Let’s not even get onto the subject of the ugly. Because there are picture books out there that are all this, and more.

I don’t often blog about picture books. It’s not because I don’t like them. I do like them. But with no children to read to, and picture books not generally being something I sit down and read for my own fun (they finish before I’ve barely begun), I don’t see so many of them.

There are some absolutely beautiful picture books, but I started wondering who likes them. Is it just the adults? Does it matter which picture books children read?

As a child I had some classic books, but I also had books that were nothing special at all in a literary sense, but which I loved and read over and over again. So did Offspring at that age. We had some quality books, but that didn’t prevent them loving ‘rubbish’. You just do, for whatever reason. I suppose it’s the book equivalent of enjoying Brio toys and McDonalds’ freebies equally much.

When I’ve been sent picture books for review, I generally only blog about the ones with adult appeal. That’s not to say that the ones I ignore aren’t capable of being loved to pieces by lots of children.

So how choose? And why?

With thanks to the Church Times Blog:

Press Release: Carlisle December 21st 2009
The Board of Trustees and Senior Management of leading Carlisle-based Christian Charity, IBS-STL UK, formerly known as STL are pleased to announce the sale of two of its three trading divisions: Authentic Media and STL Distribution, as well as the sale of a significant number of its retail stores that comprise the third trading division: Wesley Owen. A large number of jobs have been secured as a result of the sale and the Charity’s mission of ‘Advancing the Christian Faith’ will continue.

The management team has worked closely with the Baker Tilly Corporate Finance LLP over the last month to secure the sale of all or part of the Charity’s business units. Completion of the sale agreements is expected to be finalised by the weekend with the new owners taking control immediately thereafter. This is regarded as extremely good news and ends a period of uncertainty and anxiety for many of our employees.

Read More

After you read my previous Blog, LaRosa Chronicles, Connecting the Stories – Connection 6 Dated: 12/17/09 you are up to date with the connections between the first six published novels in the LaRosa Chronicles. Plus, you have the connection to Summer And August, A LaRosa Chronicles Murder Mystery set in Chatham, which will be released in May 2010.

The next connection goes bask in time to a character you meet in  Father Sandro’s Money, the very first LaRosa Chronicles story. Kathleen, the pretty Irish love of Armand LaRosa’s life, travels to the far Western Massachusetts town of Adams, after Armand’s tragic death, to raise her two children in peace and safety.

This is scheduled for 2011, and is currently the story that is screaming to come out. Kathleen is the working title of this story, but most of the working titles change as stories develop.

You’re going to really enjoy another totally unique style of presentation with this story.
K

My post of last week about the exaggerated death of vinyl records (and their resurrection) has got me thinking about the challenge to the physical book from the Kindle and other similar electronic devices.

Will Kindles, and any eventual and probably much sexier Apple i-Tablet thingie, kill books?

The contrast with recorded music is a curious one. Music has had a shifting portability dimension in modern times mainly built around the “player”.

Phonographs and record players had limited mobility, while radios became more portable (but lacked storage/choice elements). As storage media changed (to 8-track cartridges and cassettes) car stereos became possible, and eventually mobile personal stereos (both boombox and Walkman styles) the norm.

With CDs we got sound-quality and durability that created an expectation that our music should be available everywhere. Digital music was thus just the next step. Of course, there was that disruptive technology stage where digital was a poor substitute and the players were clumsy, but Apple sorted that all out for us.

The pace of change in the book industry has been much slower. The basic product is not much different to that of 100 years ago. Yes, the printing technology has been transformed, but the reading experience is pretty much the same. Portability has never varied as the content and the medium have remained one and the same.

The big question then becomes whether the embodiment of the book is more overwhelming for consumers than in the music market. I can see that carrying multiple titles around in a Kindle is more practical when travelling, or as a students, but beyond that I personally am pretty wedded to carrying a single book on public transport, to a cafe etc. I like the diversity of covers, typefaces, textures, weights, sizes etc and associate them strongly with my reading experience.

If others share such emotive connections, are Kindles a real threat to publishers, printers and bookstores? Or are they just the cassette player of the noughties?

Saw these two novels (both on my to-read list) near each other on a table at Strand today. Let’s just be kind and say Netherland’s designer was going for an homage …

Any other book doppelgangers out there?

From the sounds of it 14 of the 39 wesley owen book stores have been saved, these have either been brought by the Koorong or CLC companies – no I’ve not heard of them either.

Obviously great news in some ways, as this means there will be 14 areas around the country in which a Christian presence on the high street will be maintained, and the staff at these stores will be able to relax at least a little.

Sadly there is a flip side to this. The grand majority of Wesley owen stores are now in administration, and as such may well shut. Some of these shops may well be rescued by local churches, but I fear not many will be.

Matt Wardman writes:

A crowd of 60-70 people squeezed into St Olav Christian bookstore at 10:00 am on Saturday 12 December for the opening service led by the Rural Dean for Chichester, Richard Hunt.  The picture shows the crowd beginning to gather, at about 9:55.

Read it all.

Years ago when I was queueing to pay for The Subtle Knife, the lady taking my money checked that I had already read Northern Lights. Useful, but unnecessary in my case. On the other hand, in the very same shop, I witnessed a customer asking what to buy for son/grandson after His Dark Materials, which the boy had loved, and they had no clue and stood there helplessly. That time I butted in with my opinion, but maybe that was wrong?

After all that’s happened, this seems an unlikely scenario, but when I read in the paper that the second Harry Potter book had been published, I went to a bookshop to buy the first, as I’d intended to do for so long. I couldn’t remember which title was which, so in order to make sure I wasn’t inadvertently carrying home the second book, I asked. They had no idea, and either not the inclination or the tools to look it up for me.

You simply can’t know when someone in a bookshop will know what you want to find out. I realise that the detailed knowledge about Ballet Shoes in the film You’ve Got Mail can happen, but it’s mostly a fond myth. Even the lovely Meg Ryan can’t have had that much information on all the books she sold.

Ah, I’m just a moaning old witch. I want people to be perfect. Shall I stop complaining about bookshops for a couple of days?

When you read my previous Blog, LaRosa Chronicles, Connecting the Stories: Connection 1, Dated: 10/29/09, you learned that Father Sandro’s Money and Time Has A Way are loosely connected through Emma LaRosa. Emma and Julie are the main characters in Time Has A Way.

Then when you read the Blog, LaRosa Chronicles, Connecting the Stories – Connection 2 – Yesterday, Tommy Gray Drowned , Dated 11/03/09, you learned in Yesterday, Tommy Gray Drowned that Elizabeth, who is the main character is Julie’s mother.

So when you read the Blog, LaRosa Chronicles, Connecting the Stories – Connection 3 , Dated: 11/30/09, you found out that in The next book in the LaRosa Chronicles is Candy-colored Clown, the main characters are Julie and her husband Ken Waters.

Most recently you read my previous Blog, LaRosa Chronicles, Connecting the Stories – Connection 4 , Dated: 12/10/09, where youi learned that in the fifth book of the LaRosa Chronicles, Spiderling , a Suspense/Thriller, set in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Ken & Julie’s fifteen year old daughter is the main character, who goes off to an ecology camp and ends up as a Spiderling .

In Spiderling Ken & Julie’s fifteen year old daughter, Katrina meets Chas. As we start to read  PISCATAGUA Katrina and Chas are best friends, but Chas wants to be more than best friends. As much as convincing Katrina, Chas needs to believe in himself. Meanwhile, more evil looms in the aftermath of Granite Mountain and it takes aim at Katrina and Chas.

The next connection weaves through a few books. In the next Connecting the Stories we’ll look at several characters who will be in Chatham, MA, in Old Cape Cod, living (or dying) through Summer And August . 

Click on any of the Hyperlinked text to see more about each story.
K

You can wrap your own purchases in Swedish shops, Daughter pointed out after her earlier visit to Uppsala. ‘Course you can. It makes complete sense, rather like the inclusive refills of coffee in most places. Whether the British could cope with such freedom is another thing.

In the olden days you obviously had shop staff for this. When buying something, you’d be asked if it was intended as a gift – and at Christmas they would usually assume and not ask – and then they would wrap it for you. Nicely. Then I would guess that shop managers felt it used up too many staff hours, so the paper was supplied for customers to diy.

After this, staff were most likely reduced further, but that’s not the topic here.

This means most shops (all, maybe?) have a large table somewhere, with one or several rolls of nice wrapping paper, chained scissors, sellotape and string, all for the use of customers to wrap what they just bought. Handy, because you can camouflage what you’re giving your darlings for Christmas before you get home.

It saves on money, sort of, as you don’t  have to buy your own paper. (I expect it’s in their overheads, so part of what you’ve paid anyway.) And you can have a varied selection of paper designs under your tree without going mad and buying ten rolls, which will then be the same ten designs for the next few years.

Family lore has it that when GP Cousin was young and pesky, he found the hidden stash of Christmas presents and spent ages running all over town to ascertain which shops had that particular wrapping paper. This was meant to aide him in deducing what exactly he was about to be given. The story ends with him returning home with the relevant knowledge, only to find that the gift tags had been switched round, and those were no longer his presents.

Some shops here in Britain also offer wrapping. Unfortunately it costs rather a lot. What’s far worse, though, is that this isn’t made clear, and you could easily say yes when asked ‘Would you like me to wrap this for you?’ I’d like an upfront price given with such an offer.

Of course, in Sweden many people feel – or claim to feel – too rushed to wrap in the shop, so take a long swathe of paper and a few miles of string home. But I’m sure that is also in the overheads.

As of April, when my novel, Truths, is published by Bold Strokes Books, I am officially a writer. But before I signed a contract I was just an avid reader with aspirations to be a novelist, with no knowledge of the publishing industry at all. Read a book such as The Writer’s Handbook , or  a similar publication, and the best general advice is to know your market. Publishers will want to know both who your target audience is and which other authors they can compare your work with.

So, as I was beginning to write Truths, I set out to research my market–and to find new books to satisfiy the reader in me. Call me old fashioned, but I headed to my local bookshop, rather than flicking on my computer. I know I can find any book I want to online, but I was curious what actually made it onto the shelves. There is no independent bookshop in Nottingham–only secondhand and religious ones anyway–so my target was my local big name chainstore outlet–Waterstones. But a bookshop is a bookshop and this one is so huge I thought I’d pretty much find anything there.

So I scanned the shelves. I found general fiction, military history, sci-fi, crime, romance, kids, sociology, poetry, erotica…in the end I gave up and asked the assisstant. ‘Do you have a gay and lesbian section?’

The answer was no. As you would expect, I asked why not. Apparently they used to have one but–and this is a quote–it attracted ‘the wrong sort of people’. It was tempting to ask if he meant dykes and gay boys but he was a helpful soul and I didn’t want to turn bitter and militant. In fact, he told me, he was keen to see the section reinstated, with better choice. For which he was going to have to look to American publishers. Ignoring what this says about queer publishing in the UK (Bold Strokes, my publisher, are US based too), I have to applaud his intentions.  Clearly they got him nowhere–nearly a year later there is still no LGBTQ section in the shop.

I’m not saying that Waterstones is discriminating unfairly. I can find nearly every book I want on their website and, if a gay author such as Sarah Waters, has the fortune to cross-over into the mainstream their work can be found in the general fiction section. I honestly don’t know the policy in stores outside of Nottingham. And maybe I shouldn’t want queer books shoved in a special section, a sort of literary ghetto? Maybe I should just accept that if their market isn’t mainstream enough then I’m not going to find them on the shelves of a commercial bookseller–after all, I’m not usually a supporter of postive discrimination. I can just go online and find my books and thank my lucky stars for the internet. Maybe I can even buy an e-book.

However, and it’s a big however, I don’t think anything beats browsing the shelves of a bookshop. The joy of holding a book in your hands–looking at the cover, turning it over to read the blurb, flicking to the first chapter, examining the size of the font, putting that one back and looking at what was next to it on the shelf–is one of the most perfect experiences for any reader. I don’t want to be denied that just because the books I read only appeal to a limited market.  As a writer, I want to see my book on the shelf and observe its companions to better know my market. I have to accept that even the bestselling lesbian books don’t sell in the numbers that general fiction books do and they’re never going to make it into that section of the bookshops. So would it hurt to have a shelf–just one little shelf in a huge shop–for queer books? It would make my book buying adventures easier and more pleasurable.

I did find gay erotica books in that particular section. I’m guessing their market is less than the heterosexual books they share their shelves with, but they’re still there and apparently not attracting the ‘wrong sort of people’. How about a few romances by Radclyffe squeezing out some of the Mills and Boon volumes? I don’t ask for every queer book to find a place on their shelves, but what about just some of the bestsellers? Is that really too much to ask?

There is only one dedicated queer bookshop in the UK now, Gay’s the Word in London. But I don’t live in London. I depend on my local bookshop to meet my needs and I’m afraid, whilst I try to be fair minded and understanding of the commercial needs of a high street bookshop, I can’t help but feel my minority status all too painfully when I look for my kind of books on the shelves and can’t find any of them.

Where are you? Doing the rounds of Christmas parties, shopping at Waterstone’s or ordering from Amazon in the comfort of your own homes?

I was going to continue the debate about bookshops that was in the press a month ago (I know, I got sidetracked). Since then I have a feeling that the interest has moved away from whether or not Waterstone’s are evil, to what will happen to poor Borders?

On the whole, bookshops are nice places to go. Some have policies that are more palatable than others. But they do at least sell books. Few of us can say that we don’t mind what we pay, and some years ago I used to pay more than I needed to in order to support our local independent. I don’t any longer. In the rare circumstances that I need a book now, I may go for a 3 for 2 in a chain if I’m out shopping, but most likely I’ll order on the internet.

Bad witch.

I boycotted Waterstone’s for a few years when they treated the Terry Pratchett fans who came prepared to an event, with new book already purchased, as the lowest of customers. Let them wait for a few hours at the back of the queue since they weren’t going to pay for another one. Fenced off like cattle.

But at least the chains don’t force you to buy out of a sense of duty. Just because you have entered an independent bookshop, doesn’t mean you are made of money. Maybe you only needed one book, and could just about face paying full price for it. The last thing you need is to have a few more books waved in front of you by the ‘handselling’ indie owner, pointing out that these would be just your thing. And how about this one, too?

And ordering books fast. Is that Waterstone’s doing? Or is it that things in general have moved on, so that you can have the book next day, rather than the three weeks I used to have to wait? That long ago, I was usually accompanied by a family member in a pushchair, and our town had two bookshops. Both with an upstairs, which was where you had to pick up the book you’d waited so long for. For a while I favoured the shop with a lift, until it broke.

‘So you mean I can’t get up there?’ ‘That’s right…’ I moved on to the liftless shop, where they offered to help carry my young person up the stairs. (But it would really have made sense to offer to pop up and get the book for me, wouldn’t it?)

Personally I like the new style shops with seats and drinks, but if I’m to settle in for that long, I’ll want customer toilets, too. And not of the variety where you get a key/code once you’ve paid for your purchases, as though you’re a child. And we all know children are hardly ever nice, except when older generations spend on books for them.

Most bookshops and most chains have got something going for them.  I have finally grasped after years in Britain, that you mustn’t admit to being hard up. Though that could be why you have picked the cheaper shop, or even why you aren’t buying at all. And you must always, always buy things for people. Gifts and cards for every reason, no matter how distant or ridiculous. I have adapted to this, too, but almost wish I hadn’t.

Scrooge needn’t be bad tempered and unfriendly, but Scrooginess is necessary as far as saving money/earth’s resources are concerned. We can go too far.

There have been so many other things to talk about I haven’t provided an update on the progress of  Summer & August in a while.

Lisa, of www.BookInk.com, Editor-in-Chief and dear friend, has completed her review and edits, and as usual has provided valuable recommendations and insight. I am in process of implementing her recommendations. When this stage is complete we will have a Final Manuscript. But, my final-final process of ensuring satisfaction with the manuscript is narrating the Audio Book.

As I listen to the story I sometimes (always) make changes in every Chapter! (more like every page) It’s a nice final check for me. I will most likely record a chapter four or five days per week.  And subsequently make any changes in the Manuscript. That will put us into early February for being ready for publication. Making print and CD copies of Summer & August on schedule for May 2010 release.
K

Yes, the title is meaningless in the age of Amazon, but The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Toronto is an Experience. Twenty-seven kilometers of bookshelves under fluorescent lighting that makes every reader look like Adrian Mole–spotty and earnest, with no hope of getting laid–in a room that could host an Indian wedding. Canada does big like India does crowded. There. Is. No. Competition.

TWBB was born in 1978, when the Coles brothers converted a bowling alley  into a bookstore. Clever brand-namery there–some say TWBB is no longer the biggest, but the store still claims the right to the name, which it wears in pugnacious red letters. 

(Pic from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Biggest_Bookstore.)

This picture is from 2005, but the cop car and delivery truck apparently haven’t moved since.

TWBB is owned by a mega-corporation (Chapters Indigo, Canada’s largest book retailer), so the titles are pretty much those at any big chain bookstore. Lots of shiny happy rows of genre fiction; I’d still go to Ms.  Internet to find that obscure title. There’s also a section peddling fake-scented candles and oversized teddy bears and gilt toilet paper and other frou-frous for People with Too Much Disposable Income, which has no business in a bookstore.

The good stuff: there’s a great children’s selection, and a really deep SF section. And a huge magazine section, with a heartening array of literary journals–I found not just Geist and Queen’s Quarterly but also their younger, funkier brethren. The lit. mags. are stacked on the very bottom of the shelf display, and I had to crawl on my hands and knees along the concrete floor to browse, so I couldn’t note down any new names where I could send my rejected work.

Lots of books on sale, yes, but prices are standard across all Chapters locations. Where TWBB scores is volume–if the Chapters website has the book, this location will probably have a copy. The store has hundreds of thousands of gazillions of books, making me feel a bit like a seventeen year old in the Playboy Mansion–not knowing where or how to begin. But look elsewhere for a bookshop that welcomes the reader;  TWBB does not encourage browsing. No squashy couches here–after much searching, I found an ass-numbing bench right next to the restroom, and I bet its location was deliberately chosen.   No places to plug your laptop. No sunlight, and Hades at the till. But TWBB is as solid and self-assured as a brick shithouse; go to the nearby Eaton Centre Indigo if you need macchiato and smiling staff with your reading. 

TWBB is unapologetic about its dourness–I hear the store ran an ad campaign some years ago which included the line “Like other bookstores, we have places to sit. But why aggravate your hemorrhoids?” TWBB’s attitude would sit a lot better if I didn’t believe some marketing podperson at HQ had figured out how striking an anti-commerical pose could make more profits. That said, I have never visited a bookstore without making a purchase, and in my last visit, I left with three books, including James Wood’s  How Fiction Works (on sale for $6.99, original price $24). Whether that was a bargain of course remains to be seen.

Borders is dead, long live the independents.

When Borders came into the UK and bought up Books etc, what happened? A superb small bookshop chain that knew what it was doing slipped out of sight. We know what BIG can do. It goes bust with a BANG in bad times, well, a dull thud in this case.

Do we get the message? BIG doesn’t work in tough times. So why not support the people who are there for us with books year in and year out.

In my area there’s ONLY one – Stoke Newington Bookshop – owned and run by Jo for the last twenty-two years. She’s seen whole families of readers grow up, took over the floor space when Barclays moved out..remember that? A bit before my time. Jo has weathered rent rises, publisher and writer collapses, buyers and banks coming and going.

It’s a superb shop, one of the best book table layouts I’ve ever seen. If you are a  reader who likes to book-browse without pressure this is the shop for you.

Stoke Newington Bookshop 159 Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16 0NY (near the t-junction with Stoke Newington Church Street)

Is there any valid excuse at all for me not having gone into the Uppsala English Bookshop at the weekend?

No, I didn’t think so either. Let’s blame it on old age and exhaustion. They’re always useful things to drag out. Repeatedly if necessary.

Uppsala has an English language bookshop, which I have encountered before, since they always make it to the Gothenburg book fair. I thought it’d be good to go in personally, though. Son says it’s a great shop, and I believe him. I suspect I couldn’t afford their prices, however.

Son says they have the radio on in the shop. For ambience, presumably. Son also says it’s a Northern Irish radio station. I assume they know?

(Me, I’ll just crawl back into some corner or other and nurse my most notable souvenir from the weekend; namely the most magnificent cold I’ve managed to acquire in years. Well done, witch.)

Matt Wardman writes:

I mentioned in a previous posting that we had written to a number of outlets to publicise the call for Creditors of the former-SPCK bookshop chain, and to raise a number of concerns about the way the brevity of the deadline, and the narrowness of the subset of creditors likely to see a notice placed only in The Bookseller.

Edited versions of our letters have been published in both the Church Times and the Church of England Newspaper, and the full letter in The Bookseller. Christian Marketplace has also carried an article on their website about the Call for Creditors.

We hope, in particular, to start a wider debate in the Book Trade about the nefarious activities of the Messrs Brewer over the last several years, which is long overdue.

In our view, and based on published and unpublished information, a criminal investigation is more than merited.

The Church Times edited out the bits about the deceptive 2008 Bankruptcy attempt in Texas. We are grateful to all publications which carried the letter.

This is the full text of our letter to The Bookseller:

Call for Creditors of Saint Stephen the Great Trust to come forward

Dear Sir

We write as the editors of the SPCK-SSG News Blog (spckssg.wordpress.com). We have been working, with many others, to scrutinise the management of the former-SPCK bookshop chain for 2 years now.

The chain of bookshops was taken over in October/November 2006 by a charity controlled by J Mark Brewer and Philip Brewer, and has been gradually run down since that date.

At least 7 different corporate entities have been used to in managing the chain. These comprise 3 charities (1119839, 1119839-1 and 1109008), 3 private companies (FC028292, FC028290, FC028291), and a Company Limited by Guarantee (06110519); some have similar or identical names, and all were controlled at the outset by various permutations of Brewer family members.

After complaints in 2008, and after a Charity Commission “Section 8” investigation (case ref WTF 1119839/685451), in April this year an “Interim Manager” was appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great charity (1119839), and the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust ( 1119839-1).

Last week The Bookseller included a notice from the Interim Manager, suggesting that “Creditors who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007, should write to the Interim Manager at Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT under ref S8703 before the close of business on 16 December 2009.” This notice causes us several concerns.

As far as we are aware the notice has only been published in The Bookseller, while the SPCK chain was a business with worldwide links. SPCK creditors may include English Cathedrals, communion wine suppliers, development charities, craft businesses, religious communities in the UK and overseas and others. How can such a range of creditors can be realistically expected to respond to a notice with a 3 week deadline in a booktrade magazine, posted up to 3 years after the relevant debts were incurred?

In summer 2008, J Mark Brewer attempted to take an organisation, which he called “St Stephen the Great, LLC”, into bankruptcy in the South Texas Bankruptcy Court (case 08-33689-H1). His court submission failed to identify the UK bookshops under his control, but did provide a substantially accurate listing of unpaid debts which had arisen over the previous 12 months. This included several hundred creditors, and more than £1m of debts. This case was subsequently dismissed “with prejudice”, and Mr Brewer – himself a lawyer and former Congressional Candidate – required to pay a penalty and take remedial education in the area of Legal Ethics. Under the quoted cutoff date of July 2007, many debts identified in these court submissions may be ruled out of a possible settlement.

We encourage all potential creditors to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contact details in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site; these are stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We also hope that specific contact will be made with creditors identified in the Court Documents, who are potential creditors even within the restricted period, and that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic date.

Yours etc

Phil Groom. Editor, UK Christian Bookshops Directory, christianbookshops.org.uk
Matt Wardman, SPCK-SSG News Blog, spckssg.wordpress.com

And our letter to the Church Times:

Call for Creditors of Saint Stephen the Great Trust to come forward

Dear Sir

First of all we must thank the Interim Manager appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, and Saint Stephen the Great, charities for his work in “stopping the rot” in the former-SPCK bookshop chain, and recovering the shops (Durham Cathedral Bookshop excepted) from Philip and J Mark Brewer. At least we are now on the way *out* of the woods.

However, we note that last week The Bookseller trade magazine included a notice from the Interim Manager of the Saint Stephen the Great Trust, suggesting that “Creditors who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007, should write to the Interim Manager at Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT under ref S8703 before the close of business on 16 December 2009.” This causes us some concerns.

We have been working to scrutinise the mismanagement of the former-SPCK bookshop chain for more than 2 years now, and we are concerned by several aspects of the statement made by the Interim Manager.

The Interim Manager is completely right that this whole affair has been made fearsomely complex by the use by J Mark and Philip Brewer of at least 7 different corporate entities to obfuscate their actions over the last 3 years. These comprise 3 charities (1119839, 1119839-1 and 1109008), 3 private companies (FC028292, FC028290, FC028291), and a Company Limited by Guarantee (06110519), some of which have similar or identical names, and all controlled by various permutations of Brewer family members. There was also an 8th alleged corporate entity, SSG LLC, which appeared in J Mark Brewer’s sworn submissions to the South Texas Bankruptcy Court in summer 2008, but which turned out to exist only in his imagination.

The USDAW Employment Tribunal action, which was settled out of court earlier this year, was impeded by this complexity, and a lack of clarity as to which entity J Mark and Philip Brewer were acting on behalf of at different times, whether their actions at each point were legal or not, and their peculiar reluctance to keep written records. In the end USDAW had to name three separate bodies as respondents because it was not clear which entity employed and managed different members of staff at different points in time. If the Interim Manager had not commendably reached a negotiated settlement, this Tribunal would be going round in ever-decreasing circles even now.

The notice as published seeks creditors of “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust”, without identifying a specific charity number, and restricts the call to debts incurred before the end of June 2007. Given the confused governance and business relationships, we suggest that the Interim Manager needs to cast a far wider net, at least initially.

We are also concerned that the deadline for responses to the notice has been set for December 16th. The SPCK bookshop chain was a business with worldwide links, and the range of creditors may well include Cathedrals owed rent, communion wine suppliers, development charities, craft businesses, religious communities in Eastern Europe, a consulting engineer used to design an improvement scheme, and others. All of these creditor groups appear in the 2008 Texas court documents referred to above, and – despite the 2008 bankruptcy attempt having been fraudulent – we have found the records of debtors declared to be largely accurate.

We are a little baffled as to how such a range of creditors can be realistically expected to respond to a notice with a 3 week deadline in a Booktrade Magazine, posted up to 3 years after the relevant debts were incurred. Also, would a single notice adequately meet legal requirements where such a wide range of creditors are affected?

So we urge all creditors, and potential creditors, to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contact details in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site, which are stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We have done what we can to bring wider attention to the published notice, but we hope that specific contact will be made with the hundreds of suppliers identified in the Court Documents, who are potential creditors even within the period before June 2007. Any debts before this date would be in addition to the more than £1m of debts identified in the 2008 Court submissions.

We also hope that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic period, perhaps to the end of January 2010.

Yours etc

Phil Groom. Editor, UK Christian Bookshops Directory, christianbookshops.org.uk
Matt Wardman, SPCK-SSG News Blog, spckssg.wordpress.com
Simon Barrow, Co-Director, Ekklesia, ekklesia.co.uk

]]> http://lifeisfor.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/support-your-local-bookshop-this-christmas/ Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:43:43 +0000 alcsmith http://lifeisfor.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/support-your-local-bookshop-this-christmas/

Following my post about Consumer Social Responsibility, I was interested to read this piece from Rachel Cooke -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/29/borders-bookshops-independent-lutyens-rubinstein

Where will you be buying your books for Christmas? Me, I’ll be popping to David’s in Letchworth Garden City http://www.davids-bookshops.co.uk/

I hate bookshops. I really, really do. There is nothing worse than walking into one, knowing fully well that there’s no bloody way your current straitened finances would be able to withstand another dose of those incredibly overpriced titles and yet you go; you stare; you file away some titles for future reference; you wonder when you’d be able to actually afford some of those blasted books; and you come back.

No, no, wait a sec, there actually is something worse. You know those times, those heady days, blissful hours, when yer scraping the bottom of the bloody barrel. When the dosh in your bank account is somewhere in the upper double digits or the lower triple digits. And DESPITE that, you splurge on those aforementioned incredibly overpriced titles.

I know I am a git. I just keep on proving it again and again!

On the subject of books, Borges is trippy, trippy stuff. Seriously. I used to think Rushdie was good. Well, I still do. But the chap’s nowhere near the Borgesian brand of manic trippiness. Surreal shit. Really want to read Bolaño now though.

Oh and btw, Pratchett’s on the same rack as Stephanie Myers. Douglas Adams is in the same section. I think there’s a show on one of those kiddie channels called Ninja Pandav. Wouldn’t be surprised to see its script novelizations  somewhere around a Roth or Faulkner next. Or perhaps Hagemaru might turn out to be the next Rabbit.

South City now has a KFC. And a Pizza Hut. Why couldn’t those bozos have opened it, say, a year earlier. Duffers have no friggin sense of timing.

Lost a pair of khakis recently. Which was kinda weird. I don’t lose too many clothes. Or to be a bit more precise, I don’t have too many clothes to lose from. And the darned thing just disappeared from my cupboard. I think I can now count the sum-total of ‘non-casual wear’ in my ‘wardrobe’ using my fingers. On one hand.

I’ve been often accused of having no sense of propriety insofar as my general attire is concerned. Turning up at marriages in sneakers and t-shirts, or at slightly less formal-dos in pajamas is apparently infra dig. Well, here’s what I have to say; ‘Tis not that I am under-dressed. Its just that everybody else is so friggin’ over-dressed. That, and casuals rock. Period.

Semi-formals ain’t that bad either; The entire point about ‘em would appear to be that you want to look moderately respectable, but not go overboard with it. Which is alright. At least you are saved the whole suit-and-tie shabang. The world would have been so much a better place though, with a uniform tees and jeans policy (sigh).

You can get a plate of Papri Chaat outside my building for twenty-five bucks. Not so long back, it used to be ten bucks (sigh sigh).

Go and watch ‘Up’ if you haven’t seen it yet. Probably the most delightful flick I have caught all year. Gotta hand it over to these Pixar-wallahs; Ratatouille in 2007, Wall-E last year, and now this. Another Academy Award would appear to be a cinch. In terms of potential competition, I can only think of Coraline. But then, Coraline didn’t have a Dug. Or lines which went, “My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, Borders has gone into administration and is closing all its stores. They claim they’re still trying to sell the chain as a going concern: by the looks of it, this means that their main concern is to make sure everything goes…

Everything must go!

Browsing the Oxford branch at lunchtime was a fairly dispiriting experience, to be honest; the queues were enormous, and while there was still a fair amount of stock on the shelves it all seemed to be a bit B-list. In most cases where something did briefly tempt me I found myself thinking “Yeah, but I could get this cheaper on Amazon, eBay, ABEBooks, GreenMetropolis…” Which is probably part of the reason why they’re closing. However, I did pick up a couple of bargains in the computing section, where 30% off a huge O’Reilly book makes a significant difference (if only they’d reduce the weight of the books by a similar amount!) — plus the last copy of The Eco Worrier’s Handbook, which I probably wouldn’t have bought otherwise (so it wasn’t really a bargain).

Borders have dropped their prices over the course of the past week and they’re now offering at least 20% off nearly everything (though not magazines and newspapers) and as much as 50% off some things. There may be bigger discounts to come, but I suspect this weekend may be the sweet spot between a useful saving and a chance of them actually still having anything you want.

Matt Wardman writes:

We have a  letter published in the Church Times this week about the former SPCK bookshop chain. Kudos to the CT for putting it outside the paywall, where everyone can see it.

A fuller version, with a few points about the J Mark Brewer attempt (known to us as the Great Texan Wild Goose Chase) to dodge debts by putting a sort-of conflation of various bits of his organisations into Bankruptcy in South Texas, declaring lots of debts but none of the assets, is in this week’s Bookseller – but they don’t always put letters online.

Debts of the former SPCK bookshop chain

From Mr Phil Groom and others

Sir,

We must thank the Interim Manager appointed to oversee the Saint Stephen the Great Charitable Trust, and Saint Stephen the Great, charities for his work in stopping the rot in the former SPCK bookshop chain, and recovering the shops (Durham Cathedral Bookshop excepted) from Philip and J. Mark Brewer. At least we are now on the way out of the woods.

We note, however, the notice from him in The Bookseller last week suggesting that creditors “who believe that they have a valid claim against the Trustees of St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust incurred before 1 July 2007” should write to him at: The Interim Manager, Begbies Traynor (Central) LLP, 32 Cornhill, London EC3V 3BT, under “ref. S8703” before the close of business on 16 December.

This causes us some concerns. The Interim Manager is completely right that this whole affair has been made fearsomely complex by the use by J. Mark and Philip Brewer of at least seven different corporate entities over the past three years. These comprise three charities, three private companies, and a company limited by guarantee, some of which have similar or identical names, and all controlled by various permuta­tions of the Brewer family members.

The notice as published seeks creditors of “St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust”, without identifying a specific charity number, and restricts the call to debts incurred before the end of June 2007. Given the confused governance and business relation­ships, we suggest that the Interim Manager needs to cast a far wider net, at least initially.

We are also concerned about the deadline for responses. The SPCK bookshop chain was a business with worldwide links, and the range of creditors may well include cathed­rals, communion-wine suppliers, development charities, craft busi­nesses, religious communities in Eastern Europe, a consulting engineer, and others. All of these creditor groups appeared in Texas court documents in 2008.

We urge all creditors, and potential creditors, to get in touch with the Interim Manager using the contacts in the notice, and/or those given on the Charity Commission site stsgct@gothamerskine.co.uk, via email, or by phone on 020 7490 1880.

We hope that a specific contact will be made with the hundreds of suppliers identified in the court documents. We also hope that the deadline for responses will be extended to a more realistic period, perhaps to the end of January 2010.

PHIL GROOM
MATT WARDMAN
SIMON BARROW

Who would you queue for? And once you have queued, do you mind the brief and often impersonal contact achieved in 30 seconds or so? (Yes, I know, many of you stop and spend time on each fan, doodling and chatting and being friendly. But not all queuees do.)

Sara Paretsky was wondering this on her blog recently. She felt that she’d want her special Sara-ness to be recognised. So do I. My witchyness has to be acknowledged for complete happiness, but sometimes I’m willing to receive the 30 second blank stare simply to have been that close to X. It’s better than not having got close at all.

It’s the several hours in the queue I’m not too keen on. Let’s face it; I’m too old and nervous to cope well with any wait, so I don’t think I could do the Jacqueline Wilson style queue for most of the day (or was it just JW who spent eight hours signing, rather than her fans?). What makes sense is to plot and plan how you get to the beginning of the queue. Daughter and I did a careful recce in Cheltenham last year in anticipation of beating all the John Barrowman fans to it. (Not me, her.) And Michael Morpurgo at the National Theatre went accidentally well, with us just happening to be at the front.

I didn’t care enough for a Neil Gaiman signature to stand on a London street for hours that time a few years ago, when I had no idea of his cult status, and marvelled at the snake of people all over Covent Garden. When Terry Pratchett’s signing in Manchester turned into a barricade, thanks to Waterstone’s staff, we didn’t bother staying, either, despite Son’s admiration for Terry.

On the other hand, the queue for Wilbur Smith at the local bookshop last year wasn’t all that slow, despite him taking the time to shake people’s hand. Twice. And he asked people if they were ‘together’, which seems awfully risky to me.

Offspring and I stood in line to meet Sara Paretsky the first time we saw her. And she was friendly. The second time I took an alternative route, and asked to interview her, which can cut down on waiting time. It needn’t, since people often run late on tours. But you can wait sitting down, and generally you get more than the blank 30 seconds.

In theory there are people I’d wait hours for, except I don’t wait well. And close up some people can be a disappointment.