Five Leaves is a small publisher based in Nottingham, publishing 15 or so books a year. Our roots are radical and literary. These days our main areas of interest are fiction and poetry, social history, Jewish secular culture, with side orders of Romani, young adult, Catalan and crime fiction titles. You can find our latest and forthcoming books below, backlist section by section, and order books through a secure site run by Inpress. Our books are also available from bookshops and internet sites including The Book Depository and Amazon. If in London, you will find most of our books in stock at Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, five minutes from Kings Cross.
The first independent bookshop in Nottingham since 2000, Five Leaves Bookshop opened in Central Nottingham on 9th November 2013. Please visit www.fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk for more information.
More than twenty Five Leaves titles are now available as ebooks. A selection of the most recent are shown below, and the complete list can be found in the ebook section.
Several other new ebook titles available in our new eBooks section.
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Five Leaves independent publishing blog also online at:
www.fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com
Most of our books are commissioned and our publishing programme is in place for some years ahead. Please don’t send any unsolicited submissions by post or email as our list is full. Sorry.
Welcome To Five Leaves Publications
Latest Publications:
That Precious Strand of Jewishness that Challenges Authorityby ISBN: 978-1910170335, 28 pages
£4.00 Click here to buy via inpress online store
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“For my parents and grandparents, Jewish identity, in religion, culture and language, was a given. Not so for me. I'm not religious, not a Zionist, so in what consists my Jewishness? Is a love of chopped liver and a belief that chicken soup cures all ills enough? And does it matter? This is the story of my search for answers. It is an argument with myself, with song lyrics to embellish the argument.” This essay was originally presented as the 2015 Yerushah Lecture at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge at the invitation of Dr Daniel Weiss.
has been at the forefront of songwriting in Britain for over five decades. He has performed in every conceivable venue around the country and toured North America, Canada, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Australia. He has published two songbooks and released thirteen CDs plus a 4CD box set of 72 songs spanning fifty years of songwriting. He has also had seventeen children's books published, the first of which, Rosa's Singing Grandfather, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.
Cities of the Northby ISBN: 978-1910170342, 240 pages
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Cities of the North Adrian Jones and Chris Matthews Cities of the North explores the changing townscape, special character, architecture and planning of the great Northern English cities. It is a companion to Towns in Britain, published by Five Leaves in 2014, and it builds on the popular Jones the Planner blog. Cities of the North takes an irreverent look at the process of development and ‘regeneration’ which is reshaping Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Hull and Newcastle, amongst others. It reviews both the successes and lost opportunities of recent years, while maintaining a focus on the intrinsic character of place.
The book is inspired by and follows in the footsteps of Ian Nairn, who opened so many people’s eyes to an appreciation of cities, their often unexpected delights, qualities, possibilities and potential. Like Nairn’s writing, Cities of the North shows a passion and affection for the places and an appreciation of their all-too-often undervalued qualities.
is a town planner and urban designer, formerly Director of Planning and Transport for the City of Nottingham and member of CABE’s national Design Review Panel.
is a local historian and lecturer in graphic design at Lincoln University.
Their previous collaboration, Towns in Britain, also based on the Jones the Planner blog, was published by Five Leaves in 2014.
John Clare: The Trespasserby ISBN: 978-1910170298, 90 pages
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John Clare was reputedly a solitary, shy man, at one with nature and the world around him. Although these authors have both published books which indicate otherwise, in this volume they focus on Clare as a difficult and transgressive figure. While he documented and celebrated the country life he valued so highly, he was also a witness to the partial destruction of that life, with the coming of enclosure and increasingly severe penalties for trespass.
John Clare: The Trespasser shows how, in his poetry, autobiography and letters, Clare was no supporter or respecter of property rights, and how he admired and learned from the nomadic gypsies and drovers who loved the land as he did..
has recently retired as Professor of English at Nottingham Trent University. He recently published John Clare and Community. He has written extensively on 18th and 19th century poetry and labouring-class poets, including John Clare, Robert Bloomfield and Thomas Chatterton. R.K.R. Thornton, formerly Professor of English and Head of Department first at Newcastle upon Tyne and then at the University of Birmingham, retired in 2000. He has edited and written on John Clare, Ivor Gurney, Gerard Manley Hopkins and the English 1890s.
Catalans and OthersHistory, culture and politics in Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands
by ISBN: 978-1910170243, 200 pages
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The current claims for independence in Catalonia raise new questions about how Catalan-speaking people view their own past and future. The book covers the Catalan-speaking areas of Roussillon (in France) and in Spain the autonomous regions of the Valencian Community, Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.
Topics covered include the Mediterranean Sea, population movements, revolt and revolution, the continuing impact of the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan language and popular culture.
has written previous books on Catalonia, on William Morris and on the West Country and on Bath. He lives in Frome. He also writes for the Times Literary Supplement, European Judaism, Catalonia Today, Vida Hispanica, Adults Learning, International Journal of Iberian Studies.
Homes and PlacesA History of Nottingham’s Council Houses
by ISBN: 978-0993409301, 110 pages
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Council housing in Nottingham is an essential part of the city’s history and identity. The slums of the nineteenth century laid the foundations for the surge of construction activity in the twentieth. Between the wars, Nottingham was recognised as one of the largest and fastest builders of council housing in the country, with huge garden city estates pushing at the city boundaries. During the 1960s and 1970s attention turned to the inner city, and by 1981 around half of Nottingham’s population lived in council tenancies. The Right to Buy discount of the 1980s heralded a new area of decreasing stock, massive sales and modest rebuilding, then the birth of Nottingham City Homes in 2005 opened a new chapter in the story. Since 2010 Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham City Council have been building council housing again with renewed vigour and confidence.
In Nottingham, council housing is popular; it is widely recognised as something that has improved the lives of countless people.
is a topographer, local historian and graphic designer who lectures at Lincoln University. He leads local history walks in the Nottingham area, and cowrote Towns in Britain with Adrian Jones.
Roman Derbyshireby ISBN: 978-1910170250, 350 pages
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Derbyshire was the geographical centre of Roman Britain. Derby, Chesterfield, Buxton and many places in the White and Dark Peaks hosted forts, farms and industries, including home-grown Derbyshire Ware pottery, all connected by numerous Roman roads. Surviving antiquities, standing ruins, field marks and coin hoards are reminders of the intertwined lives of Romans and native people in Roman Derbyshire. Tales of lost antiquities and legends about those left behind when the Romans withdrew, with some suggesting that local dialect words carry a record of a continued Roman influence down the centuries, are also part of the story.
is a freelance journalist who writes regularly for the Nottingham Post, The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the BBC, the BBC/The Space digital arts website as well as magazines such as Living for Tomorrow, Nottinghamshire Today, Staffordshire Life, Derbyshire Life, The Northumbrian, Creative Teaching and Writing. His Roman Nottinghamshire was shortlisted for the Current Archaeology Book of the Year.
Over Land, Over SeaPoems for those seeking refuge
Eds. Kathleen Bell, Emma Lee and Siobhan Logan ISBN: 978-1910170281, 142 pages
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An anthology of 102 poems expressing solidarity with the refugees who are currently receiving so little welcome as they take to boats and rafts to cross the Mediterranean and make their way with difficulty through Europe. Readers are invited to take a view of the situation which is not governed by the fear and hatred whipped up by the language of media and many politicians.
The book has been produced in the East Midlands by an editorial committee, typesetter and publisher working free of charge, and the initial print costs were covered by a crowdfunding campaign. All proceeds from sales of the book will be shared between the charities: Médecins Sans Frontières, Leicester City of Sanctuary and Nottingham Refugee Forum.
Contributors include: , , , , ,, , , , , , , , ,, , , , , , and
pamphlet at the memory exchange was shortlisted for the Saboteur awards. She teaches Creative Writing at De Montfort University. has published three poetry collections: Ghosts in the Desert, Mimicking a Snowdrop and Yellow Torchlight and the Blues. She reviews for The Journal, Sabotage Reviews and London Grip. Firebridge to Skyshore and Mad, Hopeless and Possible have been performed at the Science Museum and Leicester’s National Space Centre. In 2014 she led Writing East Midlands' first-ever digital writing residency
Forthcoming Titles:
Them and Usby ISBN: 978-1910170380, 90 pages
£5.99 Available September 2016
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Because of him we’d spent the last three years just moving from one crappy flat to another. We’d lived all over the city and I’d been to so many different schools that I couldn’t even remember them all. I was always the new kid thanks to him. I hated him.
When David and his mother move to a predominantly Asian part of town to escape his abusive dad, he braces himself for starting at another new school. He makes a couple of friends, but finds himself the victim of racist bullies who hate him because he's white. On top of that, it looks like his dad might have figured out where he lives.
Them and Us tackles issues relevant to young adults today – racism, friendship, broken families – and does not gloss over the messiness of real life.
has won the Angus, Stockport, Leicester and North East Book Awards. His books include The Last Taboo, Killing Honour and The Gun. Bali Rai is Britain's leading Asian writer for teenage readers, and has been published in ten languages.
Charlie PeaceHis amazing life and astounding legend
by ISBN: 978-1910170304, 300 pages
£12.99 Available October 2016
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Charlie Peace – His Amazing Life and Astounding Legend charts the evolution of a Victorian master burglar and murderer from truth to myth. The book begins with the way his crimes were reported in The Illustrated Police News before examining the growth of the legend in Penny Dreadfuls and ballads, before this criminal was uniquely transformed into a folk hero in popular theatre, waxwork shows, early cinema, music hall song and even comics.
The book will appeal to anyone interested in True Crime, 19th century literature, theatre and film history and popular culture. It contains kaleidoscopic extracts from rare and neglected sources and is heavily illustrated throughout.
is a Nottingham-born playwright and scriptwriter. He is best known for his television docudrama scripts, including Shipman, Why Lockerbie and Shoot to Kill, and for writing the feature film Fellow Traveller (1989), which won best screenplay in the British Film Awards. In recent years, he has become known for stage plays (including a play about Charlie Peace in 2013) and his radio dramas for the BBC
Are You Still Circumcised?by ISBN: 978-1910170373, 190 pages
£9.99 Available October 2016
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A collection of autobiographical stories about growing up in the Jewish East End in the 1930s, bringing to life an immigrant generation's abrasive encounter with the anglicising power of schooling. The collection includes accounts of his Jewish Communist family's conflicts with authority, and combating fascists at the Battle of Cable Street. This edition includes a new introduction by Harold’s son, well-known poet and children’s writer Michael Rosen.
was an American-born British educationalist who lived for most of his life in the UK. He was a Communist activist in the 1930s; after World War II, he became an English teacher and later a teacher trainer, and he played an important part in debates and developments in the fields of language teaching and primary education in the 1960s and 1970s.
Curious Golders Greenby ISBN: 978-1910170311, 106 pages
£9.95 Available October 2016
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At the dawn of the twentieth century, Golders Green was not much more than a crossroads surrounded by fields. Then the Northern Line arrived in 1907, and everything changed. An idyllic suburb quickly emerged, drawing thousands to its clean air and smart new homes.
Fast-forward a hundred years or so – today Golders Green is a bustling transportation hub, and well-known for its reputation as a significant place of settlement for Jewish Londoners. But it’s also a landscape filled with remarkable stories. Take a tour with Alan Dein as he visits some thirty buildings to unearth many previously untold tales about rock ‘n’ roll, religious orthodoxy and secularism, fishmongers and thespians, ballerinas and Olympians, haunted pubs and modernist buildings and even Golders Green’s very own slum...
is an oral historian and radio broadcaster. He has presented documentary features for BBC Radio for over twenty years, and he has received major radio awards including the Prix Italia and the US Third Coast. He’s a long-standing committee member of the Oral History Society. Alan’s late grandparents were all Jewish East Enders who’d moved to Golders Green – and they never quite understood why he’d decided to head eastwards back to his roots. But they’d be pleased to know that he’s now returned to live in Golders Green...
Downshiftingby ISBN: 978-1910170328, 64 pages
£8.99 Available October 2016
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Downshifting celebrates places where the nourishing values of literature survive; places where the technological revolution and celebrity culture fails to intrude upon enduring and deeply felt human values. Though by no means a reactionary tract for the time, it is not afraid to mourn the loss of value and meaning, to lyricise the enduring, to turn away from the default modern poses of irony and fatalism. It also contains several meditations on the writer's childhood, assenting to Auden's dictum on the key shaping of the adult by the things to which one's love is firstly and voluntarily drawn. Above all, Downshifting seeks to sing all its tunes with a light touch, to eschew the po-faced, the solemn, the overwrought and obscure.
has two previous collections from Five Leaves Publications – Contains Mild Peril (2008) and Bed Time Reading (2011). He teaches in the Creative Writing Departments of Derby and Nottingham Universities.
Tarzan and the Blackshirtsby ISBN: 978-1910170397, 90 pages
£5.99 Available October 2016
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Sam and Alf are friends. Even though they are only 14, they work together for 60 hours a week. This is London’s East End in the 1930s, and issues such as racial tension, gang crime and right-wing antagonism were as relevant then as they are today. At first it doesn’t matter that Sam is Jewish and Alf is Irish, but Alf joins Mosley’s Blackshirts and a friendship turns to hate. Previously published by Barrington Stoke as They Shall Not Pass, this is a powerful story that reaches its climax in the 1936 Battle of Cable Street.
Andy Croft's books include Red Letter Days, Out of the Old Earth, and A Weapon in the Struggle. He has written five novels, and forty-two books for teenagers, mostly about football. He has edited many anthologies and published his own collections of poetry.
Exploring Nottinghamshire Writersby ISBN: 978-1910170366, 200 pages
£10.00 Available January 2017
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Exploring Nottinghamshire Writers is a guide-book to the literary landscape of the region – three centuries and more of writers and the places that inspired them. This limited-edition case-bound book celebrates not only the obvious giants like Byron, Lawrence and Sillitoe, but dozens of others who were best-sellers in their day (Muriel Hine and J.C. Snaith, anybody?) and others whose stories had been forgotten.
Here, then, are more than a hundred Nottinghamshire authors – including a representative selection of those writing today – who together contribute to the rich literary heritage which makes Nottingham and her environs so special and ripe for further exploration!
is Nottingham born and bred, descended from lace-makers, actors, artists and second- hand dealers. She is an author, researcher, performer, small publisher and a compulsive “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.” For this book she has spent five years ransacking the libraries, bookshops, archives and graveyards of Nottinghamshire to uncover some of the more obscure corners of our literary past – and struck gold!
