SEVERAL books of Hebden Bridge local interest made January's top-ten bestsellers at the Book Case in Market Street - with Power in the Landscape reclaiming the top spot.
An unusual number of novels were up there this month thanks to the usual influence of Richard and Judy's Book Club.
1. Power in the Landscape: water-powered mills in the Upper Calder Valley. A colour illustrated pamphlet from Hebden Bridge Alterna
tive Technology Centre with the history of watermills in the area . There is an accompanying DVD and/or CD.
2. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan. A honeymoon couple at a seaside hotel in 1962. A story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini. A Richard and Judy choice. From the author of The Kite Runner, a drama of beauty, destruction, sadness and suspense, chronicling the last thirty years of Afghan history, and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, and the salvation to be found in love.
4. Gold Pieces - Phyllis Bentley. Reprint of the 1968 children's classic about the Cragg Vale Coiners.
5. Mr Pip - Lloyd Jones. A Richard and Judy choice. A reclusive white man reopens the school on a Pacific island, planning to introduce the children to Dickens. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences.
6. Weird Calderdale - Paul Weatherhead. An account of strange and incredible events from the Calderdale area.
7. Notes from an Exhibition - Patrick Gale. A Richard and Judy choice. When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies painting obsessively in her attic studio, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up.
8. Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid. This selection begins when Ted Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of his resolutely private life. Critics' choice for 2007. In the same spot as last month.
9. Kite Runner - K Hosseini. In 1970s Afghanistan, twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon.
10. Folktales from Calderdale Vol. 1 - John Billingsley. The Witches of Eagle Crag, the Cliviger Boggart, the Bride Stones, the Eve Stone, Stoodley Pike, Great Rock, Tom Bell's Cave, the Miller's Grave and Churn Milk Joan are included.
The full article contains 417 words and appears in Hebden Bridge Times newspaper.
