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Where to Wait for a Train

The first time I took the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow, I got a surprise. A nice one. Imagining I’d be seeing shiny glass and steel stations all the way, I kept my head down. Then we stopped at Hanwell. I looked up and what did I see? A cheerful brown and cream waiting shelter where I’d be happy to wait for a train.

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Publishing Cocktails

We are now publishing cocktails as well as books. On Twitter and Instagram, we have posted pictures and recipes for two new cocktails, with more to follow. Each is designed to match one of our titles. Let me give you a hint at the process of making them that played out behind the scenes.  

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Where the Wild Things Are

Britain is not often thought of as a wild place, yet if you take the time to focus on the small things you will find much to wonder at. From the storm-beaten islands of Scotland to the clear chalk streams of Hampshire, it is possible to pause and find amazing wildlife even in the most familiar of places.

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Bookshop of the Month: The Story of Backstory

Balham’s newest bookshop is a far cry from your usual high street retailer. It promises not only books but writers and the chance to mix with them. You are welcome to browse the carefully curated shelves, but the real draw of Backstory lies beneath the surface, or more accurately, behind the big blue counter.

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Work from Your Bath

Are you tired of working from home? Try working from your bath, says Heath Robinson. An artist turned humourist, he elevated the everyday to a level of delightful absurdity, sketching solutions to every conceivable problem, including this Combination Bath and Writing Desk. This month we publicize his work in Who Do You Think You Are? magazine.

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Bookshop of the Month: Word on the Water

A visit to Regent’s Canal would not be complete if you haven’t found yourself on the floating bookshop, Word on the Water. The first impression is pure eye candy, with cascading pot plants and bookshelves hanging perilously over the side. But step aboard, browse the books, chat with the owner, and you could go deeper than you expected.

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Trains of Christmas Past

Once upon a time, a child’s dream was to get a train set for Christmas. Michael Moore from Toy Train Tips and Tricks keeps the dream alive by celebrating model railways on his YouTube channel. This month he revisits a moment of department store magic, scrutinizing some famous trains of Christmas past.

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Roll the Clock Back

It was 5.30 on Christmas morning, 1972. Ian Logan was staying with friends in Salinas Valley, CA, and must have been woken by Santa Claus. He wandered outside and saw a line of boxcars rolling across the asparagus fields. This memorable shot is part of our Christmas Bundle. Sign up and roll the clock back!

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Railway Renovation

Think railways, and what do you see in your mind’s eye? All too often a boarded-up building. If it’s old, leave it to rot or knock it down. For decades that’s been the way of the railways. Worse, rebuild it in steel and glass, bus-shelter style. But times are changing. Railway renovation is coming.

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Long Live the King!

For 70 years Queen Elizabeth II was the one constant in an ever-changing world. The ending of her reign has been a cause of great sorrow, not just in Great Britain, but around the world. And now, with the public period of mourning ended, that responsibility must pass to her son King Charles III.

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High Speeds, Heavy Weather

A new and improved Train Sim World releases today on PC and consoles. It brings some impressive upgrades including dynamic weather and more realistic lighting effects, a reworked Livery Designer and an Off the Rails mode which allows you to drive any loco on any route, all to immerse yourself in the world of train driving.

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Freight on the Tracks

Freight gets scant coverage in today’s railway media, often buried on the back pages, but the award-winning transport journalist James Graham aims to change that. For those who love freight on the tracks, he will launch a freight-only e-zine, Freight Tracks, on Valentine’s Day.

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How Very Heath Robinson!

Do you find eating peas with a fork tiresome? Insert cooked peas into the pea machine, turn the handle and wait as the peas travel through funnels and pulleys to land on a spoon and pour into your mouth. How simple. How very Heath Robinson!

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Geek Out With Logo Geek

Who’s interested in logos? At least 112.7k people are and they follow Logo Geek, a logo design service provided by Ian Paget. In a new podcast, Ian geeks out for an hour with Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey, a designer and writer passionate about all things logos and locomotives, to discuss their new book Logomotive.

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Journalist on the Footplate

How many journalists get to drive a Coronation class steam locomotive? Our intrepid author Jonathan Glancey did. In a podcast published today he also tells what it was like riding the footplate of Duchess of Hamilton from Settle to Carlisle and what he loves about the marriage of art and engineering.

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A Visual Feast

The Chartered Society of Designers have dined out on one of our books, calling it a visual feast. ‘The real treat,’ Carmen Martínez­-López writes of Logomotive, ‘is the imagery of the trains with their branding, the logos, and the associated typography.’

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Romancing the Rails

As publishers of a new book on railroads, we were delighted to hear of a sparkling new exhibition celebrating the golden age of US rail travel. Romancing the Rails tells how the New York Central confronted competition from automobiles with visually stunning advertising, luxurious dining cars and sleek streamlined trains.

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You Too Can Drive a Big Boy

You are at the controls of a Union Pacific Big Boy, the largest steam locomotive in the world. Using the interactive levers, valves and gauges in this Train Simulator, you too can drive a Big Boy. You have 7,000 horsepower at your command. Are you ready for the challenge?

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From The Bookshelf

Gary Shapiro hosts the radio show From the Bookshelf, broadcast from the KSCO station in Santa Cruz. He has just interviewed Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey about Logomotive, their new book on railroad logos and locomotive design. The podcast is up. Board now for a trip back in time.

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Ian Logan’s Magnificent Machines

For a week at the end of July, Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the busiest airport in the world. Its annual air show, which runs from 26th July to 1st August this year, attracts aircraft fans from around the world to watch daily aerobatic displays by top teams including the US Air Force Special Operations Command.

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Inside the Cab of Big Boy 4014

Big Boy is warmed up. It’s been out on test runs. On 5th August it will depart Cheyenne, Wyoming on a month-long tour through 10 Southwestern states. Thanks to the steam team led by Ed Dickens, we can take you inside the cab of Big Boy 4014 and give you a feel for what it is like to operate the biggest steam locomotive in the world.

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Wall Street Journal Review

Last Saturday the Wall Street Journal Review ran a piece on railways and design and how the two intertwine in our book Logomotive. ‘The design of the locomotives themselves may have left the deepest impression,’ writes Peter Saenger, ‘especially the sleek, art deco-influenced “streamliners”.’

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Red Carpet at Grand Central

They rolled out a red carpet at Grand Central when you boarded the overnight train to Chicago. Those were the days, says Jonathan Glancey, when rail travel was romantic. Hear this and other stories from the last days of steam by watching his Father’s Day interview, now available on YouTube.

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You Can Do It, America!

In a rousing talk given recently in Madison, Wisconsin, Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey recalled the triumphs of American railroad engineering and design in the 1930s. American railroads absolutely had it all, they told their audience. ‘We hope they’ll do it again in the future. Come on, you can do it, America!’

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Designer Committed to His Craft

When we commissioned Bernard Higton to design the book that became Logomotive, we never imagined it would be his last. He was a designer committed to his craft, always looking for a new challenge, a turn of the page that would captivate an audience. We are saddened to announce that he has bid us farewell.

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Talking Trains This Weekend

Ian Logan and Jonathan Glancey are talking trains this weekend. They are putting on a double act in Madison, Wisconsin, telling the story behind their new book Logomotive. What took them to Grand Central Terminal or the West 60th Street freight yard? What foot plates did they ride?

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Publication in the US

Logomotive is being shipped across the Atlantic. Publication in the US will be on 21st April. Readers in the US can pre-order Logomotive and receive their copies from our US warehouse in April or they can order from the UK and have their books flown across the Atlantic now. A pre-publication offer is open.

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A Big Moment

It’s always a big moment when the printed proofs of a book arrive. You open the box, smell the fresh ink and see for the first time how your book looks. If this is exciting for a publisher, it is even more so for an author.

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Our Ship Has Come In

Somewhere among the 700-odd containers on board the Y. M. Wellness, owned by the Yang Ming corporation, was our consignment of Logomotive. We are glad to report that our ship has come in. It is now moored in Southampton and our books have been unloaded.

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For the Love of Logos

The designer Ian Logan fell in love with railroad logos on his first trip to America in 1968. The design critic Jonathan Glancey and the architect Norman Foster love logos, too, and all that goes with them including loco design, station design, colour, graphics and lifestyle. For the love of logos, they have written Logomotive.

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Design Interests of Norman Foster

Say Norman Foster and most people think architect. Prompted to name his buildings, they might mention the Gherkin, Apple Park or the Hearst Tower. How many know that the design interests of Norman Foster run to cars, planes and trains? Meet Norman Foster the one-time loco spotter, classic car collector, lover of period Americana and third ‘namer’ on Logomotive.

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The Secret Romance of Ian Logan

Meet Ian Logan, designer to the stars and author of our forthcoming book Logomotive. Here he is beside a set of railway signs he designed in the 1970s. Perhaps best known for his tin trays and themed tin boxes, he was blown away by the graphics he saw painted on the side of American trains. He began a secret romance.

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Time to Read

Now’s the time to read, but can you get hold of a book? Most of the book trade is shut and Amazon is prioritizing non-book products. Believe it or not, we are operating normally! Our warehouse has found a way of processing orders safely, with customer care teams working from home. So may we suggest some books?

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Raise Your Glass

It’s time to pull the cracker and read the joke. Please raise your glass for your own, your Very Own Mr Nick Thomas. He has won our Christmas Cracker Competition with a cup of good cheer. Just what we needed to lighten the mood.

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Digital Angst

We’ve been suffering a bout of digital angst. If you attempted to join our membership scheme in the past couple of weeks, you may have been held up by a digital roadblock. We apologize for this. As soon as we discovered the incident, we called in the engineers and they’ve fixed it. If you’d like to enjoy the benefits of membership, you now can.

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Winter Joys

When the days are drawing in, it’s easier to feel winter blues than winter joys, but we can change all that. Give your friends a copy of Very Heath Robinson, send out Heath Robinson Christmas Cards and you’ll banish all woes. We will help you make it happen.

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Wild Not To Say Shattering

Congratulations to Neville Denson from St Bees in Cumbria, who has won the Wildest Travel Story Competition with his account of a wild, not to say shattering experience in the USA. He receives a copy of Tim Jepson’s Wild Italy: A Traveller’s Guide.

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Liven Up Your Coffee Break

In the imaginative world of Heath Robinson you can pour a cup of coffee with your eyes closed. Just pull on a cord and the Super-De-Luxe Coffee Maker does it all for you. What could be easier? This and other inventive ideas will liven up your coffee break when you use the set of six Heath Robinson coasters we launch today.

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A Festival By The Quay

Adam Hart-Davis, author of Very Heath Robinson, will be speaking at Exeter’s second Literary Festival at 3.30 p.m. this Sunday, 10th November. You will find him at the magnificent 17th-century Custom House by the quay, where Adam will take you on a journey through the Weird and Wacky World of Heath Robinson.

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Think of a Cracking Joke

To celebrate our 40th Christmas, we are holding our biggest competition yet. We would like you to think of an original joke to go inside a Christmas cracker – something so dry and witty that it would have impressed Heath Robinson himself. The winner gets a limited-edition book worth £300.

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We Celebrate 40 Years of Publishing

We have matured! From the figment of an idea tossed about while walking the dog on Clapham Common, we have become a publishing house with finished books on the shelves, each with its sales history around the world, each with Herculean labours, and a few jaw-dropping moments, behind it. To celebrate 40 years of publishing, we are giving away a book a month.

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Pullman Wins J. M. Barrie Award

Sir Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, will receive the J. M. Barrie Award to mark a lifetime’s contribution to children’s literature, it has been announced. We salute him for delighting children and adults with alternative worlds and fictional characters. Less well known, though no less masterfully expressed, is the delight he himself takes in the imaginary world of Heath Robinson and the wonderfully absurd cast of characters who star in it.

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Words by the Water

What better place to hold a literary festival than the Lake District, with its magical scenery and literary associations? This month nearly 100 writers, broadcasters and other national figures will arrive in Keswick for Words by the Water, a ten-day event held on the sylvan shores of Derwentwater. The Theatre by the Lake, where they will speak, is a short stroll from the water’s edge.

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Publishing Traineeships

Are you looking for a way into publishing? Our publishing traineeships introduce recent graduates to every aspect of the industry. We give you the opportunity to work in the editorial, sales and marketing, production and foreign rights departments. We are recruiting now.

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Gem in the English Countryside

A small town in the English countryside with a population of 6,000 does not immediately conjure up images of metropolitan buzz, but on closer inspection the historic market town of Oundle in Northamptonshire proves to be a real gem in the cultural life of the country, not least because of the Oundle Festival of Literature. St Peter’s Church is the main festival venue.

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Sheldrake Membership Scheme for Readers

We invite you, our readers, to join our new membership scheme. We publish books not because we want to make money, though obviously we must, but because we’re excited and enthralled by the idea of creating something new and shining light on subjects that may have been overlooked or under-appreciated. As a Sheldrake Member you will be closer to the editorial process in which we engage every day and you will be able to obtain our books at a preferential price. For the pleasure of reading.

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Yeovil’s Literary Scene

If you had to name places with literary associations, you might say Haworth, Stratford, the Lakes and Knole, but hardly Yeovil. If anything, the town is known for making gloves, helicopters and Yeo Valley yoghurt. But at the end of October a thriving literary festival takes over the Georgian Manor Hotel, built of local Ham stone, and other venues in the town centre. Though few people know it, Yeovil is also linked with Thomas Hardy and his Wessex novels.

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Literature and Landscape in Shute

Chances are the name Shute will not ring a bell, but the Shute Festival of Literature and Landscape is here to change that. Offering a diverse range of talks on writing, film-making, exploration and landscape, the festival will whisk you away to East Devon for a weekend retreat in late September.

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Festival on the River

Say Henley and you think rowers, blazers, boaters, marquees and boat houses, Leander Club and Enclosures. But alongside the 179-year-old Henley Royal Regatta there is a stripling challenger, now in its twelfth year, the Henley Literary Festival.

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Memories of Henley

If you’re driving from Oxford to London, as I was privileged to do as a third-year undergraduate with a car, you have two main routes: the A40 via Stokenchurch and Beaconsfield, nowadays more often the M40, or the A4130 following the river via Dorchester, on to Nettlebed and down the hill to Henley-on-Thames.

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Writers and Readers Gather in Devon

Discussions in the garden, talks in the Great Hall, the Barn and the Dukes Room, word schools, poetry breakfasts, story-telling, comedy events, theatrical performances: words and ideas in all their forms and combinations are on offer at Ways With Words, the literary festival that’s held this July in the idyllic setting of Dartington Hall.

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Taking Flight in Penzance

Let your imagination take flight this summer by going to the Penzance Literary Festival. Between 4th and 7th July writers will be talking about their latest books, focussing on flights literal and metaphorical, in the friendly setting of this fishing port and holiday resort on the Cornish coast.

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Man Humour for Father’s Day

How do you seduce a most attractive ‘beaut’ in a one-piece bathing suit? And how do you lure a mermaid on to the beach at Margate? For the answers, take up our two-for-one Father’s Day offer and follow the page references.

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Heath Robinson’s Birthday

On 31st May 1872 William Heath Robinson was born in Hornsey Rise, north London. Over the next 72 years he made a huge name for himself as a humorous illustrator. He was as well known as Picasso. Going one better, he got his name in the English dictionary as both a noun and an adjective. To mark his birthday, we offer the De Luxe limited edition of our book Very Heath Robinson at a third off the published price.

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Competition Winner Announced

Thank you to everyone who entered the Heath Robinson Caption Competition, organized with Gullivers Bookshop and the Wimborne Literary Festival. And congratulations to Nerys Hucker who was declared the winner by the panel of judges led by Adam Hart-Davis, seen above signing copies of his Heath Robinson book. The challenge was to caption a family outing on the Weekend All-Weather Tandem. She rose to the occasion.

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Caption This!

Heath Robinson’s Weekend All-Weather Tandem makes family excursions possible. Equipped with a horn, twin umbrellas and anti-lock braking system, it can cope with every eventuality. We’re running a competition to caption this picture. Send us your best idea for a chance to win a Very Heath Robinson De Luxe Edition.

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Au Revoir Douglas Botting

We are very sad to announce that Douglas Botting has died at the age of 83. Author of Wild Britain: A Traveller’s Guide and General Editor of the Wild Guides series, he is a towering figure in the literature of wild places. To him we owe an eternal debt for capturing in beautifully chosen words the harmonies of the natural world of which we are part and on which we depend for our survival.

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Man of Letters

Douglas Botting, who died on 6th February, was the author of Wild Britain and General Editor of our Wild Guides series. You see him here soon after leaving Oxford, working away at his desk in Ship Alley, Strand-on-the-Green, Chiswick, in London. Starting out as he meant to continue!

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Making a Grand Entrance

‘There can be no denying the importance the Victorians placed on first impressions,’ says Robin Guild in his masterful guide to home repair and decoration, The Victorian House Book. ‘It is the entrance door which captures the eye of the visitor as he waits to be admitted.’ In keeping with this tradition, we have had our door freshly painted and enhanced by stained-glass panels featuring our eponymous sheldrakes.

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Boxed Up

Nested head to toe in this box are De Luxe wooden cases ingeniously designed to preserve the limited edition of Very Heath Robinson. Folded over the waiting hardback books and tied Heath Robinson-style with knotted string, they become rare woodbacks. The first 20, batch produced and finished by hand, go on sale today.

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Beer and Books in Taunton

At the back of an old brewery in Taunton’s historic Bath Place lies Brendon Books, an independent bookseller that specializes in maps and travel. Every November the bookshop hosts the Taunton Literary Festival, now in its seventh year. Literary festivals like this are a sign of the new energy in the world of independent bookselling.

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Very West Country Event

The picturesque town of Looe, on the South Cornwall coast, is having a very West Country event this week. Local writers, historians, naturalists, photographers, even fishermen, are gathering at the annual Looe Literary Festival to speak on their latest books, tell tales of historic smuggling, exhibit photographs of the beautiful Cornish landscape and journey into world of Victorian railway expansion.

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A Nod to Subscription Publishing

In March we launched a Kickstarter campaign for our great big humour title Very Heath Robinson and raised £7,581 towards the costs of the book, which was published on 4th May. We are enormously grateful to all those who answered our call and helped us complete ‘Adam’s whopping (1.9 kg), wonderful new book’, as one reviewer has called it, to the standard we intended. We have pleasure in listing them below.

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Take a Two-Gallon Stewpan

People have often criticized Mrs. Beeton for the enormous quantities she recommended in her recipes: take six fowl, two dozen eggs, 4 lbs. sugar and so on. When we started work on The Shorter Mrs. Beeton, we were pleasantly surprised to find that her recipes were mostly modest in scale and perfectly suited to a modern family. In the case of her medium stock, however, you do really need a two-gallon pan.

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National Bookshop Day 2017

Publishers, booksellers and authors today celebrate the UK and Ireland’s second national Bookshop Day. To mark the occasion, we announce a series of bookshop interviews that we will publish over the next three months as the days draw in and you long for a good book to read by the fire.

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A Lovely Way to Say Hello

More babies are born in late September and early October in England and Wales than at any other time of the year: nearly 2,000 a day. If you need a gift to greet one of these new arrivals, we’re offering a book and card with illustrations by well-known artists.

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Art Cards Now Available

You can now buy six unusual greetings cards drawn by the satirical artist William Heath Robinson, famous for his funny contraptions and ingenious solutions to common problems. We are making them available exclusively through our website. They are not in the shops.

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From the Smoking Room

Congratulations to Chris Schüler, senior editor of some major Sheldrake Press books, who has published a highly readable history of the Authors’ Club. You can now watch a video of him talking about it in the Smoking Room of the National Liberal Club in London.

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Now You Can Mow in Comfort

You can also dance with robots, date by slot machine and boil an egg straight from the chicken, thanks to Heath Robinson. Helpful devices to do all these things are now on view in the big new book we publish today, Very Heath Robinson. The author is Adam Hart-Davis, presenter of What the Romans Did for Us, and Philip Pullman has written the Foreword.

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A Very Heath Robinson Birthday

On 31st May 2016 Heath Robinson would have been 144. Artist, humorist and Contraptioneer Extraordinary, he satirized the technical advances and social pretensions of three generations, from the 1890s to the 1940s. To celebrate a birthday blow-out, we are proud to announce that the well-known television presenter and author Adam Hart-Davis will write a new book for us called Very Heath Robinson.

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Keeping the Heat in an Old House

A Technical Advice Paper by Denis Meehan

A lot of damage is done to Victorian houses in the name of energy conservation, most frequently by replacing original sash windows with inappropriate double-glazed units. As Denis Meehan explains in his report on Energy Conservation in a Victorian House, changing the windows is one of the last things you need to do.

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Sheldrake Press on Pinterest

Our new Pinterest page will help you to explore some of the topics that we specialise in: Victorian restoration, wilderness travel, traditional children’s illustration and quirky design.

To see the four boards on our Pinterest page, please click here.

Gangsters, Goats and Greek Mythology

What brings a smile to the face of this cigar-toting stranger? Rubber feet, it turns out. Gangster Pete has rubber feet. If this sounds faintly ridiculous, you are at one with the judges of the Ruthless Rhyme competition. Some of the entries, they decided, while not ruthless, were memorable for their oddity or absurdity.

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Laugh for Less than a Fiver

To celebrate the solstice and all things summery, head to the Riviera ‘And there upon the sunny sands’ relax with a good old laugh, courtesy of Harry Graham. We guarantee the health benefits of When Grandmama Fell Off The Boat. As luck would have it, it’s 50 per cent off this month.

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Jubilee Rhymes

Cavaliers and Roundheads

Ollie Cromwell, aged just three
Just loved the Diamond Jubilee,
He’d wear a saucepan for a crown,
But soon it stuck there, upside down.

His Mother tugged, the boy turned pale,
Her efforts were to no avail,
The problem was, his Mother said,
That Ollie had such a round head.

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Jubilee Rhymes

Henry’s party in the street,
Would be a lovely royal treat,
To celebrate the Jubilee,
With flags and music, games and tea.
The food was good, he could not stop,
He ate until he went off pop,
From looking much like Henry Eight,
He ended up just Henry. Late.

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