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Letter
A warm hello from Lamb’s Conduit Street, where
I’ve been holding down the shop the past few weeks
while Nicola’s away writing. Typically a quiet time
of year, February has been unusually lively as we’ve
welcomed a steady stream of visitors. In addition to the
more local drop-ins, many have crossed the pond from my
native North America -
some from the United States who saw the blurb in Domino magazine and
others from Canada who read about us in the Ottawa and Toronto papers - and
very kindly tracked us down on their London sojourns.
We have also been kept busy with regular shipments to our book wholesalers,
our loyal independent shops such as Daunt, John Sandoe Books and the Pan Bookshop
in London, as well as Much Ado and Wenlock Books in the country; keeping up
with our lovely emails from enthusiastic readers (I can hardly wait to
get started! This has
cheered up the bleakest day!); and attending a Valentine’s Day event
just around the corner at The
Charles Dickens Museum where there were lectures on Jane Carlyle, featured
in Persephone book No. 32 The
Carlyles at Home (coincidentally, I’ve just posted a dozen for
a book group).
Recently we were mentioned in Saturday’s International
Herald Tribune in an
article about independent book publishers. ‘...This emphasis on individuality
and quality is emphatically shared by Nicola Beauman,’ writes Tara Mulholland,
who goes on to comment that ‘...Persephone appeals not to the mass, but
to the individual.’ The article highlights a relatively recent pushback
in the British book market: with publishers and consumers increasingly demanding
quality and variety, one now sees the
tables beginning to turn on book giants like Waterstone’s - reminding
them that they began as a ‘specialist shop’. The onus is now on
these large bookshops to seek out niche publishers. We at Persephone Books
can only hope this trend continues! One of our
readers echoed Mulholland when she said that ‘you can indeed judge a
book by its cover.’
Coming into March (along with the promise of warmer weather - no more huddling
round space heaters) we are making final preparations for our Spring publications:
Joanna Cannan’s novel, Princes in the Land and Diana Gardner’s
short stories, A Woman Novelist and Other Stories. Do keep the emails
coming; we love to hear from you.
Emily Hill
Lamb’s Conduit Street
28 February 2006 |
