The Handbook of Soft Fruit Growing by David Turner & Ken Muir

The Handbook of Soft Fruit Growing by David Turner & Ken Muir lands on the shelves of my shop.

Croom Helm, 1985, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs; Diagrams; Tables;

From the cover: Soft fruits are an asset in any garden, adding colour and variety and providing a rewarding yield at the end of the season. Yet many gardeners are discouraged, imagining successful soft fruit growing to be more difficult than it need be.

This book presents a straightforward, step-by-step guide on growing soft fruits and is aimed at both the amateur and professional gardener. It gives a great deal of useful information and advice based on many years extensive research into the commercial production of these fruits. Methods introduced and found to be successful for commercial growers have been adapted for the amateur gardener and are explained in detail.

The opening chapters give instructions on the planning of a fruit garden and on general considerations such as crop rotation, site, soil, weed control, manuring and pest disease control. Later chapters are devoted to the growing of the individual crops; blackberries, hybrid berries, blueberries, blackcurrants, red and white currants, gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries. Information is given for each type of fruit recommending varieties and types of plants available for purchase, availability of certified stocks, planting distances, training and pruning methods and cultural details. A wide variety of colour illustrations and line drawings complement the text. In all, the wealth of information in this handbook ensures that it will be a valuable guide that no gardener will want to be without.

Introduction by: H. A. Baker

Very Good in Good+ Dust Wrapper. Gently faded at the spine of the dust wrapper. Text complete, clean and tight.

Black boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. [XIV] 181 pages. Index. 9½” x 6½”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!

Some You Win: A Life in Racing by Julian Wilson

Some You Win: A Life in Racing by Julian Wilson lands on the shelves of my shop.

CollinsWillow, 1998, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs;

From the cover: From school at Harrow to the mean streets of Glasgow; from low life on Manchesters Moss Side to high life in Barbados and St Moritz, via the Kings Road in the Swinging Sixties: the frenetic pace and colour of Julian Wilsons extraordinary, incident-packed life belies the quiet-voiced urbanity so familiar to millions of BBC Television viewers until his retirement in 1997.

Always a sporting achiever, and always passionate about his chosen sports, Wilsons addiction to racing began at the age of nine as he listened to the radio commentaries of the great Raymond Glendenning. Joining the BBC as their television racing correspondent in 1966, he embarked on a long and distinguished career during which he has never been shy of controversy.

Now, in these remarkably frank memoirs, Wilson not only exhumes hitherto untold escapades from his own colourful past -some of them hilarious, some truly shocking but draws back the veil on a rollercoaster life at the BBC and his sometimes stormy relationships with fellow broadcasters including David Coleman and Peter OSullevan.

A lifelong involvement with the Turf, which began with his arrival in Newmarket as a rookie reporter with nowhere to live and no contacts among racings notoriously stand-offish Establishment, has given Wilson an unrivalled inside knowledge of the sport and its most famous names. On horses and jockeys, trainers and owners, betting and the politics of the racing industry, Julian Wilson has a story to tell and he does so, characteristically, without pulling punches.

Anyone who wonders what really goes on in racing should read this book and find out.

Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper. Leans slightly. Pages very gently age-tanned.

Blue boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 320 pages. Index. 9½” x 6¼”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!

Running with the Fox by David Macdonald

Running with the Fox by David Macdonald lands on the shelves of my shop.

Unwin Hyman, 1987, Hardback in dust wrapper.

Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs; Black & White Drawings; Diagrams;

From the cover: From an early age, David Macdonald fell under the spell of foxes. He tried to observe them from a crudely-constructed hide and when this failed, he made plaster-casts of fox paw prints. The secretive life-style of the animal intrigued him. Yet its reputation was inconsistent: was it the epitome of cunning, the villain of childhood fables, the scourge of the hen run, or a noble quarry? What was behind the myth behind the fox?

On reaching Oxford University, Macdonald decided to devote his time to the study of foxes. His research was unusual: he did not restrict himself to books, but instead resolved to gain first-hand experience by watching this animal. He learnt the technique of following foxes through the night, recording every aspect of their behaviour and discovering facts that other naturalists had failed to notice.

He relied on the latest technology of radio-tagging, night-vision binoculars and often simply on his own extraordinarily tough attitude towards physical discomfort. During his 15-year study in farmland, mountainside and suburban sprawl, the author came to employ many of the same skills as the red fox. He learnt to lie motionless for hours in freezing conditions, he tracked and stalked from dusk till dawn and, keeping always in the cover of the woodlands edge, he learnt the art of running with the fox.

At times, he was able to observe his wild subjects at excitingly close quarters by means of a succession of hand-reared cubs (which acted as spies in the world of wild foxes). One of these, his vixen Niff, was the subject of the acclaimed BBC film The Night of the Fox.

Now, as an Oxford research fellow and the worlds leading authority on the red fox, David Macdonald has written the story of his lifes work. So vividly does he transport us into the world of the fox that you can hear the eerie screams of courting vixens, smell the pungent scent which hangs in the damp morning air and share his elation at seeing cubs gambolling in the long grass.

His painstaking observation reveals the true nature of the beast quite different to its folkloric image. Running with the Fox is a stunningly original insight into one of our most adaptable and beautiful animals.

Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper. Small damp stain to the upper board matched on the reverse of the upper panel. Text complete, clean and tight.

Green boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 224 pages. Index. 10″ x 7¾”.

Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!