storeHouse studio
My 'Other' Books
The storeHouse is no longer a photo studio - it's a publishing house. Over the last few years I have produced a series of books for the film camera collector and user plus a number of other idiosyncratic texts, all written or edited by me, Andrew Fildes as I reckon I can write a bit! Some agree enthusiastically, some maintain a polite silence.
I spent the lockdown and later preparing a number of books, including a couple of children's books and a couple of picture books for grown ups. Good grief, I've even written poetry!
The Blurb addresses have been reproduced with the books. These tend to change, especially with updates, or just sometimes don't work.
But you can always search under the name, Andrew Fildes, on www.blurb.com instead or google - blurb andrew fildes
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How to Cook an Omelette
An unauthorised autobiography? This is a strange biography - a mixture of what did happen, or may have happened, or could have happened or what the author is convinced did happen, with little evidence. Whatever the truth of it, it was an unusual life at least. An omelette of a thing.
There's an old Chinese curse - 'May you live in interesting times.' Indeed. But how much better to be interested in the times in which you live?
https://au.blurb.com/b/10827395-how-to-cook-an-omlette
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Stories People Told Me
Everyone has a story! I remember some of the ones that people just told me, like the friend of mine who bragged of being attacked by a mob of Coypu one night. Others I got by asking nicely, like Charles who turned out to be Sioux and perhaps the only American Indian who speaks Hindi - Indian! Som of them are 'unreliable' of course.People do exaggerate. Others I may have 'developed' a bit out of dramatic licene. Whatever - they're all good stories.
https://au.blurb.com/b/12405626-disposables-bw
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ICONOCLAST
A Little Grumpy Book
I'm old. And tired. It makes you a bit fed up with the things you see going on around you. The same old mistakes, people with the same old ridiculous ideas.So instead of just complaining, I wrote them down in this, one of my series of Little Grumpy Books.
I have the page on this site called Iconoclast with some of my favourite rants - such as why on earth should we mourn the Queen?! This is a collection of some of my best - and worst. Some may annoy you but some may tweak an agreement or a realisation. After all, I've been around for a while and I do know stuff. And I'm very disappointed in you all!
https://au.blurb.com/b/12420504-iconoclast
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A Bestiary of Beastly Beasts
A Menagerie of Malevolent Animals
An Animalia of the less pleasant beasts, quite beastly beasts in fact. One of my series of 'Little Grumpy Books'. Because animals are not always cute and friendly. Sometimes they're just what they are. Unpleasant, dangerous and a bit annoyed with humans. Written in doggerel - comic verse, especially limericks.
https://au.blurb.com/b/12068120-a-bestiary-of-beasts
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DISPOSABLE
Imagine there's an ancient agency in London which specialises in removing problems. In any way necessary. If you have the money and a target - and they agree that the world would be a better place without them - then they'll take care of it for you. Then they realise that there's a pool of individuals in society who have nothing to lose - the elderly, the sick, the desperate. Because in the right circumstances, anyone will kill.
An episodic novel which I conceived of as an ideal TV series. (you listening Netflix?). A series of assassinations around the world carried out by disposable assassins.
https://au.blurb.com/b/12405626-disposables-bw
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Reading the Entrails
My first novel, the account of an almost stereotypical detective except – while he’s not corrupt he is certainly immoral. And he’s in pursuit of someone powerful and very corrupt indeed. He’s the kind of very human individual who is happy to accept the opportunities that life and his job offers. Often, he is not nice person. Neither is anyone else here. He is my hero.
Writing this was triggered by a Dustin Hoffman film where he played what was supposed to be an existential detective. Rubbish, I thought and decided to create a real one.
https://au.blurb.com/b/7091939-reading-the-entrails
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Just Let Go
On living a better life by throwing away the idea of a meaning or purpose to life.
A book based around one simple but challenging idea - what if there is no particular purpose or meaning to life. If so, what could that mean for you. The author argues that it is liberating if you let go of that common belief - for which there is no evidence at all! Is this the ultimate self-help book?
https://au.blurb.com/b/12409867-just-let-go
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The Little Book of Nonsense
A Little Grumpy Book
An illustrated collection of ridiculous platitudes, saying and the like and explanations of why these everyday expressions of 'wisdom' are actually utter nonsense. A handbook for cynics and a great little gift for anyone who has heard enough stupidity in their lives.
https://au.blurb.com/b/11149348-the-little-book-of-nonsense
As Slow As...
A Little Grumpy Book
Driving to work one day, I was suck behind a slowcoach and I began to wonder about all the similes we have for things slow, and a few more I invented on the spot. This is the illustrated collection, along with the companion similes fo Quick.
A bit of fun with the langage and an excuse to practice my illustration skills. And perhaps an encouragement to develop your own similes to avoid sounding clichéd
https://au.blurb.com/b/11171178-quick-and-slow-similies
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The War Diary of (George) Clarence Hurley 1890-1917
An annotated transcription of the personal diary of a (very) ordinary Australian soldier, a Primary School teacher by profession, who enlisted and finally died of wounds and gas at Ypres in 1917. (George) Clarence Hurley was my wife's great-uncle and his pencil scrawled notebook was found in the bottom of a box of old family photographs. It covers his arrival in the UK in late 1916, leave in London, transfer to France and the events leading up to his death on a gun crew in late 1917, just under a year in total. The text is transcribed on the right pages with annotations and notes on the left to expand what he recorded. It reflects very clearly that old adage that war is long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of absolute terror. As a literate and intelligent gunner, he left a detailed and fascinating record of the life and fate of an ordinary recruit.
Clarence was not a particularly good or professional soldier, just a curious and doomed other rank, one of a huge number who did not return and who, in the Australian tradition, now lie at rest near where they died. This is his legacy. It was a privilege and an emotional journey to preserve it.
https://au.blurb.com/b/10221705-the-war-diary-of-george-clarence-hurley
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How to Quote Voltaire!
Voltaire was one of the great thinkers, brilliant and flawed. He is often quoted, usually wrongly. That one about "I disagree with your opinion but I will fight to the death for your right to express it" - he never said that, or not quite. He did however offer that Ice Cream is so good that it should be illegal! So learn the truth, see the things he actually said, in English and French where possible, and find out about his flaws. He was rabidly anti-Semitic and a philanderer, for instance and had to keep moving to stay ahead of the Royal Police as he kept insulting the monarch!
https://au.blurb.com/b/10771517-how-to-quote-voltaire
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Sredni Vashtar
If Sredni Vashtar is if not the best short, short story ever written, it may well be the best short horror story ever written. Taken to task by my adult son for never having told him about it, I prepared this compilation - the story itself, the biography of the author, H.H. Munroe, an analysis of the tale and some of the art that has been inspired by it. It is my homage to the master.
https://au.blurb.com/b/4788952-sredni-vastar
Poetry
Poetry is the most intense use of any language and so like any compulsive writer, I will write one every now and then as the mood takes. Usually in response to some grim reality or annoyance at some idiocy. And then revise and revise and.... Here's what I managed over the last twenty years or so.
I didn’t start until a student challenged me – “well, do you think you could do any better?” Fair enough, so I set myself to the task. There are a few in here I think are not too bad and a couple that may be even good. There may be only a decent line or two in here somewhere. Or not. You be the judge.
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Collected Poems.
https://au.blurb.com/b/12488224-footprints
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Café Poetry
Coffee is not to be taken lightly - in any sense. It is the most effective legal drug and yet in recent times it has become a shadow of what it should be. No, latte is not coffee. It is coffee flavoured warm milk, a drink suitable for breakfast and for small children. Get real...coffee. I write in cafés and so, sometimes, a poem leaps upon me there. Here are a few. Enjoy them or not, I don't care. I'm on my third double macchiato of the day.
With my café photographs so it’s available in two versions – the nicer colour version or cheaper black and white version.
Black and White https://au.blurb.com/b/4788407-coffee-caf-poetry
Colour version https://au.blurb.com/b/4788481-coffee-caf-poetry
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Poach Tatter
pernicious conjecture?
contemptuous mould?
hypothalamus counselling?
menaced measles coupon?
or even a -
pungent enforceable elastic addressograph
What on earth is this? Andrew Fildes became fascinated by the random strings of words in his email spam and wondered if there were actual poems concealed in them, like the statue in the stone. Poach tatter - ragged eggs perhaps?
The result of some very slight tinkering with the text mass is a collection of surrealistic 'poems' - a challenge for the imagination and a stimulus for the mind.
https://au.blurb.com/b/4788559-poach-tatter
The Green Jellysong
A collection of comic poems suitable for 10yo to adult. Centred around the voices of various sea creatures, many have an environmental or offbeat theme. Many of the are I limerick form, a type of comic poem I love.
https://au.blurb.com/b/10886140-the-green-jellysong