This Month - Miss Read - contributed by Cliff

Miss Read in her beautifully bucolic books continues in the genre started by Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford in the early nineteenth century and continued by Flora Thompson with Lark Rise at the end of the nineteenth and the very beginnings of the twentieth century. The tittle-tattle and petty politics of village life are deliciously documented.

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Featured Book - Anthony Browne's King Kong - contributed by Rosemary

I sit at my desk here at Stella Books and constantly catch in my peripheral vision the two large brown eyes and even larger nostrils of King Kong as he sits quietly on our shelf in the Special Book Room . I can't quite make up my mind if the face is scary or scared, possibly the latter. Most definitely the original signed sketch of him inside the book has quite a coy, wry look.

I'm sure the majority of you are aware of the story of King Kong, the archetypal tale of Beauty and the Beast, with the sad ending of the Beast's death - mind you it would be a little quirky for Beauty to live happily ever after with Kong! Read More

A Sample of New Stock

Raggedipup, Tony, and the King of the Crossword Isles   by William J. Elliott

Tirpitz The Floating Fortress by David Brown

Ariel The Postwar Models by Roy Bacon

Price: £34

Other Children's Books

Price: £10

Other Military Books

Price: £56

More books on Motor Cycles

Price: £40

Other Historical Story Books

Selection from our Special Book Room

Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor by Mervyn Peake

Great African Travellers by W.H.G. Kingston and Charles Rathbone Low

The Cambrian Popular Antiquities by Peter Roberts

Butterflies of the Neotropical Region Part 1 by Bernard D'Abrera

New edition 1945 (the original edition being published early in the war
was destroyed by enemy action). Zany illustrations
Price: £250

1st ed 1890 From Bruce and Mungo to Park to Livingstone and Stanley. B/w illustrations.
Price: £140

1st ed 1815, 9 colour + 1 b/w plate + b/w text illustrations. Modern
three-quarter leather binding Price: £500

1st ed 1981. Very large format. Part 1 - Papilionidae & Pieridae. Packed with colour photos. Price: £150

News in Brief

Amongst the books catalogued this month, we have a selection of victorian children's books with chromolithograph plates, G.A Henty, , Leon Garfield, Motor Cycles and finally books on Lundy.

This Month's image is of some spring flowers, daffodils and wood anenomes It was a difficult choice as there are so many flowers in the woods at the moment. For more images click here.

Enid Blyton Day is on the 10th May at Loddon Hall, Twyford, for details please visit the Enid Blyton Society at www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk We hope to see you there.

The Red House Children's Book Award is the only national book award voted for entirely by children. The closing date for votes this year is Monday 12th May, and results will be announced at the Hay Festival on 30th May. For more information, click here

For further news please click here