Reviews Of Our First Book, The One About Coffee

As you can see from the previous post, we're doing a performance to launch our second book - TIME. We are giddy to announce that we will be joined by Jenn Ashworth, who is right now celebrating her new book deal, will be our first non-Derby-based guest, and who will be performing a special piece about TIME!

A couple of months ago we launched our first book. It was called COFFEE. We sent Jenn a copy. Jenn wrote a review of it which pleased us a lot.

Chris Killen also wrote a review in a post about a few other books like ours.

Here are my favourite quotes from the reviews, the ones I'd like to see on a sticker on the front if we ever happen to put a sticker on the front (with quotes on):

"Top Banana! " - Jenn Ashworth

"It feels like you are going round to a house" - Chris Killen

Free Digital Coffee

As promised, we've digitised our book. You can download the PDF (596KB) here.

But what of the CD? Well when you get to that page you'll see a link to download the mp3. Easy Peasy!

Just in case you weren't there at the performance, I'll just briefly point out that you can buy a real book that's been hand-bound, and of which there will only ever be one hundred in that exact form. With that you also get a free pin badge and chocolate covered coffee bean!

We Time Travel Opportunists believe that the monetary value is not in the words that make up the stories. At least, we don't want to put a price tag on ours. The three pounds don't pay for them, they pay for the materials that are part of each book and the materials for the next book, and the next one, and the next one. The contents of the book are brought to you under a Creative Commons license which means we don't mind what you do with it, as long people know where it came from and aren't paying you or anyone else for it.

That'll be all. Enjoy, pass the parcel, and support Live Literature in your town!

Yours sincerely,

Time Travel Opportunists

Coffee Night

"So where you at Derby?"
- Michael Frearson, "Derby Boy"

Over a week has elapsed since the launch night of our first book, so with a bit of distance we'd like to tell you HOW MUCH FUN we had.

That's Ray: Man Of Words. He opened the show with a few selections from his repertoire of performance poetry. Everybody laughed, and everybody applauded his brilliance. Here's Jonezy and Michael Frearson:

Look at 'em go! Jonezy let loose a stream of inspiring and realistic, existentially positive rhymes. You can meet Jonezy at City-Zen this Saturday. Michael Frearson...he works for cheese, and I tell you, he's worth his salt. Delivered like a sensitive man mad with his mic, that was some amazingly passionate poetry. Also features the hit single 'Derby Boy.' Our fourth guest we didn't get a live photo of, but here's him at the rehearsal the week before the show:
His name is Kevin Wallace, and he will take you on a human journey through history. His poetry follows trails as vast as the Americas he grew up in, and ends up as tall twisting forms delivered to Derby, his new home.

This is turning out to be a big post but I think that's okay because it was a big night. We launched our book (and sold more than half of the hand-bound first edition) and performed pretty much all of it. Emma read a segment of 'What People Are Made Of' in the first half, and in the second half did 'Communion' in it's entirety from memory! Not only that but she had the packed out Big Blue in the palm of her hand. So did Nathan. He did 'Condensation' in the first half, and the much longer 'Company' in the second. It was a real pleasure watching people watching what is a fairly long piece, but being encapsulated all the way through. Here's Nath doing that one:

I read 'The Tape Ran Out As The Coffee Fell' and sang 'Eras'. Here's me doing the latter:
We haven't got a picture of Emma performing, as we were instructed not to dare try. So here's one of us three - The Time Travel Opportunists. We've been together for about ten weeks, this was our first performance, launching our first book...and as you can tell we're really pretty chuffed with how it all went:
Thank you to:

Catherine Rogers and the folks from Literature Development at Derby City Council (without whom none of this would have been possible, or anywhere near as good!)
Michael, Kevin, Jonezy, and Ray for honoring us with their presence.
The staff of Big Blue for coping.
Everyone who came.
Everyone who bought a book.
Hannah Fox for taking the photo at the top.
Jim for taking the rest.

Love from Biff, Emma, and Nathan

P.S. We'll be doing another launch at Big Blue on Saturday 28th June for our next book: TIME.

Coffee

Behold! Our first book. We're very chuffed to have written a book and published it. A lot of people have said it is good. It's a book of short stories, and it's called Coffee.

There are five stories, and one song (that comes on a CD inside the book).

We did it with the help of Literature Development at Derby City Council. In the picture above you can see what it looks like. It is A5, it's handmade, and this first edition is limited to 100 hand-bound copies. Each one comes with a small stamped envelope containing a chocolate covered coffee bean (vegan) and a coffee pin badge.

They are three pounds.

If you would like one, you can e-mail us at:
books [at] timetravelopps.co.uk
We'd like that very much!

Update: Click here for some reviews of COFFEE.