Current Books Archives - Page 5 of 13

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Simon appleby

Legend of the Month: Iolo Williams

Each month we are celebrating one fantastic Seren author in honour of Wales’ Year of Legends. This month the spotlight falls on Iolo Williams.

Iolo Williams has just returned to our TV screens with Trefi Gwyllt Iolo on S4C and BBC’s Springwatch, where in Episode 8 he goes head to head with Martin Hughes-Games, pitting two iconic birds (the barn owl and the kestrel) against each other in a challenge to see which is the ultimate hunter. So what better time to have this nature expert as our Legend of the Month?

Previously Iolo has worked as the presenter of seventeen TV shows, in two languages; he is also an author, and a public lecturer. With a degree in Ecology, he has worked in farming, timber and for the RSPB in the field, and as a regional co-ordinator. Williams is the author of five books in Welsh and two in English: Llyfr Adar, Llyfr Natur, Blwyddyn Fan Hyn a Fan Draw, Cynefin Glan Y Môr, Blwyddyn Iolo, Wild about the Wild, and most recently, Wild Places: Wales’ Top 40 Nature Sites (Seren, 2016).

Wild Places is an ode to the beauty and significance of Wales’ nature places and features forty of Iolo’s favourites, scattered all around the country. From mountains to meadows, coastal sites to towering cliffs, his list takes in all the best of what Wales has to offer, and reveals how to get the most out of each site – where to spot dolphins and salmon, where hares box and otters swim, where to see Wales’ great variety of hawks and other birds of prey.
Wild Places is available from our website: £19.99 (20% off when you join our Book Club).

Meet Iolo at our Secrets of Skomer Island event at the Teifi Marshes Centre, where he will join former Skomer warden and author, Rosanne Alexander, to talk about the island’s important landscape and wildlife. Tickets are limited, so book now to avoid disappointment:
£5 from The Wildlife Trust website
(all ticket proceeds go to the Trust)

Find a great selection of books by our other legendary writers on the Year of Legends page.

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Posted on May 16, 2017 by Simon appleby

Book giveaway: win a copy of Mr Vogel by Lloyd Jones

This month we are giving away a copy of Lloyd Jones’ stunning novel, Mr Vogel, which is newly back in print.

To enter, simply sign up to the Seren newsletter before 1st June:
https://www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup

About Mr Vogel:
Following a bout of alcoholism which almost killed him, Lloyd Jones decided to recuperate by walking around Wales. It was this epic walk which inspired Jones to write Mr Vogel – one of the most original and engaging novels to appear from – and about – Wales in recent years.
The novel begins with the discovery, in the attic of a second-hand bookshop, of an account of a lame man’s mysterious quest – the so-called ’Vogel Papers’. Our guide, a Welshman, becomes obsessed with the Vogel Papers: his investigations take him across three continents and around his homeland – from Anglesey to Pembrokeshire, from Bangor to the Black Mountains – in search of a strange man known only as Mr Vogel.

We will pick a winner at random from all our email subscribers on 1st June. Make sure you have signed up to Seren News before then to be in with a chance of winning!

Why not give your friends a chance to win too, by recommending that they sign up to our newsletter before the end of the month using this link?
www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Simon appleby

Legend of the Month: Robert Graves

Each month we are celebrating one fantastic Seren author in honour of Wales’ Year of Legends. This month the spotlight falls on Robert Graves.

Robert Graves began publishing poetry after the outbreak of the First World War, for which he enlisted in 1914 as a junior officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He was one of the first to write realistic poems about the experience of fighting on the frontline. His first volume, Over the Brazier, was published in 1916, and by 1917 he had produced two further collections of war poetry whilst still on active service. Over the Brazier and Fairies and Fusiliers earned for Graves the reputation of an accomplished war poet.
You can find all Graves’ war poetry in recently published Robert Graves: War Poems (Seren, 2016).

During his lifetime Graves published more than 140 books, including fifty-five collections of poetry (he reworked his Collected Poems repeatedly during his career), fifteen novels, ten translations, and forty works of non-fiction, autobiography, and literary essays. His best known works are his memoir of World War One, Goodbye to All That, The White Goddess, and the novels I, Claudius and Claudius the Great.

Here is Graves’ poem, ‘Hate Not, Fear Not’, from his previously unpublished collection The Patchwork Flag (1918) which, almost a century after composition, has now been brought into print as part of Robert Graves: War Poems.

Robert Graves Hate Not, Fear Not

Robert Graves: War Poems is available from our website: £19.99

Find a great selection of books by our other legendary writers on the Year of Legends page.

And don’t forget to sign up to our free, no-purchase-necessary Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

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Posted on March 8, 2017 by Simon appleby

A treat for International Women’s Day

Treat for International Women's Day Women's Work half price

Today is International Women’s Day, a worldwide celebration of women’s achievements and a call for gender equality.

We can’t think of a better book to treat yourself to than Women’s Work: Modern Women Poets Writing in English, so for today only, you can buy your copy at half price on our website.

With over 250 contributors, this generous selection of poetry by women features poets from the USA, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand. You will find familiar names as well as new discoveries amongst the contributors: Margaret Atwood, Sujata Bhatt, Colette Bryce, Siobhán Campbell, Amy Clampitt, Polly Clark, Wendy Cope (and many others). Some may ask: is the literary establishment still as dominated by men as it once was? Who gets to decide the canon? Eva Salzman opens Women’s Work with a lively polemic, making the case for the women-only anthology with characteristic wit and flair.

Buy your copy of Women’s Work today:
~~£14.99~~
£7.49

Offer ends midnight, 08/03/2017

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Simon appleby

Find a free Seren book this World Book Day

Today we are celebrating all things literary for World Book Day, now in its 20th year. We want the world to discover our fantastic authors, and to help a few of you do just that, we’ve left a selection of our books all over Cardiff for lucky people to find and keep.

If you’re out in Cardiff today, stop for a coffee in one of the lovely independent cafés and you might well find a Seren book hiding somewhere near you! Take it, enjoy it, and pass it on to someone new to enjoy afterwards to spread the World Book Day love.

Can you guess which books we’ve hidden? Poetry, fiction, non-fiction – there’s a real mix out there, just waiting to be found.

Happy World Book Day, and happy book hunting…

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Simon appleby

January Giveaway: win a copy of The Other City by Rhiannon Hooson

This month we are giving away a copy of Rhiannon Hooson’s ‘beguiling’ debut poetry collection, The Other City.

To enter, simply sign up to the Seren newsletter before 1st February:
https://www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup

About The Other City:
Rhiannon Hooson is a gifted young poet born in mid-Wales and currently living in the Welsh Marches. The Other City is her debut collection of poems.
Sharply focused, beautifully resonant, deeply felt, these poems tend to travel in distinct streams: some reference and re-make narratives from classical Greek myth; others explore the idea of otherness and the uncanny, where actions are done and undone, and the familiar made unfamiliar.
‘This is a beguiling debut from a poet who already has a recognizable voice and emotional register. Sensuous, musical, darkly involved, the poems make and confound their own realities.’ – Graham Mort

The winner of this giveaway will be chosen at random from all our email subscribers on 1st February 2017, so if you haven’t already, hurry and sign up for our newsletter before the end of the month!

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Simon appleby

January Sale: 50% off all Seren books

The big January sale has now begun – all our books are 50% off for one week only.

The time for gift giving might be over but all that means is you have the perfect excuse to treat yourself instead.

If you’re looking for a new novel to grip you, we suggest Jayne Joso’s critically acclaimed My Falling Down House, a story of modern Japanese identity.

Tony Curtis’ New & Selected collection, From the Fortunate Isles, is a must-read for poetry lovers, and The Other Tiger, the new bilingual anthology of South and Latin American poetry translated by Richard Gwyn, will open up a new continent of undiscovered riches for you.

For nature lovers we recommend Iolo Williams’ Wild Places: Wales’ Top 40 Nature Sites – this is a book to get you out of the house, making the most of the beautiful wildlife sites within reach.

Explore our Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, where all our books are half price until midnight on Friday 13th January.

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Simon appleby

Friday Poem – ‘Nativity’, Caroline Smith

Our Friday Poem this week is a modern-day parallel to the Nativity story, where we see the hardships faced by a migrant couple upon the birth of their child.

‘Nativity’ is taken from Caroline Smith’s collection, The Immigration Handbook, which tells the stories of immigrants seeking citizenship in the UK – their hopes, their anguish, the bureaucracy they face, and their small moments of triumph. In these strikingly moving poems, the characters step vividly off the page, and we listen to their often harrowing stories as if first-hand. Caroline Smith’s poems are a moving record of global people movement, the story of our time.

Nativity

She lay on the sofa
its hard cushions
squashed down into the corner
under the heavy paisley quilt
she’d found there.
There was nothing
left to eat in the fridge,
its door nudged open
swollen with ice,
the fibrous cold
stealing into the room.
Just ice and knots of sweetcorn
heaped in a corner
like rancid yellow straw,
and a bottle of baby milk
left by the Kosovan family
housed there before her.
She’d heard they’d been allowed to stay.
Baby John Harris Farruku
brother to Adriatuk, Flutura and Etmir,
born three days inside the amnesty.
His birth had allowed
the family to begin again
given them the hope
of an ordinary life.

The Immigration Handbook is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free, no-purchase-necessary Book Club for 20% off every time you shop with us

Posted on December 16, 2016 by Simon appleby

Friday Poem – ‘The Infants’ Christmas Concert’, Tony Curtis

Christmas is fast approaching, so our Friday Poem this week is a festive one from Tony Curtis, originally published in Letting Go (1983) and again, just recently, in Tony’s new From the Fortunate Isles: New & Selected Poems.

From the Fortunate Isles features poems from ten of Tony’s published collections, as well as a substantial number of new poems. This is a poet whose themes and variations remain consistent: a deep affection for his roots in West Wales, tender attachments to family, a profound interest in the wars of the last century, and an abiding fascination for all art forms, particularly painting and poetry.

The Infants’ Christmas Concert

A moment of hush, held breath –
the fairies and robbers, the soldiers
and dancers are in position
– then the piano begins.
This sounds otherworldly,
each note a drop of water falling distantly.

Angels swallow trumpets,
a robot trips and turtles in his cardboard shell;
the ballerina crumples and cries.
They may not know why, but still
perform for us the pattern of sentiment,
superstition and love: we sigh,
smile, laugh and applaud.

“The Rich Man gave them a bag of gold
and everyone cheered on the day
the church had a new bell.”
The couple are starched in best white –
as the singing swells, they marry
and claim their gold.
It is intensely sad and fleetingly
realises the ghosts of our innocence.

Flashlights – the year’s frozen
for this instant.
Keep that – don’t move – stay there,
stay somewhere like that for ever.

It all builds to The Nativity:
Joseph, Mary and the three glittering Kings
change without age, time after time.
Only the baby Jesus doll remains,

a scarred and worn wooden face held magically
fresh each year in the laundered swaddling.
The audience – parents and children in arms,
grandparents and neighbours, point and giggle,
there’s a glow and, finally, we all sing.

This has worked some sort of renewal,
some sort of an ending.

From the Fortunate Isles: New & Selected Poems is available from our website: £9.99
Join our free, no-purchase necessary Book Club and receive 20% off every time you shop with us.

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Simon appleby

Author Appearances at the Seren Christmas Pop-Up Shop

The Seren pop-up bookshop is returning to Chapter, Cardiff, for its third year. You’ll find us in Chapter’s entrance hall, Friday 9th to Monday 12th December.

Come and have a browse of our books, take advantage of free Christmas gift wrapping, and chat with Seren staff about publishing, writing, reading – and your love of books. We look forward to seeing you!

When: 9-12 December, 10am–8pm
Where: Chapter Arts Centre, 40 Market Road, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

Seren authors will also be stopping by, so why not come along and grab a special signed Christmas gift or two?

Peter Finch will be joining us on Saturday. A poet, author and critic, Peter is author of the hugely popular Real Cardiff trilogy, and series editor for the Real Series. He has published numerous poetry collections, including perennial bestseller Zen Cymru, and his Selected Later Poems. His latest book, The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back, explores the evolution of rock and popular music, and is the perfect gift for the music lover in your life.

David Foster-Morgan will be coming to the pop-up shop on Sunday. David has been widely published in a number of journals including Poetry Wales, Envoi, Smiths Knoll and The Interpreter’s House, and was recently shortlisted in the Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition. Masculine Happiness is his innovative debut collection, and signed copies will be available if you come along at 12.

We look forward to seeing you at the Seren Christmas pop-up shop!

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