Well, despite the whirl of launches and everything else this last week or so, I haven’t been around much for one reason or another, and so some of the books that were on the cusp a week or two ago are still-a-dangling like a good ‘un, though hopefully not for much longer.
What it has meant though, is that my rethink of what Hedgehog is and how it all fits together continues and in truth I am genuinely getting it straight in my head.
Which is good,
though it hurts.
Anyway, one thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is to have some wee, micro books – small in form, A6 rather than our usual A5 offerings, and more to the point wee books that can be published quickly and beautifully and with lovely nice papers and basically, you can put in your pocket with your Polos and hankie for long train journeys.
And I’m pleased to say that as I am somebody that needs to do it to understand how it will work, I was really chuffed to collaborate with Adrian Ratcliffe on the first two of these ‘Little Black Books‘ which will be out sometime soonish.
For background, with these I wanted them to have a standard format and as it will become a series I hope, they will all look the same, and be numbered sequentially.
They will also have 8 pages of poetry, and when you get to see Adrian’s two, you will soon realise just how much can be done with so little. but then that is the challenge, innit?
Going standardised on these means that they will be published and be out in the world quickly, so they will run alongside everything else we do.
Adrian’s two are autobiographical and couldn’t be more different and will be a special pair. Which is something else I’m exploring at the moment, but that is for another day.
So thanks to Mr Ratcliffe, for letting me play with The Day I Stayed At Home From School With The Dog To Watch Ceefax and A Room Without A View and I hope everybody will learn to love our Little Black Books, coming to your door in 2024
Needless to say there has been a soundtrack involved in all of this, and this is one for the lovers of the slightly obscure, as it was a later-spin-off from the band Japan, called Rain Tree Crow that created one magical, almost perfect album back waaay in the day.
I’d forgotten how much I loved it, but I think a little has seeped into the way the Little Black Books have ended-up.
Hope you enjoy it too.