Wide range of food for the mind at our luncheon

Aug 20 2008 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

We’ve five excellent writers lined up for our Literary Lunch in October, tickets for which are on sale now from the Examiner office in Queen Street South. Here HILARIE STELFOX takes a look at the latest releases from our illustrious line-up

EVERY YEAR the Examiner’s Literary Luncheon highlights the work of well-known and respected writers from many fields.

This year we have no fewer than five guests at our top table, including Huddersfield’s own acclaimed poet and internationally renowned author Simon Armitage.

Joining him on Tuesday, October 7,will be humorist Stephanie Calman, whose observations on family life have been made into books and a television series; Jane Costello, who wrote a best-seller while on maternity leave from her job as a newspaper editor; former Dalesman editor David Joy; and Hannah Hauxwell biographer Bill Mitchell.

Tickets for the event at the Galpharm Stadium, which includes a three-course meal with coffee and an hour of entertainment by our guests, are £25.

They are available from the Examiner office on Queen Street South or by calling customer reception on 01484 430000.

The literary luncheon is supported by florists Yorkshire Rose and Waterstones.

To give you a taste of what’s on offer we’re reviewing the new books from our guests, all of which will be available at the event, signed by the authors.

Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-Star Fantasist by Simon Armitage is published in Viking hardback at £16.99.

SIMON ARMITAGE published his second collection of prose this year.

This is a self-deprecating wander through the musical tastes and experiences of someone who has come to accept that the closest he will ever get to a life on stage with a band behind him is giving poetry readings.

While the new book is focused around Simon’s musical likes and dislikes and gigs that he has been to, it meanders in a pleasing and amusing way through other events in his life.

In fact, some of the anecdotes are so laugh-out-loud funny it makes the reader glad that he became a best-selling author and not a rock star.

Born in 1963 he was a child of the punk years who metamorphosed into a New Romantic. If you can remember Joy Division, The Smiths and The Buzzcocks first time round then you’ll be able to wallow in a nostalgic feast of musical reminiscences, as well as enjoying accounts of more recent musical outings..

Hannah Hauxwell, 80 Years in the Dales by W R Mitchell is published by Great Northern Books at £15.99.

IT was back in 1973, when Yorkshire Television screened a film entitled Too Long a Winter, that the Hannah Hauxwell story began.

Today, there can be few who have not heard her name and yet before that time she was an unknown Dales hill farmer, living a quiet and austere life with no mod cons and just a few cattle for company. It was her gentle manner, her simple wisdom and her peaceful way of life that struck a chord with viewers of the programme and transformed her into a unlikely celebrity.

Hannah’s biographer, Bill Mitchell, says the programme appealed to him because it didn’t romanticise the hardships of Dales life. His book is a factual account of Hannah’s day-to-day existence, written without sentiment but both sympathetic to his subject and respectful of the Dales community in which she lived before her retirement.

The book is as much about the dramatic and often harsh landscape and weather found in Hannah’s country; because it’s this environment that created a woman of such quiet determination and grit. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of Hannah and the Dales.

Mouseman, The Legacy of Robert Thompson of Kilburn by David Joy, published by Great Northern Books at £14.99.

IN the foreword to this book Alan Titchmarsh recalls seeing a ‘mouse’ on the leg of a small table in Otley Parish Church, where he was a choirboy.

The discovery led to him finding out about the Mouseman of Kilburn, master craftsman Robert Thompson, and finally saving up enough money to buy a Mouseman table and 10 chairs, which his family still use.

Thompson was born in 1876 in Kilburn, a village to the north of York, where he lived and worked most of his life. He was the son of the local joiner and despite being sent to serve an engineering apprenticeship ended up taking over his father’s carpentry business.

Engineering’s loss was the furniture world’s gain. Robert’s hand-crafted furniture rejected the growing techniques of mass production. He was a perfectionist who re-invented medieval techniques of woodcraft and would only work with naturally seasoned oak.

His work can be found in churches, cathedrals and public buildings as well as in private collections. By marking his work with a carved mouse Thompson had a trademark that earned him the nickname Mouseman.

As Bill points out the mouse was probably one of the earliest logos of the 20th century still to be found.

His illustrated biography tells the story of the Thompson family and includes a guide, compiled by Robert’s great-grandson, Ian Cartwright, to identifying Mouseman originals. There is also a list of places where Mouseman work can be viewed today.

How (Not) To Murder Your Mother by Stephanie Calman will be out in September, published by Macmillan,

STEPHANIE CALMAN draws heavily on her own family interactions for material for her humorous and best-selling books.

The latest is inspired by her relationship with her mother, which she describes as being “like magenta and khaki; each very nice in its way, but not on the same sofa.”

And so she moves away from her previous best-selling subject – being a bad mother – and on to a well-observed examination of mothers and daughters.

Stephanie, who is married with two children, is the founder of the website www.badmothersclub.co.uk and the writer behind the Channel 4 sitcom Dressing for Breakfast. No aspect of family life is safe. Her new offering is packed with wry smiles and outright belly laughs.

Bridesmaids by Jane Costello is published by Pocket Books at £6.99.

FORMER journalist Jane Costello’s first novel, written while she was on maternity leave from her job as editor of the Liverpool Daily Post, sold almost 50,000 copies within two months.

It’s best described as chick lit and follows the fortunes of a young journalist seeking her perfect man. When the heroine’s personal and working lives collide she finds herself with a super scoop and the man of her dreams.

This well-crafted romantic romp through four weddings and no funerals is a thoroughly modern tale of lip-glossed bridesmaids, ‘chicken fillets’ and the aspirations of young women in the 2000s.

Jane, who writes under a pseudonym (real name Wolstenholme), has been working on a second novel while expecting her second baby.