Independent publishers on my bookshelves

To finish the Read Indies month I thought I’d present some of the indie publishers on my bookshelves, together with some recommendations from each of them.

Favourite indie publishers

Slightly Foxed

Excellent memoirs in a beautiful format, the Slightly Foxed Editions are very easy to love. I have

Recommendations

• Going solo by Roald Dahl
• 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
• I was a stranger by John Hackett

Peirene Press

Sharp, short and hard-hitting translated fiction, Peirene Press is one of my favourite publishers. I have liked almost all of the Peirene Press books I have read so far but The Last Summer is my favourite.

Recommendations

• The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili
• The Last Summer by Ricarda Huch
• Shadows on the tundra by Dalia Grinkevičiūtė

Folio Society

Beautiful, illustrated editions of well-known works. If you are looking for a luxury edition of a favourite book, a special gift, or just really love interesting illustrations and book designs, Folio Society is a good place to start. Expensive though, although they sometimes have sales.

Recommendations

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurie
• Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• South Polar Times

Some other independent publishers on my shelves

Notting Hill Editions

Notting Hill Editions is close to becoming another favourite publisher of mine. They publish small cloth covered collections of essays and similar texts. The format is rather similar to the Slightly Foxed editions, but with a more modern look. My favourite so far has been Deborah Levy’s short memoir “Things I don’t want to know”, but most of them seems interesting.

Pushkin Press

I haven’t read much from Pushkin press but they did publish A woman in the polar night, one of my favourite reads last year.

And Other Stories

And Other Stories publishes a substantial proportion of translated fiction, which I like, but so far I have only bought two novels by from them, both by César Aira. I liked The Lime Tree but the other, The Seamstress And The Wind, was too weird for me.

Ayebia

Is another interesting publisher, focused on African and Carribean literature, but another one I am not yet very familiar with. For my first read from them I decided to start with African Love Stories, an anthology. I am only halfway through it, but am enjoying it so far, and have been introduced to several interesting authors that were new to me.

Indiebooks

Indiebooks have republished the first three books about Worrals. I was not too impressed by the design but they were quite fun to read, especially the first one.

Baen books

Baen publishes Fantasy and Science Fiction, including a few of Elizabeth Moon’s titles, which are always good fun. Their ebooks are DRM free and not region locked, which I really appreciate, and they make a yearly free short story bundle which is a great way to test their authors. That’s a good thing because not all of their authors are worth reading.

A few Swedish independent publishers

Bakhåll förlag (Swedish)

Bakhåll förlag has recently published some excellent memoirs, including A maid among maids by Ester Blenda Nordström and Every Friday by the gate by Wanda Heger, both of which I have reviewed in this blog.

Atlantis (Swedish)

Atlantis focuses on classic literature in Swedish, including The Poetic Edda and Pennskaftet (Penwoman) by Elin Wägner.