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77books                                                                   Publishing

Literary fiction, lyrical texts, performance scripts, radio plays
                                                        

 77books Current Publication List

Most of these titles are available on kindle.
Paper copies are no longer available.
To request a copy - email sticklandp77@gmail.com



Outside in Magic    Jan. 2018



Outside in Magic.pdf



I’m the princess of a thousand valleys, I carved these hills, so when clouds heap the sky and this mountain darkens, I keep my light. With my will to carve, each rock is a life renewing sculpture. When troubles darkly swirl around your peaks, don’t lose your chisel, reconfigure, and sculpt your rocks anew. When you doubt your strength and long for vision, remember me with your aching heart and know I am here, my face like spring’s surprise. To some I am a mountain, but to you, I am the place that inspires endless change.
The Breath of Psyche      2017

Second edition



The breath of Psyche.pdf





Love springs into the air; the world is excited at the prospect of starting anew. Expansive smiles rise up on the faces of children like a blessing, a kind offering or a promise of sweet devotion. 
 
Golden sunsets flame across the western skies. Adventurers return to their ancient homelands. Poetry, like a kiss, is on every lip; the joy of passion informing every action, every song. 




The Human side of Nature      2017

Poetry



The Human side of Nature Book.pdf




To stumble upon self-consciousness.
We had wisdom, without too much knowledge,
Then we developed fear, replaced benign
Casualness with scary risk forecasts and
Stopped the good old carefree buzz from humming.





The Dream of Nausicaa          2017


The Dream of Nausicaa.pdf



After spending his final seven years with the enchantress, Calypso, she gives her reluctant blessing that Odysseus can return home. He builds a raft and sets off across the sea, only to be hit by a storm aroused by his great divine enemy, the sea-god Poseidon.

He narrowly avoids drowning and manages to reach the shore of Schería, now called Corfu, a lush, isolated island inhabited by a race of magical seafarers, the Phaeacians. Through his encounters with the Phaeacians, Odysseus gradually recovers his former status. He gains the help of the Phaeacian princess, Nausicaa, who provides him with clothes and directions, and he makes his way to the court of their king, Alcinous, where he is welcomed and promised transportation back to Ithaca.








The Nature of Things    2016


20160423 NATURE OF THINGS-1.pdf






Dreaming in Gardens  2016



Dreaming in Gardens 20160418 B.pdf







The Analyst edit.pdf

 

Since Freud initiated the practice of publishing his client’s dreams, analysts have offered us a wealth of poignant and profound narratives. This novel, by a British writer and Swiss psychotherapist, is packed with stories, dreams, inventions and coincidences. The unconscious and conscious worlds continually collide, mirror, overlap and surprise the reader as the protagonists - a writer and a psychotherapist - discover their shared aspiration to work outside the rules. Orthodox practice and inflexible approaches are questioned and cast aside as the two embark on a series of devious, provocative and risky strategies in an attempt to settle their anxieties. It’s the power of their relationship rather than their analytical insight that helps them find their way.


English only - copy and paste link to download pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nkigs16p2q0w6t5/Second%20edition.pdf?dl=0

The subject of this narrative is the creative process. The story concerns a young Chinese graduate who has studied in London. On the eve of her graduation ceremony she learns something important about her abilities. It is a vague hint of the way her creative life might develop, but many years must pass before she can practice her skills and express her understanding.





Enchantment.pdf

A tale of Enchantment tells the story of Adam who falls in love with Ida. This work has an unusual form for it comprises forty-nine three-line stanzas in blank verse interspersed between the lyrics for seventeen songs.   Various texts were appropriated to make this collaged text and an Afterword is provided to confirm the various sources and indicate how it was constructed.

Mt. Fuji             Peter Stickland          2013



Mt. Fuji.pdf


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_TT0_9CXs



Love is a constant feverish blue punctured
By the customary darts, but now the chimneys
Have learned how to draw clouds of revelations
That can transfer the prizes across the sky to you.  

This landscape is distinguished and renowned
And the broad green foreground has prepared a
Harvest of its own charismatic pasture for you.
Now the love-barbs know their true destination.



The Japanese Garden        Peter Stickland   2013



The Japanese Garden 2.pdf



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-63_1BojLU
https://vimeo.com/69792739

Nursing fantasy

If there is an enormous canyon between your dreams and where you want to be, if you’ve no idea how to construct a bridge to cross it, try nursing fantasy. 
Contrive your destiny, become an inventor of remarkable gardens, astounding spaces and spectacular installations. These things change lives. 
Become a conjuror, play tricks, create illusions, explore magnificent vistas and seduce visitors to enter. Make a world where places neither begin nor end.     
Imagine sitting quietly, gazing at your garden, shedding a tear or two.



The Nature of Things - A Design Narrative
     Peter Stickland     2012

The English and Chinese Version   978-0-9570997-3-9

copy and paste link to download pdf

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ghfeal0u892dvfi/copy%20for%20print.pdf

    
The subject of this narrative is the creative process. The story concerns a young Chinese graduate who has studied in London. On the eve of her graduation ceremony she learns something important about her abilities. It is a vague hint of the way her creative life might develop, but many years must pass before she can practice her skills and express her understanding. The book is published with facing pages in English and Chinese.
“The Nature of Things is not simply a novel but a celebration of the creative process. Typically, Stickland blurs the lines between reality and fiction and creates a meta-fictive guide to challenge the written narrative by the production of a part-autobiographical and imagined reality. The Nature of Things uses the fictitious world to explain a process which cannot be explained by conventional instruction." Lai Fun Lee

COMEDY - Two radio plays by Peter Stickland. Available only on kindle.


F & M.pdf



The two plays, Frank and Moustique go boating and Frank and Moustique get a life, follow the long British tradition of radio repartee which goes nowhere in particular. The two characters that appear in both plays are under vivid misapprehensions – in the first they believe they are improvising a performance and in the second that they are in the process of earning a living. The plays have a ludicrous plot with surreal humour, puns, catch phrases and an array of bizarre sound effects. The play Frank and Moustique go boating can be heard by following this link.

http://www.stalk.net/piano/f&m.htm Frank is read by Peter Stickland, Moustique by Christine Fasse.Introductions are by Lena Tutunjian and Sound is by David Cunningham.


Love from India by Niamh Ferguson and Peter Stickland      2012


Love From India.pdf


Even as a great fish swims along the two banks of a river, first along the Eastern bank and then the Western bank, in the same way our Spirit moves along beside our two dwellings; this waking world and the land of sleep and dreams.

Quote from the Upanishads





Rome - automatic     drawings.amikam.toren - words.peter.stickland     2012


Rome.pdf


In the spring of 2009 I was in Rome for three months. It left its mark on the automatic drawing I did during my stay in the city. Amikam Toren
One evening Amikam showed me his Rome Drawings and I envisaged a book with an automatic text to accompany each drawing. In Metamorphos, Ovid describes the portents of Caesars’ assassination. I selected a few lines from Ovid's Metamorphosis and edited it seventy times.   Peter Stickland


The Breath of Psyche  by Peter Stickland     
2012

in collaboration with Clare Carolan      


The breath of Psyche.pdf




The breath of Pan resonates across the bright blue oceans, filling the air with a sweet music that multiplies with endless variations from the mountainous terrains to the boundless deserts. 
Psyche grows miraculously tall and sings; her magical voice reverberating across continents, resounding through a million hearts. All who hear the echoing sounds speak of a new dawn.



Rainforest Reveries by Peter Stickland, David Toop and
Christine Fasse 2011


Rainforest.pdf

 

Awakening slowly in morning shadows,
Céline senses what might now ripen and
grow within her. The earth is ringing out. 
By obscure transitions, affirming visions in
the girl’s self-determining mind are revealing
new depths to her evolving character. 
The nameless hour has arrived, that
mesmerizing, eternal hour, when children
cease to look vaguely at the sky.



From the edge of the floor  by Peter Stickland   
2011

in collaboration with Jenny Nolan  


From the edge.pdf
        
            

Happy go lucky Joe trusts cheerfully to luck and never worries about the future. In ancient cosmology and late adolescence, to be lucky is to be wise. Mostly, Joe’s friends imagine his luck is something akin to being foolhardy.
Cinema critic, theorist of the French ‘New Wave,’ Joe loves being with those students who reign supreme in optimism, invent new theories with ease and conjure radical re-appraisals of the world with relaxed certainty.                           .



Frank and Moustique go boating; a play for radio by Peter Stickland  2011


Frank & Moustique.pdf

 


This book includes 26 drawings
and comes with a free CD.
The play is performed by Peter Stickland
and Christine Fasse.
Sound by David Cunningham.                             






Act 1. Life without the others; a disused dairy in Kentish Town.  
Act 2. Before the parachute opens; a piece of waste ground in Hackney.   
Act 3. A rahapsody of impertinence; a squat in St. John's Wood.
Act 4. Paddling in public; a ship's chandlers in Wapping.                           

Click here to listen. ://www.stalk.net/piano/f&m.htm


Seeking Chimera by
Peter Stickland, Christine Fasse, Dominique Fasse  2011


seeking chimera.pdf




A dying aunt describes to her niece the extraordinary influence a group of dancers had on her life. The dancers are the women of the Ouled Nail, a nomadic tribe from the Sahara Desert. The niece, Nancy Etheridge, a young Edwardian woman, decides to go in search of the dancers. Captain Lehuraux, an Indigenous Affairs Officer in the French Army, agrees to meet her in Algiers. He becomes her guide and teacher as they travel over the High Plateau to the Ouled Nail Mountains.


Deserted Memory    Dominique and Christine Fasse    2010

http://vimeo.com/24526642

The images in this book give birth to a story and though it is curiously familiar, the thread of it seems to get tangled or lost. The poems tell us that this story has happened once or several times and may even happen again. If history repeats itself what pasts are still to come? The future may not be completely unknown to us.


Dido's Lament or The Willing Librettitst      by Peter Stickland    2009


The Willing Librettist.pdf



Presented with the task of creating an opera, composer and librettist decide to adapt that part of Virgil's Aeneid that describes the tragic separation of the lovers, Dido and Aeneas. The year is 1680, the composer is Henry Purcell and the willing librettist is Nahum Tate. This novel gives expression to their remarkable talents, their creative friendship and the passions that are the source of their inspiration.                                   


This is revised edition of an earlier book.
Clare Carolan collaborated on this version.


Mairi's Wedding by Andrew Hendry        by Peter Stickland     2009

with a Foreword by Marie-Anne Mancio


MAIRI'S WEDDING.pdf

This novel is a tribute to Neil Munro

In this fairy tale, where most things seem possible, the use of quotes from the Scottish author, Neil Munro, causes the fictive and the real to overlap. Artifice and reality are further conflated by the existence of a fictional book within the real book.
Three of the characters are writing portraits of the guests as a wedding present for Mairi and each of them has a particular ore-occupation; for one it's character, for another its structure and for a third it's the lyricism of Neil Munro's language.
The location of this romance could be anywhere in Western Scotland and while the characters are contemporary they could also be generations old. History and landscape, poetry and music, innocence and love, all these are woven together to form a web as delicate as gossamer.
   
                                             

Dido’s Lament       by Peter Stickland    2008
-

Dido’s Lament is a narrative account of how the opera Dido and Aeneas was created. It is set in Restoration London, the 1680’s, where Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate are collaborating on the composition of the opera. They are adapting Virgil’s tragic love story, Dido and Aeneas, a subject that connects with their own ambitions for love. This dramatic tale gives expression to their remarkable talents, their creative friendship and the passions that are the source of their inspiration.



This book was re-edited with Clare Carolan and republished as
Dido's Lament or the Willing Librettist

 

Loving - The tales of Jack and Adelia      by Peter Stickland     2008



LOVING.pdf



Jack, a stage and screen performer treats us to accounts of romantic events that occur while he is immersed in his performances. Adelia is a journalist and a writer and the events she describes mirror her preoccupation with the game of consequences. With Jack the reader inhabits a place that lies somewhere between the written page and the auditorium. With Adelia the reader discovers a place somewhere between life and fiction.                                                                              

                                                                                                                           


Information about this author can be found on http://www.chelsea.arts.ac.uk/17248.htm

 
77 books made for other publishers


Dreaming in Public                                                          
by Peter Stickland.                                                            
Published 2004 by Futures Publications                                                                                                                           
The chronology of these tales is full of playful narrative devices that make this a book of many surprises. The thread that ties these stories together is a delicate web of associations, but it bonds us beautifully to the highly charged emotional world that its protagonist inhabits.
                 


The Book of the Play
by Peter Stickland.                                                            
Published 2002 by gf2 Gallery                                                     
"I don't get it. he got what he got by seeing to it. See what I've got?  What do I see? Will I get to see you? Is getting you what I get? Will you see to it? Will I see? He got what I got. I don't see you. I don't get to see what she saw in him. She saw, she saw. Getting what you get by seeing what you see and getting it, is getting it."                                                                            



Artist’s catalogues

A Split Second of Paradise -
the work of Julian Maynard Smith. 
Published 2008 by Station House               

Failing the attempt at flight makes the desire for freedom from gravity the subject and so by accident we stumbled into the aim of drama, which is to give a treatment of the unachievable, as opposed to that of art, which is to make actual the previously unachieved. And thus we discovered our position between two stools.                                     

For more information go to http://www.stationhouseopera.com


Performance Texts


Homage to Morandi by The Theatre of Mistakes.     
Published 2006 by Grey Suit Editions.   

This seminal piece of performance art, created in 1980, was inspired by the still lives of Giorgio  Morandi. It was sensed that certain of the Italian artist's arrangements of little boxes, vases and containers might be alluding to family groups posing for the camera. The Theatre of Mistakes scaled up these boxes and containers to larger household items (suitcases, chairs and wardrobes) that seemed more appropriate to the stage.

Price £10.00+pp

 

Going by The Theatre of Mistakes. 
Published 2007 by Grey Suit Editions.   

Going is a five-act performance. In it, the performers have to learn all the parts, while trying to be each other rather than presuming to enact characters. It is a fugue put together out of the mannerisms of departure. It concerns going, or attempting to go when the participants are bound together as closely as the strands of a knotted ring. Each weaves a role identical to that of the others in different moments of the same role.                                                                   
Price £10.00+pp


performance texts contact 77books or go to the publishing section at                             http://www.the-room.org.uk



For further information email sticklandp77@gmail.com


 

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