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Coles Books News, Edition 11 – 13th March 2021

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Newsletter

‘March comes in like a lion and (hopefully) goes out like a lamb’ – these last few days have been more than blustery in this part of the world, the strong winds a reminder that although the Spring is almost here, Winter still has a few words to share. The weather being a uncanny parallel for the optimism of a country looking forward to coming out of lockdown, but troubles of the last year are still very much an influence.

Although it could be considered a little too maudlin sometimes, the passion and anger in the poetry of Dylan Thomas is beyond doubt and seems to suit the anger of the winds, fighting back against unstoppable forces – despite the difficulty, a strong heart will prevail.

A Process in the Weather of the Heart by Dylan Thomas

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

A process in the eye forewarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.

A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.

A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye.

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

We have always approached bookselling with a broad brush, with customers throughout the four corners of the world as well as from just around the corner, our book selections are equally wide in their scope. Variety should always be the spice of life and this week our Coles Signed Editions are no different: from the cuisine of the Basque region of northern Spain with Jose Pizarro to a kitchen closer to home with Anna Jones; Will Buxton writes about the importance of defeat in Motorsport and how it drives on winners ultimately to success; younger readers will take delight in the tale of ‘The Last Bear’ from Hannah Gold, and Benjamin Zephaniah leads us on a ‘Nature Trail’; award winning author of The Tobacconist Robert Seethaler is back with ‘The Field’; our Pre-Orders this week see us down on the farm with the Nicholson Family in ‘Living Our Best Lives’; the beautifully written and illustrated ‘The Heeding’ will be one of the books of the Summer; Jon McGregor will be signing dedicated bookplates for us for his forthcoming novel ‘Lean, Fall, Stand’ and actress Sharon Stone gives a masterclass in resilience. Rock photographer Ross Halfin has a canny habit of being there when it happened – his collection of images of UFO’s Pete Way (available now) and forthcoming collection of images of Edward Van Halen are great tributes to two great masters of the art of Rock.

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