Welcome to StreetBooks, a micro-publisher based in west Oxfordshire.
**** StreetBooks is pleased to publish Facing the Strange, a fine debut novel by SB Sweeney. **** Find out more...
'SB Sweeney writes with a clarity and wit that brings to life the less glossy side of the eighties: a world of squats, bedroom bands and cheap drugs, where a CV most likely meant a pint of cider and Vimto. The intriguing and intertwining tales make an addictive read.' Deb Googe: My Bloody Valentine and The Thurston Moore Group
'One great long drunken rambling guitar solo of a novel!' Tim Pears
'It's La bohème meets Trainspotting, with the structure of a dream; a hole in the wall of the ordinary, an extraordinary landscape beyond.' Roger Ashton-Griffiths: Actor and Writer
'Facing the Strange is a kaleidoscope of intertwined lives told with verve, humour and - despite its darker themes - lightness of touch.' Mary Lucille Hindmarch, The Oxford Times
'SB Sweeney's novel is a rollicking joy ride from start to finish. It's hard to believe, in fact that this is a debut novel, so adept is he at conveying the brutal beauty of life's searing highs... crashing lows... and life in between... It is both heart-breaking and life-affirming.' Liz Nicholls, Round & About Magazine
'At one level Facing the Strange is uncompromising, tough. It deals with difficult subjects, including the self-deception of addiction and family breakdown. But then there is the Becketian comedy in the face of adversity and the insight into people. Above all it's about people. No matter how these men and women in the book are - whether at their best or at their worst - they are written about with compassion and humanity. It's a story of vividly realised places - Preston, London, Ireland, North Yorkshire, Somerset. It's a novel of polyphony - of a wide range of beautifully rendered voices. Facing the Strange is a book that asks challenging questions about where we have come from and where we are now.' Frank Egerton, Publisher
Update: Oxford launch party for Facing the Strange held at Blackwell's. Read about it at justthoughtsnstuff.com
Update: Terrific piece about Facing the Strange and author SB Sweeney on the Oxford ContEd New Writing page
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StreetBooks is also thrilled to published A Conscious Englishman by Margaret Keeping.
A Conscious Englishman, praise, reviews and features
'[Margaret Keeping's] inhabitation of Edward, Robert, Helen and their world is tender and subtle...A lovely novel.' Robert Macfarlane
'[Margaret Keeping's] writing is very assured and she has the necessary eye for place, detail, weather and seasons to write about Edward Thomas...I hope the book will reach the wide audience it deserves and feel sure that many others will enjoy it as much as I have.' Linda Newbery, author of Set in Stone
'A Conscious Englishman...turns its subject into a twentieth-century equivalent of the old-fashioned notion of Keats: a poet misvalued by his times and cruelly cut down...' Peter McDonald, The Times Literary Supplement
'A Conscious Englishman holds its own against other versions of the same story and provides an easier route than academic studies into the contexts of Thomas’s writing. Anyone with a burgeoning interest in Thomas should begin by reading the poems, but A Conscious Englishman is a worthy addition to the expanding secondary literature.' Gabriel Roberts, The Oxonian Review
'The author’s research on Frost, Farjeon and Thomas is commendable, and her sympathies obviously lie with Edward...' Janet Williamson, The Historical Novels Review
'A Conscious Englishman offers a unique perspective on the last four years of Edward Thomas, confronting and imagining inner thoughts and feelings, and conversations with those close to him, questioning the unemotional documenting of facts by biographers. It reaches, and allows us to glimpse, important moments in the life of Edward Thomas that non-fiction is not able to.' James Riding, Friends of the Dymock Poets Newsletter
'An absorbing book...This novel is very good on the influences behind the wonderful poetry.' Merryn Williams, The Oxford Times
Update: Margaret Keeping and stonemason Richard Morley talk to the Oxford Times about the unveiling of the plaque at 113 Cowley Road, the house Edward Thomas moved to in 1897 as an Oxford undergraduate
Update: Margaret Keeping chosen as the University of Oxford's Alumni Author of the Month
Update: Excellent piece by Claire Armitstead about StreetBooks and A Conscious Englishman on Guardian Books Blog
Update: Read about A Conscious Englishman on the Guardian Books Blog
