Lewis, a translator of French literature for publishers including Pushkin Press, Saqi Books and Hesperus Press, andwho established the European office of independent publisher Dalkey Archive Press, was by now fully involved in an editorial role. By consulting a pool of like-minded people who all felt passionately about books and were prepared to back the process of getting them into the world by subscribing, offering helpful services or advice, or giving their time and expertise, the quality of And Other Stories’ titles became, and remains, extraordinarily high.

In fact, I first discovered the publisher through reading Swimming Home – a book that was such a real relief after reading some dire books – here’s my review on my blog. I then went on to read and review Carlos Gamerro’s crazy mash-up The Islands for the Huffington Post – and was just as amazed. (When the chance came to join the publisher, of course I jumped at it!)

The first book released was Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos. This book was brought to And Other Stories’ attention by Rosalind Harvey, who then went on to translate it. It was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, ensuring immediate publicity for the fledgling enterprise.

The First Book Award’s impact is ongoing. Our handsome trade paperback edition of Villalobos’ book has gone to three printings so far. As a result of all the publicity, it was picked up by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US and by other publishers around the world. And it continues to attract attention: Down the Rabbit Hole was one of five books chosen for the 2011 Summer Reads promotion run by Writers’ Centre Norwich in Norfolk’s libraries. The 100 copies purchased for library use were all borrowed within a single week.

Recently Swimming Home has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, perhaps the most prestigious literary prize in the world. Seeing people’s reactions now, we have our fingers firmly crossed for the shortlist! And in the meantime of course we continue to hunt out new and surprising books and writers that are worth taking a risk on – for us as a publisher, and for you as readers.

Please visit our website for more details: www.andotherstories.org

Remember, without our subscribers none of this would have been possible…

We would love for you to come along on the 28th, enjoy a glass of wine and celebrate with us the heartening story of And Other Stories. Tickets cost just £2 and are available from our Customer Service Desk or by phoning 01865 333623

Filed under: Bookshop news and events, Guest Blogs, Literary Events, And Other Stories, Barbara Trapido, Christoph Simon, Zbindens Progress

July 25, 2012 • 12:00 pm 0

The Beauty in the Beast

Last week we were very pleased to invite Hugh Warwick, wildlife expert and hedgehog enthusiast, to talk to us about his latest book The Beauty in the Beast. Hugh spent most of his time travelling around the UK, meeting weird and wonderful creatures – both the animals and the people who love them. We meet the water vole-woman from Shropshire, the owl-man from Somerset and Gordon, the dancing toad-fancier. These and many other fabulously engaging characters carry a deep knowledge of their chosen species within a distinctly quirky shell, turning the book itself into a series of affectionate and lively homages to the animals of the British Isles, composed of fieldwork and interviews with the people who love and conserve them.

We had a great evening with Hugh, but for anyone who missed out and would like to know more about badger-fancying or hedgehog fanaticism, we asked Hugh to come back for another little chat:

Did you enjoy your event at Blackwell’s last night?

I had such a wonderful night at Blackwell’s – a good crowd of people helped to dispel nerves and the staff could not have been kinder. It is always such fun to do a talk and really get a reaction. Though this time the biggest reaction came from me, when I unexpectedly started crying … I had altered my talk at the last minute as I had just heard my friend, the badger-man from the book, Gareth Morgan had died.

We’re very sorry to hear that, particularly when it sounds as though he had so much wisdom to share - he’s sure to inspire future badger-lovers through the pages of Beauty and the Beast. You also met, among others, Gordon the toad-fancier and The Owl-Man… is there a particular person, or animal, who sticks in your memory?

How am I supposed to choose between my children? Well, I guess I had to, to some extent, otherwise I would have ended up with 15 tattoos, not just the one! Every encounter with an enthusiast and their animal was memorable – but clearly joining a Shamanic dancing retreat in search of a spiritual toad was a little different … as was bouncing around the Moray Firth looking for dolphins, or sleeping in a castle after a night out with the beavers … so, to answer your question, is there a particular person, or animal? No!

Fair enough! We hear a lot about endangered species in other parts of the world, but did you encounter any British species that are under threat whilst writing The Beauty in the Beast?

Every species is under threat – that is not being hyperbolic. Human activity is locked into a system that requires growth – which is another way of saying consumption. And as we consume and pollute we are having an impact on every other species on the planet. But there are some more sensitive than others. So it was fascinating to learn how sensitive bats are to light pollution, for example. Or how adder hibernacula are so easily destroyed, even by conservationists. Or how maritime industries blast the senses of dolphins with noise. Or how sparrows suddenly suffered a catastrophic decline. And always I keep coming back to hedgehogs – who have suffered a 25% decline in the last ten years.

The biggest problems for most species are loss of habitat and the fragmentation of the remaining habitat. Take, for example, bats. Loss of habitat is a big problem, but so is the loss of habitat of their food – if there is no where for the insects they rely upon to live and breed, then there will be no bats. The problems are compounded, though, by our desire to light up the night sky. Some species of bat are affected by the light of a full moon, refusing to fly out into the open when it is bright. So imagine the impact of street lights, or pubs with bright lights – or even our own security lights.

What exactly is being done for them at the moment? Are there ways that the public can help?

We need to shift our perspective a little, think what it would be like to be an animal and then change what needs to be changed. For hedgehogs and toads a lot can be done by just ensuring gardens, for example, are connected with each other. There is a project I am involved in called Hedgehog Street that gives many top tips on helping hedgehogs, and when you help hedgehogs, well, you help so many other species too.

I hear that you’re interested in taxidermy (Hugh has a taxidermy hedgehog), an art form which many people don’t respond to particularly well. Is there anything in particular that attracts you to it? How would you respond to the people who find it strange, or even think it cruel?

My interest in taxidermy is purely educational. I have a stuffed hedgehog because I want people to see and feel a real hedgehog but I do not want to keep a live hedgehog. I have given talks with a real live hedgehog and the audience loves it, but there are far more issues regarding potential cruelty from keeping an animal in captivity. And I do not have the resources of skill to repair injured animals – luckily there hundreds of hedgehog carers around the country who do an amazing job.

I have been surprised to find people revolted by my stuffed hedgehog who are quite happy to eat meat from an industrial farming process that is so staggeringly cruel. No one needs to go out and hunt a hedgehog to procure a corpse for stuffing, there are, unfortunately, plenty of dead ones around. So there is no cruelty there.

You’ve been described as a ‘hedgehog fanatic’ - can you tell us an interesting fact or something we might not know about hedgehogs?

I can, and have, written a book all about hedgehogs – A Prickly Affair. Which fact to share? And adult hedgehog has around 6000 spines; their fleas are species specific – so you, your cat and your dog cannot catch fleas from a hedgehog (and the whole flea story is rather over-played … they have no more than any other small mammal, it is just that the fleas they have are more visible thanks to the more sparse spines and also because the hedgehog you are most likely to see will be out in the day – and a hedgehog out in the day is a poorly hedgehog – and poorly hedgehogs are more likely to have an infestation); hedgehog legs are longer than you might think; hedgehogs are the most wonderful creature on the planet …. and if you don’t believe me, read the book and then complain!

I doubt we’d want to complain about that – any book with recommendations from both Jeanette Winterson and Ann Widdecombe must be worth reading! Are you working on any other projects, book related or otherwise?

I have just got back from another festival and I have another three lined up in the next four weeks – each time promoting The Beauty in the Beast. This is interfering with my attempts to write up the two new ideas that are racing around my brain, trying to get out! I have just finished the text to a short book about the iconography of the hedgehog – coming out in the new year, published by Reaktion. I just need to finish the picture research on that one. And it is summer and the sun is out and the children are playing in the garden. So one of my most immediate projects will be ensuring they have a fantastic time! For which I will take them up into the wilds of Shotover as often as possible, and we will go looking for solitary bees (see the first chapter of The Beauty in the Beast!)

If you’ve been inspired to find out more about Britain’s wonderful wildlife, or if you want to find out how to help species in danger, you can find The Beauty in the Beast here at Blackwell’s in the Natural History section of the Norrington Room, or you can (and should!) visit Hugh’s interesting and lively blog.

Filed under: Bookshop news and events, Literary Events, The Bookshop, Uncategorized, Beauty in the Beast, Blackwell's, hedgehogs, Hugh Warwick, natural history, Shotover

July 13, 2012 • 10:12 am 0

Next week at Blackwell’s…

As you may already know, next Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th July we will be hosting author talks with hedgehog fanatic and author of The Beauty in the Beast Hugh Warwick and author of new historical thriller Sacrilege, SJ Parris.

It promises to be a very interesting couple of days, so why not come down and join us? Tickets are £2 for each talk and are available from our Customer Services Department or by calling 01865 333623.

However, if you’re away or previously engagement then never fear, look out on Broad Conversation in the week afterwards for interviews with our speakers – and if you’ve got some questions of your own then why not let us know? Either Tweet us with the hastags #hughquestions or #sjpquestions, or leave us a comment – we’ll try to put as many as possible to Hugh and Stephanie, and they’ll be posted to Broad Conversation along with the rest of the interview!

You can also request signed copies of The Beauty in the Beast and Sacrilege by dropping us an email at oxford@blackwell.co.uk

Filed under: Literary Events, Oxford, The Bookshop, Uncategorized, author talks, book events, Hugh Warwick, Oxford, SJ Parris

June 28, 2012 • 12:08 pm 1

How Does The Light Get In?

You may have heard of the Hay Festival. You may even have visited Hay this year and gone to see the likes of Hilary Mantel, Philippa Gregory and Michael Morpurgo talk about their latest work… but did you know that on the other side of the famous town of books another festival was running at exactly the same time?

No? Well you’re not alone. Despite being in it’s fourth year How the Light Gets In is still something of a fringe event… and that’s probably a good thing. Conceived as a philosophy and music festival by the folks at the London-based Institute of Arts and Ideas, How the Light Gets In is a festival that fosters an open and vibrant intellectual culture, and positively encourages everyone who attends to get stuck into a good debate.

It is this challenging, stimulating and very often rather rowdy atmosphere that sets How the Light Gets In apart from the Hay Festival. Rather than bland discussions of past work, new projects and ‘where do you get your ideas from?’, the speakers not only present the audience with scientific, cultural and artistic challenges, the audience have a tendency to give as good as they get – as Ewan Morrison found out this year, after his talk on ‘Publishing and the Future Shape of Capitalism’ in The Ring (notorious for producing the most lively and challenging debates between speakers and audience members alike) During the Q&A, he found himself under attack not only from the audience but also one or two of the festival organisers – who don’t even balk at challenging the people they’ve invited to speak.

People who do visit the Hay Festival and then stumble upon How the Light Gets In tend to say the same things… they marvel at the cosy, community atmosphere, the personal touch of tea and coffee being served in china cups and despair at the increasingly commercial nature of the Hay Festival proper… they speak of crowds and litter and make allusions to cattle… not really what you’d expect of an independently run festival.

Blackwell’s in Cardiff has been the official booksellers for both How the Light Gets In and its sister festival of art ‘Crunch‘ since the beginning in 2008, but for 2012 we not only set up a little bookstall, but a full on miniature bookshop housed in a cheerily decorated yurt… it truly was beautiful to behold (and exhausting to set up!)

Armed with over 200 different titles by 150 speakers, it was truly on a whole different scale to anything the Cardiff shop had undertaken before… and despite some truly appalling weather, wet feet, wind that actually blew some of the stock away, it was a roaring success! Of course, being booksellers our commercial aims could not be completely forgotten, and we did the usual book signings and festival discounts – but to look around at the customers sitting on a three seater sofa, sipping tea, nibbling on cake and reading the mound of books they just couldn’t resist, you’d think you were in someone’s living room…

I truly believe my earlier assertion that How the Light Gets In being a fringe event is perfect. Audiences are small, venues intimate, and speakers are both challenging and challenged. There is alcohol and gorgeous food aplenty and when the sun goes down the party doesn’t stop as at night the venues are turned over to the best of new talent in live music and comedy.

So next year, if you happen to be in Hay, wander down to The Globe Field and discover How the Light Gets In for yourself…

Filed under: Bookshop news and events, Literary Events, Uncategorized, hay festival

Broad Conversation

Top Tips for Couples from Lucy Beresford

It’s a Dog’s Life : Capturing Animal Behaviour Through a Lens by Andy Hughes

30 Great Myths About Shakespeare

And Other Stories

The Beauty in the Beast

Next week at Blackwell’s…

How Does The Light Get In?

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