Not just one book!!

Latest in the Salt Just One Book campaign: the website hits have gone through the roof and 643 new orders are in process.

My own order arrived yesterday, and it's hard to describe the relish when those beautifully produced books emerge from the jiffy bag. I'd ordered Chrissie Gittins' newly-launched book of poems, I'll Dress One Night as You and Matthew Licht's stories, The Moose Show. I loved Chrissie's story collection, Family Connections, which was one of the first story collections Salt published - wry, vivid stories about 'ordinary' lives which make them anything but ordinary, so I know I'm going to love her poems. I bought Matthew's stories for John: we heard him read at a Salt event 18 months or so ago, and they seemed to me amazingly tough, dry yet moving stories, set mainly in New York, I think, and we both thought then: we've got to get those stories. But you know what, we didn't buy them that night. We thought: Oh, we'll get them another time. And guess what, we didn't get them, we just kept on thinking, Oh we'll get them sometime. This is what happens. And in the meantime the recession hit just as Salt's grant ran out and all their books looked in serious danger... This is what happens when people don't actually get round to buying the books.

So please, if you haven't yet bought Just One Book from Salt, do so: you won't just be helping Salt, or just helping to keep short stories and poetry alive, you'll be doing yourself a great big personal, life-enhancing favour, I promise. All their wonderful books here.