Mr B's Twelve Reading
Days of Christmas
You can come and see any of the books from the catalogue below
at
our shop in Bath or you can order by phone or
email.
We post anywhere & offer a gift-wrap service (hand-written
note/card).
Click on the links below or scroll down
First
day *
Second day *
Third
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Fourth day *
Fifth
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Sixth
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Seventh day
Eight
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Ninth
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Tenth day *
Eleventh day *
Twelfth day
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On
the
First
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
One
book that’s perfect for any stocking
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A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire by Charles Dickens
Who better to curl up with this Christmas than the master
story-teller himself? This collection, published in its entirety for
the first time since 1852, offers up tales of romance, theft,
justice, ghosts and family reunions.
Paperback * Hesperus Press * £6.99
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On the
Second
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Two
Books You’re Unlikely To See Elsewhere
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Italian Joy by Carla Coulson
A feast of all
things Florentine! Carla did what many of us only dream of….giving
up a well-paid job to go and find some passion and excitement in
Italy. Falling in love with Florence, she settled there and this
book is a celebration of the streets, bars, food and people which
gave her a new joy in life. A very funkily designed book, with lots
of grainy photos of gesticulating Italians and sumptuous
architectural detail.
Hardback * Penguin Lantern * £24.99
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The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis
Buzbee
A book for
people whose God is the book and whose places of worship are the
wonderful shops (if I may say so) that sell them. Lewis Buzbee’s
incredibly charming book is not unlike one of the eccentric
atmospheric treasure troves he describes, with the chapters rambling
through many related angles on his overriding theme—the love of
those proper bookshops where browsing is encouraged, where coffee
brews, where staff and customers chat about the books they love and
hate and where you never know what you might find. If only Bath had
a place like that….
Hardback * Graywolf Press * £10.99 |
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On the
Third
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Three
Memorable Memoirs
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Nature’s Engraver—A Life of Thomas
Bewick: Jenny Uglow
In this illustrated biography, we get an insight into the story of
the farmer’s son from Tyneside who revolutionized wood-engraving and
book illustration, producing a field-guide of British Birds for
ordinary people, with astonishing beauty and accuracy.
Paperback * Faber & Faber * £9.99
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Gadfly in Russia: Alan Sillitoe
A fascinating
account of Sillitoe’s journey across Russia in 1967 in a boxy blue
Peugeot, with his “official escort” who became a close friend. He
recounts their adventures in Russia’s vast landscape – with insights
into the history, people and politics of the time. Sillitoe is the
author of the hugely successful “The Loneliness of the Long Distance
Runner”.
Hardback * JR Books Ltd * £16.99
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Barefaced Lies & Boogie Woogie Boasts: Jools Holland
We’re not
celebrity-biography-crazy at Mr B’s but when a genuine contemporary
music genius like Jools Holland jots down some tales from his life,
we’re first in the queue. Crammed full of stories from the days he
was
Up the Junction to Later
and brimming
over with his opinions on music and the industry.
Hardback * Michael Joseph Ltd * £18.99
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On the
Fourth
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Four
Very Different Christmassy CDs
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Medieval Christmas: The Orlando Consort
If you just
can’t take any more “Slade” this Christmas, then this is just the
tonic for you. Gorgeous and unusual carols and feast day music from
10th-16th century ranging from sparkly to serene. Put down the
shopping bags and relax into a medieval Christmas.
Single CD * Harmonia Mund * £14
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The Swingle Singers: Unwrapped
The latest
offering from this zany multi-national eight-piece vocal combo who,
as ever, use their voices to reach the parts that normally only
instruments reach. Every note is sung making this the ultimate
a
cappella
Christmas disc.
16 seasonal favourites from “In the Bleak Midwinter” to “Santa Baby”
and just about everything in between (except, mysteriously, no
Swingle Bell Rock!).
Single CD * Signum Classics * £14
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17th Century Christmas Eve: with Susanne Rydén & Bell’Arte Salzburg
A new release
for Christmas from Mr B’s music label favourites, Winter & Winter.
Soprano Susanne Rydén and Austrian ensemble Bell’Arte Salzburg
transport us to a lebenskuchen laden, clove-scented wintry
wonderland with their rendition of a 17th Century Germanic Christmas
eve concert.
Single CD * Winter & Winter * £15
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It’s Snowing on My Piano: Bugge
Wesseltoft
If there’s one thing the Germans know how to do, it’s dish out the
Christmas atmosphere. So here’s a funky award-winning album of piano
jazz interpretations of traditional Christmas tracks. Perfect for
some different and more contemporary feeling Christmas music to
accompany the present-opening. The long-awaited sequel to Bugge’s
marching tune classic
“It’s raining on My Parade”
(Ok, I made that bit up.)
Single CD *ACT *£14
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On the
Fifth
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Five
Prize-Winning Books
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The Nobel Prize for Literature
The Grass is Singing: Doris Lessing
Lessing’s first book, set in Rhodesia, had an instant global
impact. The story of Mary’s failed marriage and her destructive
affair with a black farmhand, it is also a devastating parable of
colonialism and the white presence in Africa.
Paperback * Harpercollins *£7.99
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The Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
Imperial Life in the Emerald City:
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
A shocking
analysis of failings and incompetence of the US’s reconstruction
effort in Iraq from the former Washington Post Baghdad bureau
chief.
Graham Greene’s
The Quiet American
writ large.
Hardback * Bloomsbury * £12.99
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The Orange Prize for Fiction (by Women)
Half of a Yellow Sun: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Five characters
journey through colonial disintegration and the savage Biafran civil
war. Political and moral issues intersect, confuse and intensify
the mix of sex, love and betrayal.
Paperback * Harperperennial * £7.99
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The Somerset Maugham Award (for best writer under 35)
The Amnesia Clinic: James Scudamore
Two teenage
boys set off in search of a missing mother against the lush backdrop
of Ecuador and some serious make-believe. But the transformative
power of the imagination has to be balanced by reality or bad stuff
happens.
Paperback * Vintage * £7.99
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The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (for novelist & translator)
The Book of Chameleons: Jose Eduardo Agualusa (translated by Daniel
Hahn)
A
Portuguese/Angolan magical realist novel narrated by a lizard about
a man who sells new pasts. A beautiful, original novel about the
unreliability of memory.
Paperback * Arcadia Books * £7.99
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On the
Sixth
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Team B’s
Six
Favourite Reads This Year
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Juliette’s pick
Rebecca: Daphne Du Maurier
I know, I know,
I can’t believe I’d never read this before. Set in windswept
Cornwall, it’s a truly gothic novel with repressed anger, jealousy,
passion, incredible suspense and some beautifully evocative scenic
descriptions. The perfect haunting novel to read (or re-read) this
winter. (Fans should also see
The Daphne Du Maurier Companion
edited by Helen Taylor)
Paperback * Virago * £7.99
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Harvey’s pick
The Total Library (Non-fiction 1922–1986): J.L.Borges
A collection of
reflections, essays, reviews, and other typically brief miscellany
from the master short story teller and most erudite of readers. I
ration myself to one a day.
Paperback * Penguin Classics * £12.99
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Nic’s pick
What Was Lost: Catherine O’Flynn
A fabulous debut novel deftly combining humour and sadness.
Involving a ten year-old self-professed private detective and her
toy monkey, an array of characters (suspicious and otherwise) at
Green Oaks shopping centre and two cleverly connecting plots that
are 20 years apart.
Paperback * Tindal Street Press * £8.99
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Caroline’s pick
Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with
“Franz Ferdinand”: Alex Kapranos
Both insightful and anecdotal, this travelogue from Franz
Ferdinand’s singer and guitarist Alex Kapranos charts just some of
the weird, wonderful and sometimes slightly unsavoury culinary
tastes and traditions he encounters on his travels with the band.
Paperback * Penguin * £7.99
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The Book Monkey’s pick
The Raw Shark Texts: Steven Hall
And now for something completely different! A brilliantly inventive
debut that propels you on a high-octane labyrinthine mystery. No
monkeys in it (a missed opportunity) but features Eric Sanderson,
Ian the cat and all the previous Eric Sandersons. Intrigued?? (“Ian
the Cat”
badges available from Mr B’s on request.)
Paperback * Canongate * £7.99
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Vlashka’s pick
Scaredy Squirrel makes a friend: Melanie Watt
(Picked, we fear, more for subject-matter than literary merit)
I like
this because it’s all about a squirrel who is too scared to come
down from his tree. I like scaring squirrels. Teehee.
Hardback * Catnip Publishing * £9.99 |
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On the
Seventh
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Seven
Snowy Stocking-Fillers
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The Wrong Kind of Snow: The Complete
Daily Companion to the British Weather: Robert Penn and Antony
Woodward
Facts, amusing historical anecdotes,
British Rail excuses and of course Michael Fish’s embarrassing
“Hurricane? What hurricane?” incident - a book to celebrate all that
makes us obsessed with the weather and why we never fail to find it
interesting!
Hardback * Hodder * £14.99
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The Christmas Letters: Simon Hoggart
(the Ultimate Collection of Round Robin Letters)
Round robins are the reality TV of the
Christmas card world. Simon Hoggart's collection of the best of the
best is excruciatingly, toe-curlingly good.
Paperback * Atlantic Books * £7.99
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The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy’s
Last Year: Jay Parini
In his dying year, trapped between his
controlling, materialistic wife and his overbearingly loyal
followers, Tolstoy makes a dramatic final flight from his home but
is too ill to continue beyond a tiny country station. Based on the
diaries of those closest to him it’s a wonderful fictionalised
account of a gentle man struggling with his conscience.
Paperback * Canongate * £8.99
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Let the Northern
Lights Erase Your Name: Vendela Vida
A perfect “toast a marshmallow,
curl-up by the fire and read it in one sitting” novel. After her
father dies (and she discovers he wasn’t her father after all!)
Clarissa Iverton sets off on a frosty journey of discovery from New
York to Helsinki and then to the Arctic Circle. Lots of chilling and
sparse prose which is cleverly evocative of the fascinating
landscape it’s set in.
Paperback * Atlantic Books * £7.99
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Prairie Home
Christmas: Garrison Keillor
A first UK audiobook compiling
extracts from the long-runnning Prairie Home radio broadcasts (the
subject of a major movie in 2006). The ingenuous, witty tales of
Christmas goings on in Keillor’s trademark fictionalised provincial
America are so full of seasonal charm that you expect Bing and Perry
to march on at any moment.
Audio CD * Hodder Audio * £14.99
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Hercule
Poirot’s Christmas: Agatha Christie
Poirot’s
most seasonal, and perhaps most remarkable, case sees him in fine
form both at the dinner table and on the sleuthing trail. This is a
wonderful facsimile hardback edition with a lovely snowy cover.
Hardback * Harper Collins * £12.99
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Escape from the Antarctic: Ernest
Shackleton
The classic true story of the
survivors of the “Endurance”,
marooned on an island in the Antarctic. Gorgeous pocket-sized book
in the twenty-book “Great
Journeys”
series by Penguin.
Paperback * Penguin * £4.99
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On
the
Eighth
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Eight
Nature-Inspired Delights
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How to be Wild: Simon Barnes
In his year long journey through the wild Barnes contemplates not
only nature but our place in it and how it influences us culturally
and psychologically, historically, even philosophically.
Hardback * Short Books * £14.99
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The Wild Places: Robert Macfarlane
We seem to have forgotten that much of Britain is still a wild and
extremely beautiful place. Macfarlane takes us to the places we
have forgotten and describes them in such a way that you won't want
to go on holiday abroad again.
Hardback * Granta Books * £18.99
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A Dream of Jewelled Fishes—Reflections on Angling: John Aston
A fishing life and an exploration and description of the psychology
and passion of angling - for anglers (obviously) but so beautifully
written as to be accessible also to the non-fisherman.
Hardback * Aurum Press * £12.99
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The Apple Source Book: Angela King & Sue Clifford
A gorgeous, mouth-watering celebration of nearly 3,000 varieties of
apple we can grow in these islands, with their distinctive flavours,
uses, places of origin, stories and associated customs.
Hardback * Hodder & Stoughton * £16.99
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Wildwood—A Journey
Through Trees: Roger Deakin
Deakin’s love for all things wild is clearly tangible, but his prose
preserves a human and accessible scale throughout. This risks
changing your view of the humble tree forever.
Hardback * Hamish Hamilton * £20
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A Venetian Bestiary: Jan Morris
The doyen of travel writers takes a cultural history tour of Venice
through the prism of the many magical animals that have inspired and
transformed it.
Hardback * Faber & Faber * £12.99
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Flights of Fancy: Peter Tate
A fascinating look into birds in legends, myths and susperstitions.
Beautifully illustrated, it’s a lovely gift for any bird or nature
lover.
Hardback * Random House * £10
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Crow Country: Mark Cocker
A paean to the life of crows and their place in our culture. A
brilliant example of how one person's passion can be transmitted and
felt through the power of beautiful writing.
Hardback * Jonathan Cape * £16.99
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On the
Ninth
day of Christmas, Mr B’s gives to you….
Nine
Highlights from Mr B’s 2007 Countries of the Month
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Canada
The Door:
Margaret Atwood
This is Atwood’s first book of poetry for over 10 years. These
sparkling poems interrogate the certainties we build our lives on
and range from lyric to ironic, from personal to political.
Hardback * Virago Press * £9.99
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Argentina
Kiss of the
Spider Woman: Manuel Puig
A novel of friendship and betrayal in an Argentine jail—with a
wicked twist in the tail.
Paperback * Vintage * £7.99
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Portugal
The Migrant Painter of Birds: Lidia Jorge
Contemporary novel written in a beautifully poetic style concerning
the gradual break-up of a family, its property and its position in
society.
Hardback
* Harvill Press * £14.99
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Sweden
Pippi Longstocking : Astrid Lindgren (Illustrated by Lauren Child)
Any girl who lives with a monkey is a winner in our eyes! The
original “girl-power” heroine has been given a modern face-lift by
Lauren Child, whose illustrations perfectly suit spirited young
Pippi.
Ages 8+
Hardback * OUP * £14.99
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