You can tell that caravans are cool again by the spate of books on the subject, including this Caravan Cookbook by Monica Rivron.
The Rivron family (Monica is wife of comedian Roland Rivron) have been caravanning for over 10 years, which has given them plenty of experience of preparing meals in a limited kitchen space. The book contains recipes for simple, but tasty meals, as well as guidance on what essentials to bring along from home.
The book is available from Amazon, priced £8.46.
If you want to discover the vibrancy of the city between the wars, you might want to get hold of a copy of Twenties London: Sex, Shopping and Surburban Dreams by Mike Hutton.
This 228-age book is described as an 'affectionate recollection of twenties London', examining all facets of metropolitan life from the good time party antics of the Bright Young Things to the seedy underbelly of East End gangland. There's also flapper girls and aesthetes, jazz stars and film legends, but also everyday folk going about their everyday post-war business.
Throwing in some unique photographs and first-hand accounts of life at the time, the book lands on 30th June, but is available to order now – the price is £8.99.
There was a hugely-expensive, extremely limited edition book about the subject a couple of years back. Thankfully, the Beauty Is In The Street book, also known as A Visual Record of the May '68 Paris Uprising, is more affordable and plentiful.
The subject matter is the May 1968 student protests in Paris, which also spread to factories and other workplaces to create a general strike that brought the country to a standstill. Among the students were a group called the Atelier Populaire, which produced hundreds of posters to encourage the protestors and to report on police brutality.
This book reproduces over 200 of these iconic posters, as well as featuring a number of photographs, many published for the first time and translations of first-hand accounts of the clashes between the students, strikers and the police. 272 pages and published by Four Corners Books, this hardback book is available for £25.
Find out more at the Amazon website
If you have an urge to get crafty, you might want to check out Chic on a Shoestring: Simple to Sew vintage-style accessories book by Mary Jane Baxter.
Mary Jane Baxter is a hat maker, crafter and journalist, with all those of those skills no doubt coming into play here as the author shows how to convert vintage and throwaway items into something 'stylishly vintage'. A tie into a purse, knitting needle holder, cute corsage and a belt, silk scarves as a top or skirt or t-shirts as 40s-style turbans for example. There's also advice on how to find 'treasures' at markets, charity shops and vintage stores.
The 160-page book is published by Kyle Cathie, available online for £9.49.
The Sixties Unplugged by Gerard DeGroot was published a couple of years back, but has only just made it to the top of my reading list.
DeGroot's central premise is that the 1960s weren't the idealistic revolutionary decade that is usually remembered with fondness and its legacy isn't necessary the things most people immediately think of. The book covers all the usual things you’d find in a book about the 1960s (The Beatles, Vietnam, JFK, mini-skirts and student riots), but DeGroot stresses that only a minority of people involved in radical movements. He further proposes that it is the conservative politics of the time that has had the greatest impact on our world – this was the decade that Reagan first went into politics. Whether or not you agree with his arguments, the book offers a different perspective on a well-worn path.
The book is available for £6.99 from Amazon or as cheap as £1.25 from other sellers.
The Perfect Picnic, published tomorrow, is just the book to ensure a certain sophistication to your al fresco dining activities this summer.
Hilda Leyel, who originally wrote The Perfect Picnic in 1936 was an expert cook and founder of the Society of Herbalists. She had a number of forward thinking ideas about food, such as eating seasonally and perfecting traditional British dishes, which chime perfectly with our current culinary fashions.
Recipes include egg mayonnaise on crusty bread, watercress, beetroot and nasturtium salad and spiced plum cake with salted almonds all of which promise delicious possibilities for summer dining.
You can buy The Perfect Picnic from Amazon for £4.99 here.
