There is a great selection of titles that make great summer reads from our imprints: Eye Books, Can of Worms and Civic Books (see below) and the Hereford Times has just selected Peter Burden’s News of the world? Fake Sheikhs & Royal Trappings as one of their choices, see the review here.
For the armchair cyclist, Rob Ainsley’s 50 Quirky Bike Rides Around England & Wales takes a revolutionary look at some fun ways to take the pressure out of cycling and making it fun again. What goes around comes around.
If you want to get serious with your armchair cycling, forget Mark Beaumont (currently on BBC Two with his cycling around the world) and read Alastair Humphrey’s tandem of titles Moods of Future Joys and Thunder & Sunshine which recount with great humour and insight the reality of undertaking an around the world bicycle ride.
If mayhem and murder are more your thing, British Comedy Award winner Chips Hardy’s Each Day A Small Victory is described by best selling author Jake Arnott (The Long Firm) as ‘Pulp Fiction meets Wind in the Willows’, and in Can of Worms’s graphic version of Othello the page becomes the stage for Shakespeare’s tragedy of jealousy, passion, deceit and the destruction of overwhelming love.
Listen to Mood of Future Joys and Thunder & Sunshine author Alastair Humphrey’s interview on the Resonance FM Bike Show programme. You can hear the first part of his interview here: The Bike Show. the second part of his interview will be broadcast on 1st September.
The Cycling Touring and Campaigning (CTC) magazine, Cycle, has published a review of 50 Quirky Bike Rides by Eye Books author Rob Ainsley.
A bit like Dr Who’s Tardis, this slim paperback conceals a cavernous interior, with copious facts about unusual biking experiences all over England and Wales. Each ride includes a ’snackstop’, a ‘bevvy break’, a tourist tick list (making sightseeing a doddle) and details of further information sources. Yet more icing on the cake comes in the form of a dedicated website with maps of all the routes shown. The book will interest a whole spectrum of riders, from casual pootlers to dedicated cycle tourers. A great book.
Visit Rob’s website here.
Thunder and Sunshine by Alastair Humphreys has been reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott, of the online book journal Curled Up With a Good Book.
Excerpt from Barbara Bamberger Scott’s review:
In an age when there are, in the older way of looking at things, no new frontiers, an adventure like this is a great achievement and no doubt an inspiration to others. There may be no roads untraveled, but there are still new ways to travel them and much to learn along the way. Humphreys is a hopeful person - there is no taint of cynicism or world-weariness in his writing. Constantly self-motivated, he had only himself to thank when he got up each day and cycled another few miles. He was nearly always treated with kindness and “nobody ever refused me water.” He concludes, “Don’t believe what you see on the TV; the world really is a good place.”
The fifth book in our Graphic Shakespeare range, Oscar Grillo’s version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest will re-define the genre with its quality of illustration. This version has the full text; nothing has been added, nothing has been taken away, none of Shakespeare’s poetic verse has been dumbed-down. Grillo’s spectacular and quirky illustration is not merely illustrative, but interpretive. This inventive re-imagining of one of Shakepeare’s finest plays is a must-have for any literature or graphic novel enthusiast.
To be published September/October 2008.
Keith Pointing explores dysfunctional relationships in this darkly comic creation. In The Inkspot Monologues, a leading relationship therapist uses Rorschach blots to help Jack and Alice exorcise their unsuccessful romantic relationships. Pointing’s witty and insightful illustrations bring this book to life. Anyone who’s ever broken up with someone needs to read this book.
To be published September 2008.
50 Quirky Bike Rides, Rob Ainsley’s new book, details 50 exciting, eccentric and unusual bike rides across England and Wales.
The most spectacular bridges; the best tunnels; the widest fords; the most beautiful canals; the bendiest bike path; the longest downhills. Weird places where you can (metaphorically) take your bike downhill skiing, potholing, tightrope walking, or turn it into a pedalo.
Oddities like cycling on a motorway or on the right-hand side of the road, or on bridges that take you by canal towpaths over rivers.
50 excellent biking adventures that you can have with friends, with family, and even a couple to enjoy with vast crowds of complete strangers.
Press for 50 Quirky Bike Rides:
“Does what it says on the tin: 50 well-researched, interesting rides, all over England and Wales” - London Cyclist magazine
I read Alastair's first book Moods of Future Joys and heard him speak at Stanfords in Bristol recently. He is ...