Welcome
We are a small, quixotic indie book publisher, and you find us at the beginning of our journey.
We are an independent publisher from the North of England. In 2021 we published 'Where Lay May Homeward Path,' selected stories by Edward Thomas, a writer revered for his poetry but forgotten for his fiction. We believed that we had put together a small collection of neglected treasures and set out to champion this slender but sublime body of work. We released a limited edition of hardback books handmade by ourselves in North Yorkshire.
This year (2023), we moved onto the next stage of our indie publishing adventure: a paperback edition that is now available in bookshops such as The Grove in Ilkley and The Stripey Badger, Grassington. Copies are also available now from our online shop, and a Kindle version is available here now, and a Kobo version is available here.
Of course, we are preparing to release new titles soon. Please feel free to return to this website over the next few months to see how things unfurl.
New Release
Our next book, 'Sigh For A Strange Land' will help raise funds for Ukraine.
"Monica Stirling, always a gentle, graceful writer, has invested her small story with charm, compassion and hope." Kirkus Reviews
"It’s a tale that resonates in this moment every bit as it did over fifty years ago." Brad Bigelow, Neglected Books
First published in the 1950's, the novel 'Sigh For A Strange Land' is a powerful story about refugees in Eastern Europe. Funny, tense, heartbreaking, it tells the story of Resi, Boris and the redoubtable Aunt Natasha, who find themselves adrift in Europe with just their wits - and their love for one another - to sustain them.
The book will help raise funds for humanitarian aid to Ukraine with 50% of profits going to FAST AID in North Yorkshire, who have been driving convoys of aid into the country.
The paperback is available from our online store and from most good bookshops including online at bookshop.org and Amazon. A Kindle version is available here.
You can find out more about Fast Aid by visiting their Facebook page.
On Tour!
The route to publishing the novel Sigh For A Strange Land turned out to be so unexpected that we’ve created a talk/one-man show about it called The Book From Nowhere. Here's a brief description:
This is a talk about how not to publish a book.
Sigh For A Strange Land, the novel by Monica Stirling, first appeared in 1958, and tells the story of three refugees from an unnamed Eastern European country who find themselves adrift in Europe with just their wits - and their love for one another - to sustain them.
In 2023, writer Irfan Shah decided to re-release this forgotten classic. What followed was a
a series of misadventures as a labour of love turned into a journey into the margins of publishing and a Grand Tour of an alternative history of literature. It also led him to discover the surviving members of the Stirling family who revealed more about their remarkable Aunt - the doomed but dazzling Monica.
This is the story of her novel, her extraordinary life, and Shah’s clueless but spirited attempts to give Sigh For A Strange Land a second chance. It is a talk about books and dreams. It’s also one with a twist, for not everything turned out to be quite what Shah had expected.
Odd, touching and life-affirming, it manages to incorporate everything, from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, to politically incorrect sitcoms of the 1960’s; General De Gaulle; cats, rally-driving, Napoleon Bonaparte and donkey sanctuaries.
With The Book From Nowhere, Shah has concocted a delightful talk, perfect for all bibliophiles.
We will be kicking off at the Stripey Badger bookshop in Grassington, North Yorkshire on 25th March 2024. More information coming soon.
We'll publish more dates and venues in the next few days!
Open Space At Bookshop.org
Spreading the love...
We now have our own shop at Bookshop.org. We want to share the love, and so we have included lists of interesting books which, for the most part, come from smaller, indie publishers who are out there fighting the good fight. Sometimes, we'll add a few words to say just why we've included each book, and sometimes we'll say a few words on the publishers themselves - Support them if you can!
Other Titles
OSB books on Kindle.
Other titles by Edward Thomas, and available from Open Space Books on Kindle, are 'Cloud Castle and Other Papers' and 'Rest and Unrest'