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Welcome to the Local Books Section


Several wonderful books have been published recently featuring Colchester, Essex and aspects of local history. The latest is Andrew Phillip's 'Children's History of Colchester'. We've been wanting a book about Colchester for children and finally it has been published.
One of our favourites is ‘River Colne Shipbuilders’ packed with fascinating details of the Colne shipyards contribution to maritime history. Full of photographs, plans and James Dodds’ fantastic artwork this book is a real treat and good value for money at £28.00. There is also available a limited edition hardback slipcased edition at £75.00.
We aim to keep all books available of local interest, whether from the major publishers or 'home produced' by local auhors. We aim to support the local writing community wherever we can so do have a good look over the shelves in the local interest section.

OAK : One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings


Colchester Artist, Stephen Taylor spent three years painting the same oak tree in the corner of a field outside Colchester. The resulting book is a uniquely fascinating and inspiring record of this artistic endeavour. Chosen by Oprah Winfrey as her book club pick, this is what she had to say about it...."Some books show you how to laugh, some show you how to think, but, every once a while, one will show you how to live. The exquisite Oak: One Tree, Three Years, and Fifty Paintings follows of the story of artist Stephen Taylor who decided to paint the same oak tree in the English countryside every day for three years. The titles of his ensuing works reveal the detail with which he pursued his vision: Oak With Crows, Oak After Snow, Oak At Night in Winter, Oak in Early Spring. There are no abstract oaks or evocative splashes of ink meant to suggest an oak. The trees are realistic, some with an almost photographic precision revealing the larger point. As the oak changes by the month or hour, the surrounding environment changes. Barley fields are cut down and rise again; jets stream by through the sky; blue tits forage in the leaves; and damsel flies swarm below the branches. A singular plant becomes a talisman for the passage of time and seasons and you, as viewer begin to change too, becoming more observant and aware of the tiny yet enormous natural transformations that take place each day and minute. Seeing in the truest sense is the lesson here, one that's taught with such elegance that you'll be bewitched into stopping and contemplating the birch or maple in your own yard that's serving as T.S. Elliot once described trees as "the still point of the turning world." --Oprah.com
To find out more about Stephen Taylor's work visit http://www.stephentaylorpaintings.com/
 
 
 
 

Children's History of Colchester


Andrew Phillips, our top local historian, has just published A Children’s History of Colchester (Hometown World £4.99) Packed with illustrations, this is a lively, colourful and entertaining read. The book covers Colchester’s history from the Romans and Boudicca right through until modern times. It’s not just about the big events in history but also the life of ordinary people – their religion, crime and punishment, their food and their health – and all told in an engaging way. Just right to get younger kids bitten by the history bug.

Colne Valley and Halstead Railway by Andy T Wallis


This book takes an in-depth look at the small independent railway that was financed and built by the good citizens of Halstead and its surrounding villages in Essex. The CV&HR came into being in 1860 but struggled financially for a number of years before being put into receivership. However, in the late nineteenth century it made steady progress and reached its financial and traffic peak in the years leading up to the First World War. Absorbed into the LNER in 1923, and passing into state ownership in 1948, the line ceased to carry passengers from 1 January 1962 and closed completely in April 1965. Yet a small portion of the line has since been rebuilt from scratch at Castle Hedingham. The reader is invited to view the stations and locomotives of this historic railway, witnessing the line in its prime and in the years since its closure. Some stations have survived remarkably well, while others have been totally destroyed. But many artefacts from the old line survive as part of the Castle Hedingham restoration undertaken by dedicated enthusiasts. The story of this project and the railway to which it pays homage is revealed through this varied selection of images and their authoritative captions.
 mberley Publishing paperback, £14.99.

This Luminous Coast by Jules Pretty


Over the course of a year, Jules Pretty walked along the edge of the East Anglian bulge, completing 400 miles on foot and a further 100 miles in a variety of boats. This is a coast that is about to be lost: not yet, perhaps, but soon. A thousand years ago a king commanded the waves to retreat to show human futility in the face of nature. Others built sea walls and estuary defences. Small stretches of cliffs provided natural protection, as did shingle heaped into banks. Sea walls were raised, yet still churches, houses and whole settlements fell into the sea.
This process continues inexorably. In 50 to 100 years it is possible that no landscapes by the sea will survive quite as they are today. What, some may ask, is there to lose?
This Luminous Coast is Jules Pretty's exhilarating but disturbing answer to that question. Pretty, a noted East Anglian academic and environmentalist, takes the reader with him on a journey over land and water, over sea walls of dried grass, beside stretched fields of golden cereal, alongside white sails gliding across the intricate lacework of invisible creeks and estuaries, under vast skies that are home to curlews and redshanks and the outpourings of skylarks.
This is a beautifully produced illustrated hardcover book published by Full Circle Editions, an Eadt Anglian based publisher who make each book they publish special by carefull attention to design and production techniques.
Full Circle Editions £25.00

 

Dora Love Poems: 'After Stutthof Concentration Camp, What Hope?'


February 27th to March 3rd is Holocaust Memorial Week and Essex University is marking the anniversay of the liberation of Auschwitz with a week long series of events. Dora Love who has lived in Colchester for many years was one of few survivors of Stutthof Concentration Camp and she is playing a central part in the weeks activities.  After Dora's rescue, as she lay in a hospital bed recovering from tuberculosis, she began scribbling poems on scraps of paper. Now, over fifty years later those poems have finally been published. Doras poems are available at many of the weeks events and at Red Lion Books, price £6.99. 
 
For further information about the holocaust memorial week please visit: http://www.essex.ac.uk/history/holocaust_memorial_week 

The Artist in our Midst 2


This fine, highly illustrated book has 200 pages of gorgeous full-colour images by 73 of the region's most active contemporary artists, including Maggi Hambling, who graces our cover) . These paintings, craft arts and scultpures highlight the best East Anglia has to offer and are a joy to see. Plus, numerous artists have shared their studios with us providing yet more insight into how, and why, they create their remarkable art. Published by Green Pebble, the East Anglian Art Magazine, this is a book that really shows the skill and strength of the region's artistic community.

E. J. Rudsdale's Journals of Wartime Colchester


 
Eric Rudsdale's role as a curator and air-raid shelter superintendent at Colchester Castle during the Second World War gave him the perfect opportunity to record life on the home front in his diaries. Eric's writing is characterised throughout his journals by his wry observations of wartime officialdom and his lack of conformity with the prevailing views of the time. He was a pacifist, which gives his journals an unusual perspective. However, even as a civilian he could not escape the conflict, living in a garrison town threatened by invasion and regular bombing raids. His journals, therefore, record anxious and tragic events, but throughout it all his sense of humour is never diminished for long. The diary extracts demonstrate Eric's ability to bring a scene vividly to life and each account highlights the daily pressures that people endured as they valiantly tried to carry on with normal life in spite of the war.
History Press. Paperback. £12.99.

 
 

 

 
 

Camp 186: The Lost Town at Berechurch by Ken Free


Local historian Ken Free has done a fantastic job in telling the story of one of the most amazing PoW Camps of the Second World War. Camp 186 at Berechurch on the outskirts of Colchester held 6,000 men mostly ordinary Germans forced into an extraordinary situation.. This book tells the stories of the inmates using their own letters, diaries and drawings. It shows how they created a hospital and put on musical and theatrical events that a professional company would be proud of. It shows how they mixed with the local Colcestrians and often became part of the community. The camp boasts what is probably the largest number of successful escapees in one attempt as well as the story of a prisoner who escaped only to return a year later.Filled with fascinating pictures and photographs this book really does open our eyes to a long neglected part of Colchester's history.
Amberley Books. Paperback. £16.99

Stour Odyssey by Ken Rickwood


 In 'Stour Secrets', published a couple of years ago, Ken Rickwood explored the Stour Estuary. In his new book he continues his exploration of the river from Manningtree to the source in the chalk uplands of Cambridgeshire. As Ken says at the start of the book, 'rowing itself is absurd - if we were meant to row we would have eyes in the back of our heads'! And brave man that he is he decided not to take the easy option. Rather than travel downstream he sets off against the current which, I suppose, is the only way to do it if you are inent on following a river to its source. As he propels his little rowing boat along the Stour, he passes through Dedham and Flatford in the famed Constable country, past Nayland, whose name is derioved from 'island' (as it once stood in the Stour).Then on to Bures where King Edmund was crowned and to Sudbury, Saxon stronghold and home of Thomas Gainsborough. Winding onwards the journey continues to Clare with its Norman castle and on through the Suffolk countryside to Kedington with its 'Westmenster Abbey of Suffolk. Here he finally hops out of his boat to continue the final stage to the source on foot. This is a book to charm and educate as Ken Rickwood describes the villages and the countryside stopping to talk to folk en route and fill ion the background history. Illustrated with black and white photographs showing how the countryside has changed over the last few generations this is a really fascinating read.  
Paperback. £10.00