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11/12/2022 Preparing our stock for our next event! Today, I am selecting my stock for a special event in December whilst listening to Chaper Zero, the latest album by one of my favourite artists Jordan Reyne (I interviewed many years ago about her first novel - you can read the interview HERE (you'll need to scroll down to get to the interview with Jordan).
I will post more about the event once once I've had confirmation! Really excited about this one so fingers crossed... I'm selecting really cool books for this event - art, design, fashion, cinema, music... And of course I will have copies of my two published novels I am a Muse and The Book of Thoth. Watch this space!  I've started to prepare my stock for an event I'll be doing in December... Watch this space, I'll announce it later this month! I will of course promote it and my stock on here and on my websites as soon as it's 100% confirmed. I'll be taking this very special stash of 1960s Royal Shakespeare Theatre programmes! They are special because their design is super cool (Swinging Sixties and all that!) and some of the plays feature some iconic personalities (Ian Richardson, Diana Rigg...) but in addition of the programmes themselves, some of them have hidden treasures inside: extra actors profiles, press cuttings and tickets for the performances. And... I found two handwritten notes with notes that could be used for a review of the play, all dated and signed J.C. Trewin. It therefore looks like these programmes belonged to the respected critic and writer John Courtenay Trewin OBE (1908-1990), who wrote for The Morning Post, The Observer, Punch, The Illustrated London News, Sketch and many more... An absolutely amazing find... Coming to a stall near you (and to my online shop in 2023!).
 This lovely book was picked up during my recent trip to France. I saw it and couldn't leave it behind! Robert Desnos (4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) is a famous writer in France, and his poems are often used in schools, especially primary schools. But he was much, much more than that and had a fascinating career cut short by an early, tragic end. He was associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements (he was considered a surrealist writer) and was a literary, jazz and cinema critic, playwright, scriptwriter (including for Man Ray's 1928 film L'Etoile de Mer), magazine editor, essay writer and more... He knew all the painters, artists and writers who mattered in Paris and beyond. During WWII, he was a member of the French Resistance and was arrested in 1944. He died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1945. This is a poetry collection with a long history. The first manuscript, named Chantefables à chanter sur n'importe quel air, was presented as a manuscript by the author to his publisher, Grund, in 1944, the very same year he was arrested by the Gestapo. In 1952, Grund published Chantefleurs and Chantefables separately followed in 1955 by the "definitive" edition of Chanteflables et Chantefleurs with around twenty "found" "chantefleurs" texts. This edition, illustrated by Czech artist Ludmila Jiřincová (1912-1994), was first published in 1970 - this is the second edition, published in 1972. It will be available to buy in 2023 in our new Etsy online bookshop! Watch this space!
   10/27/2022 Our oldest titles ever are now in stock! The Arcane Team has just come back from a ten-day break in France... We have a lot of plans for the end of this year and next year, and we hope to be able to be a little bit more active online than we've been recently!
We still want to publish The Right Place in early 2024 and start work on our fourth publication Hell Lane: A Barton Stacey Mystery immediately afterwards. The picture is of a stash of very old French religious books which were found abandoned in a house briefly rented by some relatives. These are the oldest books in the Arcane Books stock so far and several date from BEFORE the French Revolution! I will do a more detailed blog about them at some point when I have done some research, and they will eventually be on sale on the Arcane Books new website which we hope to launch next year! More news soon! 9/13/2022 Intermission... We're very busy working on non-Arcane Publishing projects...
We haven't been on here or on our instagram (@arcanepub) very much and sadly, the progress of our third publication has been paused. We'll be back online for about a week at the end of October and then sporadically until the end of the year... We're not idle, far from it! But priorities have to be shifted in these uncompromising times... Watch this space! 8/17/2022 Langport Vintage Market, 13th August On Saturday 13th August, we were back at the @langportvintage market! It was really, really hot, but as always, @mattartpix and I had a great day with our lovely fellow traders and a lot of interest! We are planning our markets for this autumn/winter season and hopefully will have a couple of dates for you in the next few weeks or so, watch this space! And we have started thinking about the planning of our online bookshop which we hope to open in 2023!  The Arcane corner on Matt ArtPix's stall at the market! Quite a few of those books were sold!
 The Phone Box Library at Portesham has two new books for reading lovers to read! This morning, I deposited a copy of each of my novels, I Am a Muse and The Book of Thoth on its shelves whilst on my way to Bridport. The copy of The Book of Thoth is one of the nine books which suffered some water damage back in May 2020 - there are slight brown-orange marks on the corner of a few pages but that's it, so the book is in good condition although obviously not good enough for me to sell it at full price! I added a copy of I Am a Muse because... Well, why not? I hope to find another eight places where to leave a copy of TBOT. Watch this space! The phone box itself has an interesting history. This is from the Portesham Village website: "This is a K6 kiosk designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (designer of Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station, now the Tate Modern) , probably put in place sometime after 1949 when the Royal Fine Arts Commission were allowing rural examples to be painted in different colours. Kiosks have emerged painted in colours such as this green and a battleship grey. From1926 the kiosk's fascias were emblazoned with a prominent crown, representing the British government (of which the Post Office was then an agency). Our box sports the Tudor Crown which was in use from 1936 until 1953 at which time Queen Elizabeth II decided to change it to the St Edwards Crown being the actual crown used by British Monarchs."
 We had a lovely day yesterday at Langport Vintage Market with Matt ArtPix! The roomy gazebos provided for the market are brilliant and suit our brand colours (white/red/black). They also protected us from the blistering sun so we were perfectly comfortable the whole day! Sadly, this will probably be the last market for Arcane for quite a while (still waiting to hear about a special event in September) but Matt ArtPix has quite a few lined up for the summer so will share on here! I will also be exploring the options to develop the Arcane online bookshop over the next few weeks/months.
Watch this space!  Picture of Bear on the stall @MattArtPix Yesterday Saturday 2nd July, we crossed the border into Devon to go and trade at Word Play, a literacy and activity-based event organised by Markets In Exeter. It took place at the Positive Light Projects site on Sidwell Street, a good central location. This was a little different for us as we do not usually trade at children's events, but with the huge stock of gorgeous vintage books we acquired last summer, it did make perfect sense to have a go at this kind of event! We also think that encouraging young readers to discover the delights of reading, books and storytelling is crucial to their development, happiness and well-being. Promoting books and reading to young people has become one of the most arduous tasks there is, and catching them early is probably the best way to make them enjoy reading and understand the power of imagination!  The event was really good and we had a great space for our stall. The organisation was top-notch and the Positive Light Project site is fantastic - with large windows onto the streets, a light and airy feel and all the facilities required to make the day comfortable and enjoyable for traders and punters alike. There were loads of activities to do for kids and parents and quite a few people actually stayed the whole day! Our stall attracted a lot of interest and we even sold a copy of I Am a Muse (a book not written for small children, obviously!).  Getting ready...  ... by writing words of welcome on the pavement!  Welcome to Word Play!  The Arcane stall...  The Arcane stall part 1  The Arcane stall part 2.  A few props courtesy of @MattArtPix There was some storytelling by Frances Harrison. Go and visit her website HERE, her work sounds fascinating and now I wish I had gone and listened to her! Folk stories, myths and legends... That's my kind of thing!
We're planning on returning to Exeter and the Positive Light Projects in the autumn/winter!
We hope to have some news about more events soon, especially regarding a very special one at the end of September... Watch this space!  This Saturday, we'll be in Exeter for WORD PLAY, which is something a bit different from the events we usually do! It is now supported by Exeter City of Literature, which is an exciting development! There will be workshops, storytelling, and more! As mentioned in a previous blog, we will be selling some lovely pre-loved and vintage children's books. Here are A FEW of the books we'll bring to the event on Saturday! We will have books at 50p, some at £2-£4, a big stock of £5 and some rarer/more collectable books at £8 and over! 
And of course, we'll have a few copies of Miss Gish's novels, I Am a Muse and The Book of Thoth for the grown-ups! Single copies and two-book bundles!  This event is organised by The Positive Light Projects, Markets In Exeter and In_Exeter.
You can book your free ticket HERE. Facebook event HERE. Saturday, July 2nd 2022 10am to 3pm at The Positive Lights Project, Sidwell Street, Exeter EX4 6RD |
AuthorArcane Publishing is a small independent imprint with a passion for beautiful books. Archives
May 2023
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