Change is in the air.
Revolutions can start in many ways, the more obvious and dramatic are those which involve the crowds taking to the streets – they’ve had enough of whatever they find revolting, and driven by anger or dissatisfaction, have decided to revolt. Change is in the air.
A revolution of a quieter type took place in the bookshop last Thursday evening for Coles Book Club. The protagonist and agitator was a tailor, his polemic, nay manifesto, resonated with the assembled revolutionaries. The revolt was born out of what we consume and how we consume it. In the tailor’s case it was the clothes we buy and wear, in ours the books we buy and read. Our values are his values, our challenges are his challenges, our motivations the same, our mission is his mission – it’s only the tailoring which was different.
Patrick Grant, best known as one of the presenters of ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’, is devilishly handsome with a charming and infectious enthusiasm. The conversation (for that is how quiet revolutions start) was primarily about how we the citizens have been duped, but ever so surreptitiously. How, without realising how complicit we have been, entire industries have collapsed, livelihoods destroyed, communities torn apart. All of these things have happened in our pursuit of cheap clothes, understandable when the economy is in a mess, but which has been fuelled by corporate greed. For Patrick, he’s battling against companies like Shein – importing and selling cheap clothes, made from oil-based synthetic materials, on which no jobs in the UK are being created, other than the astonishingly low number of 14 employees administering over £1billion of sales with no vat & possibly very little tax from profits being paid. In the case of our biggest adversary – for every job created by the amazonian Goliath, two are lost elsewhere in the economy – High Street looking a little run-down? Thanks Jeff.
This quiet revolution isn’t about politics, but it is about change – hospital waiting lists, food banks and creaking infrastructure, or cheapT-shirts? It all depends on what and how we buy – choose wisely and we all will be Quiet Revolutionaries.
Protest by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) – extract
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men. The human race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance, and lust,
The inquisition yet would serve the law,
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare, must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,
No vested power in this great day and land
Can gag or throttle. Press and voice may cry
Loud disapproval of existing ills;
May criticise oppression and condemn
The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws
That let the children and child bearers toil
To purchase ease for idle millionaires.
This week has been a scorcher. In my free time I’ve been mainly reading outside in the sunshine (and accidentally getting sunburned). So if you’ve run out of books to read in the back garden, then why not consider some of our recommendations? The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd is our top fiction pick of the week, this intoxicating thriller takes place over a century, as several people try to unravel the mystery of Juliette Willoughby’s death. Our top non-fiction book of the week is Stuart Semple’s Make Art or Die Trying. This lush coffee-table book proves that art is for everyone, and everyone can be an artist. It connects with big art ideas and shows you how to embrace your creative potential, no matter where you’re starting from.
Other new books in fiction include, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks, which is now out in paperback: spanning eighty years and culminating in the opening of a film, we meet a cast of cooky characters, brought together in this book’s quirky format. Bea Setton’s new book is called Plaything, it’s about a PhD student at Cambridge whose unkiltered life reaches breaking point when her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend stalks back into their lives. Cursed Under London by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch is a new fantasy series set in an alternate Elizabethan London filled with vampires, werewolves and zombies – this is perfect for fans of Ben Aaronovitch. Isabel Banta’s Honey centres around a fictionalised pop-star rising to fame in the noughties, trying to stay sane as the media drag her down – for fans of Daisy Jones and the Six.
New in non-fiction, The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger is a botany book like no other, explaining the sheer intelligence of plants that scientists are only just starting to uncover. In We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo our author digs into generations of oral history, uproots centuries of conquest, hacks away at racist notions of Indigenous peoples, and tackles the disaster of climate change in the current Amazon rainforest – a place which she calls her home. This is an astounding memoir that anyone who’s interested in ecology should read. Understorey by Anna Chapman Parker is equal parts prose and poetry, which looks at her life in the year she studied and obsessed over the life of a weed. Whilst, The Asian Pantry by Dominique Woolf is fuss-free asian cooking at its best.
Lastly, for children, Johnny Duddle has released a great book entitled How to Draw Dinosaurs, where budding artists can learn how to draw all types of dinosaurs. And Rob Walker’s Record Breakers at the Olympic Games tells us all the jawdropping records ever achieved at the Olympics and Paralympics – less than a month away until the start of this year’s games!
As always, if there’s something you need help with, or a book you need ordering, please call or email us!
From Amber
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