Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

As we're attempting to sell the house, I'm trying to take just the best stock with me, which means I have a lot of cheaper stock now going at bargain prices. There's paperbacks at 50p and £1, and hardbacks from £1 - £10. You can find all the stock, and all the ordering details, here . Here's a few examples, all at £1.00: and these are £5.00:

Animal books there were in plenty in the 1800s: animals telling their own story. There were cats, dogs, the occasional pony, and donkeys, and then in 1877 came Anna Sewell's Black Beauty . Black Beauty told the world what it was like to be a working horse in Victorian Britain. It was a success virtually from the start, with Anna Sewell surviving just long enough to see it. Sadly she and her family benefited very little from the book's remarkable sales: Anna had been advised by her author mother to sell the copyright. She did, for £20. Publishers Jarrolds did very nicely thank you out of this: American publishers did too. Although the copyright was Jarrolds', Black Beauty was pirated in the United States and those editions sold massively there. Black Beauty set the pattern for what was to come: horses and ponies telling their own story. There were lots of them; a very few good, but most of them repetitive accounts of idyllic foalhoods, wonderful first owners, a sad sal...

40% off all non fiction stock here , for the rest of this week. Here's a few of the books on offer: Firstly some by classic equestrian authors. There's Henry Wynmalen's Dressage (a tome much followed by the Pullein-Thompsons. Wynmalen had a major influence on how they taught riding and schooled horses, and on the instructional nature of their own books). This is a decent copy, and it's now £3.60. Another Wynmalen, this one's a dustjacket-less copy of Horse Breeding and Stud Management.  Not, as far as I know, used by the Pullein-Thompsons. SOLD Waldemar Seunig's texts were translated and published both by J A Allen and Robert Hale. This copy of Horsemanship  is published by Robert Hale. It's a decent copy, and it's now £3.60. Now £30, a history of Scotland's native horse, by R W Beck. It's a survey of the Eriskay Pony. Not many of them around now, alas.

SPECIAL OFFER this weekend - 30% off all American horse books .  Strike now before the postage rates go up on Monday.  Here's a few examples of what's on offer: CW Anderson: Heads Up - Heels Down was £8.00, now £5.60 Dorothy Potter Benedict: Pagan the Black - was £15.00, now £10.50. Ruth and Latrobe Carrolls' Tough Enough's Pony  - was £15.00, now £10.50 Inez Hogan's charming Twin Colts   - was £20.00, now £14.00 Helen Oakley - The Ranch by the Sea - was £6.00, now £4.20.

There's an extra 10% off the original price on my horse and pony sale stock , and now 30% off all non-pony children's books too. Challenge at the Chalet School - down to £24.50 from £36.00 A lovely Picture Puffin - Plant Life, now £3.50, down from £5.00.

There's 30% off over 140 titles on my sales website, including Monica Edwards, Joanna Cannan and Primrose Cumming, and a whole variety of other stuff.  You can find the sale here . Caroline Akrill - Stars Don't Cry £3.50 £2.45 Joanna Cannan - London Pride £30.00 £21.00 Primrose Cumming - The Wednesday Pony £15.00 £10.50 Monica Edwards - Hidden in a Dream £20.00 £14.00

As it says, really - click here !  And here's some new stock:

I'm doing an offer until 20th November - 10% off all new stock .  Here's a couple of examples: A lovely copy of the GGB edition of one of Monica Edwards' best, once again hard to find - £70, and below a very good early Puffin ponies plus adventure story, £4.00.

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last few days.  Blogger's been down again and I couldn't get into my account..... On the website front, I've done some new authors.  Click here for the full list.  I particularly liked Ann Pilling's donkey book, which has rather more to it than the average picture book. On the sales front, I've loaded more new stock up :  principally Collins Seagulls.  And a few paperbacks (including the excellent Can I Get There by Candlelight?) , illustrated below.

I've just bought this copy of Christine Pullein-Thompson's The First Rosette.   Its original owner had created this rather charming addition, as the book doesn't have its dustjacket.  The head and rosette motif is removable (it's been placed behind a removable plastic cover) but I thought I'd leave it as it was.

I'm clearing old stock, so have a look here if you'd like to pick up some cheap pony fiction.  Hardbacks are £1.50, and paperbacks are 50p each, or 3 for £1.00; all plus postage.

Very many congratulations to the winners: Anabella , with a staggering 96 out of 100 Garnet , with 86 and Valerie Amis with 83 1/2  For those of you still chewing the carpet with frustration, the answers to the quiz are here .

If Christmas all becomes too much, why not retreat to your favourite pony book, with the excuse that you are doing research for my latest quiz , on which you might win a £50 book token to spend on pony books?  The closing date is 3rd January.

If pony books are your thing, and you travel by public transport, you will occasionally (or perhaps often) meet the situation when you are deep in your latest re-read of Ruby Ferguson's Jill , and you want to take something with you to read on the train. Do you take Jill? Well, there's a sort of muted yes from me there. If I'm reading Jill, or a Pullein-Thompson, I'll take it. If, however, I'm reading one of the pinker, fluffier modern things (for research purposes, natch) I admit I feel a twinge. Do I want the world to know I read Katie Price's Perfect Ponies and its ilk? Which, now I think about it, is faintly ridiculous, because I've reviewed them on the worldwide web , for goodness sake. It's perfectly obvious I do read them. All this is wavering off the point more than somewhat, as what I am supposed to be doing in this post is letting you know about the new section on my horse and pony book website. It features authors of books for adults! Dick Fr...

Congratulations to Mairi Mackechnie, the winner! The answers to the quiz are here .

You might have spotted I haven't posted this week.... I'm having a few days off (well, off-ish - am still at home and dealing with orders, but that's it!) Normal service will be resumed next week!

Many congratulations to the winners, and very well done to everyone who entered. It was a very tough fight up at the top, with just a single point separating 1st from 4th. A word on how the answers were marked: I marked any name which was incorrectly spelled as wrong. It simply wasn't fair to the vast amount of entrants who did spell names properly to give marks for answers where I had to guess whether an answer was wrong, or right and badly spelled. Champion Cup and red rosette to - Caroline Shaw (75 1/2 points) Smaller but still impressive cup and blue rosette to - Susan Bourgeau (75 points) Splendid green and yellow rosette - Kate Hills (74 1/2 points) Rather frilly yellow rosette - Bettina Vine (74 points) Highly commended rosettes for doing jolly well and getting more than 70: Hannah Fleetwood, Valerie Amis, Sue Howes, Norman and Samantha Ritossa If you had a go at the quiz, and want to be put out of your misery, the answers are here .

I've done various things to keep the wolf from the door in my time, and one of them was training people how to use computers. In the dim and distant past, having the Internet in the office was a New Thing; so much so that I would spend months in some London offices introducing people to the mysteries of Alta Vista and email. In the times when boredom almost became too much for me (and when you have shown the 100th person how to do a search for Chelsea Football Club it is difficult to resist the urge to scream) I would explore the Internet. Everything, I was told, was on there. Except that it wasn't: not if you liked pony books. I'd resurrected my pony book collection and read it again. Where were the internet sites on Ruby Ferguson? The Pullein-Thompsons? Nowhere. Someone will start something at some point, I thought, and went back to building my collection. This was in the heady days before Monica Edwards' titles had gone well beyond the normal purse. We used to holi...

On Wednesday 7th July, it will be my pony book website's 5th birthday , so to celebrate, there will be a quiz on the site (with prizes!) as well as special events on the forum. I'm also planning a couple of interviews and special blog posts. The quiz is all ready to go now, though I think I had better calm down from the thrill of actually getting it done before I give it another proof read. I do earn some of my living proofreading for other people (and I'm actually not at all bad at it) but I found on about my 8th look through that I'd left the answers in one bit. Sometimes I worry about myself.

At last, the new catalogue is online . As ever, I have not managed to read all the things I wanted to which are for sale, so now begins the slightly perverse process where on the one hand I want to sell books (so handy when one wants to buy food) but on the other I don't want them to go so quickly that I don't have chance to read and comment on all the stuff I haven't read. Hey ho.