ANNIE NICHOLS

Annie Nichols, a former Frome Community College student, has written a cookbook and will be coming to Hunting Raven Books to meet customers and sign copies of her latest book Dinner at Mine.

Uganda Diary

On leaving college in 1955 James Lang Brown went out by sea to East Africa to join the Uganda Forest Department. Uganda was then a peaceful country, run by kings and chiefs, and indirectly by the British. Unknown to the young recruits, this happy state had only ten more years to run before the chaos and cruelty of Idi Amin’s dictatorship.

This fascinating book tells of the author’s introduction to life and work in Africa, and of the support from his African staff. There are accounts of eccentric missionaries, miners, planters and white hunters. One can feel the pride in being able to help a beloved country to build a forest estate for a prosperous future.

Uganda Diary is a valuable account of the Commonwealth at a turbulent time, from the Kabaka’s return from exile in 1955, through the threatened Baganda uprising of 1961 and the army mutiny of 1964, to the crumbling of medical services and the police. Hindsight poses the question “Were we right to leave then?” and this book examines both answers.

The book is brought vividly to life by 200 of the author’s excellent photographs of work,
expeditions, people and landscape in an Africa now changed forever.

We have some signed copies of Uganda Diary in the shop for those who missed the signing.

If you can’t make John’s signing at Frome Library the book will be available to buy at Hunting Raven Books and we can arrange to have your copy signed by John.

Bath, Queen of the West, is internationally famous as one of England’s oldest and most beautiful cities. The picturesque setting in the Avon valley, surrounded by green hills knit town and country together. The hot mineral springs welling up from deep within the earth have given it unique advantages as a health and leisure resort.

The Romans called the city Aquae Sulis, and below the modern city are the important Roman Baths, one of England’s top tourist attractions. In medieval times a great abbey grew up here, a centre of scholarship as well as religion. Bath was an important Cotswold weaving centre before becoming a great Georgian spa city. As ‘taking the waters’ became an increasingly attractive leisure activity for visitors, a number of charity hospitals grew up around the hot springs. Then in the eighteenth century, great men such as Beau Nash the Master of Ceremonies and John Wood the architect transformed Bath into the grand Georgian city which we know today. Writers such as Henry Fielding and Jane Austen, and artists such as Thomas Gainsborough, settled in Bath.

John Payne reflects on the diversity of the modern city, where industry, sport and shopping take their place alongside tourism and heritage. He considers the continuing importance of religious faith in the city and the contribution to Bath’s cultural life made by its two universities and the many festivals, of which the winter Literature Festival and the springtime Bath International Music Festival are just two.

Like all cities, Bath changes through time, and this book looks at recent developments such as the superb new spa centre, Thermae Bath Spa, and the modernist extension to the Holburne Museum of Fine Art. An insider account that goes beyond the well-trodden city centre, it includes Bath’s attractive urban villages, such as Weston (a favourite walk of Jane Austen) and Combe Down with its stone quarries and Jewish burial ground.

John Payne is the author of books on Catalonia and the English West Country. Born in Bath, he lives in Frome, Somerset.

We were delighted to welcome Peter back to Hunting Raven Books on Saturday 17 December.
Peter braved the December weather, signed copies of his book and relished the opportunity to chat about Charles Dickens with fascinated customers!

DICKENS’S LONDON by Peter Clark

Few novelists have written so intimately about a city in the way that Charles Dickens wrote about London. A near photographic memory made his contact with the city indelible from a very young age and it remained his constant focus. Dickens was drawn to the character of London itself, all aspects of the capital from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames; these were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.

Based on five walks through central London, Peter Clark illuminates the settings of Dickens’s greatest works, his life, his journalism and his fiction. He also explores ‘The First Suburbs’ (Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse) as they feature in Dickens’s writing.

Peter Clark is a writer and translator. He worked for the British Council for many years, has translated novels from Arabic and is an authority on 19th century Britain.

Copies of Dickens’s London are available from Hunting Raven Books.

Foraging and ferreting out food for free is Caroline Pakenham’s passion. She has now passed on some of her favourite recipes that she has created in her kitchen at Rudge and put them into her first book MAKING JELLIED PRESERVES : FROM GARDEN AND HEDGEROW FRUIT

The book includes full colour photos to help you recognise hedgerow fruits, plus numerous recipes for fruits that you can gather from spring to autumn or buy from further afield, including:- Gooseberry with perfumed wild Elderflower jelly; Crab apple jelly; Seville orange jelly; Sloe jelly; Plum and Rosemary jelly; Claret and Sage jelly; Garlic and herb jellies; Elizabethan Quince Cream and Spiced cranberry with roasted orange jelly.  Also included are lots of ideas using your wonderful store of jellies in your cooking.

While Nick talked to customers, Harriet lovingly wrapped each signed book in specially printed tissue.

Nick arriving with our first delivery after cycling from Bristol!

We were delighted to welcome Nick Hand on Saturday 3 December
to meet customers and sign copies of his beautifully designed book
CONVERSATIONS ON THE COAST

Conversations on the Coast presents a selection of 20 stories and photography from the Slowcoast project. Graphic Designer and Photographer Nick Hand set off on his bicycle from Bristol in the summer of 2009 to cycle over 6000 miles around the coast of the British Isles.

The people he talked to along the way included weavers, boat builders, a stickmaker, bicycle mechanic, screen printer, cheese maker and tea taster. Conversations were recorded and edited as photofilms and uploaded from the saddle to the Slowcoast website, giving followers of the journey the chance to meet an inspirational group of people living and working around the coast of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Nick cycled from Bristol to Frome to personally deliver our first copies of this fascinating book!  We hear there may be another book being planned . . .

Saturday 26 November proved to be a sell out when Jeremy Wade came to sign copies of his new book River Monsters – A Tale of obsession, adventure and very big fish . . .

Is it safe to get in the water? . . .

Nearly half the world’s fish species live in just 0.01% of the world’s water – our lakes and rivers. Yet most people know less about what lives in fresh water than they do about the oceans. Because some rivers are very hard to get to – and/or too murky to see into, using normal means – many of their inhabitants are rarely or never seen in conventional natural history programmes.

Biologist and fishing detective Jeremy Wade takes a different approach, starting by examining myths and fishermen’s tales, subjecting them to scientific scrutiny to separate fact from fiction. Then he homes in on his targets using a fishing line. The results are some fish of staggering dimensions and appearance, including some spectacular ‘firsts’. This book is Jeremy’s behind-the-scenes account of the stories featured in his TV series, as well as other incidents from his quarter-century career.

Hunting Raven customers were eager to meet Chris

We were delighted to welcome Chris Lewis-Smith to Hunting Raven Books on Saturday 5 November. Chris chatted to customers and signed copies of his new book The Water of Light.