Ho, Ho, Hola Fahrenhistas,
Okay people we’re almost ready to launch #FarenXmas - The Elves have been working tirelessly in The Bunker making sure that everything is primed and ready for the grand opening of the Fahrenheit Christmas Grotto next week.
We’ve got all sorts of stuff planned but frankly I’m like a big kid at Christmas so despite The Elves giving me side-eyes when I suggested it, imma give you a sneaky peek of a couple of things and give you the chance to get your mitts on them before the Christmas store opens officially next week.
So who remembers getting ‘annuals’ at Christmas time? I was brought up in Glasgow in the 1970s so it was a legal requirement that every house bought the Oor Wullie & The Broons annuals every year - there was very little superhero action to be honest until randomly in 1979 I was given Superman and Batman annuals which I absolutely treasured.
Thinking about it, although thanks to my parents I was already a regular at the local library - these annuals were probably the first books I ever owned for myself - I suspect that’s the same for a lot of people.
It therefore gives me a tremendous kick to be able to announce the FIRST EVER FAHRENHEIT ANNUAL…
SHARPEN FIST HERE brings together all 13 issues of our hugely popular Fahrenzine pamphlets into one single volume.
So many of you begged us to reprint the Fahrenzines because the issue you wanted had sold out before you could get your hands on it - honestly my initial feeling was not to, but then The Elves made a deal with me - if they could find a cool way to bring them all together would I promise to at least consider it.
When they showed me the layout for SHARPEN FIST HERE it took me about 5 seconds to say YES. It’s 170 pages long and printed 8.5” x 11.5” (just like those annuals from my childhood) and it’s available in Hardback* Paperback & eBook editions.
*We’ve got loads of stock of the paperback version but for boring financial reasons (don’t get me started) we’ve only got 20 copies of the hardbacks. For fairness we’ve decided to split them 10 for UK Fahrenhistas and 10 for Fahrenhistas in the USA - first come, first served.
And of course, the SHARPEN FIST HERE artwork was SO COOL we HAD TO MAKE SOME MERCH…
Next up is a proper Christmas treat and one of my very favourite Fahrenheit traditions. There’s something about hard-boiled crime fiction that just isn’t Christmassy so we decided that every year we’d take a step back from being all edgy and just publish something to bring genuine Christmas joy.
Last year we published the hugely successful A VERY FAHRENHEITY CHRISTMAS which went down a storm. This year we think we’ve done even better…
This year’s Christmas special is THE NUTCRACKER by E.T.A Hoffman.
Now of course the ballet by Tchaikovsky is performed all around the world every year at Christmas time but before the ballet there was the book - and what a book it is.
If you haven’t read it you’re in for a real treat - written by E.T.A. Hoffman, it’s basically the blueprint for almost every children’s book you’ve ever read (and don’t even get me started on the Toy Story movies - some scriptwriter in Hollywood needs to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror).
Honestly if you haven’t read this, you must and it’s one of those rare and precious books that work just as well for adults as it does for children - trust me on this.
Plus it’s written by E.T.A. Hoffman who is one of my lifelong obsessions.
Plus it’s got this amazing re-imagined cover from the Fahrenheit designers.
Plus the hardback version of this is EVERYTHING - a genuinely beautiful object and a real classy gift to give anyone who you love or who loves books.
And finally as I’ve blabbed about some Christmassy stuff a bit early it’s only fair that we start our CRISIS AT CHRISTMAS charity thingy a bit early too.
STARTING TODAY anyone who buys anything from us, or retweets us, or signs up to our newsletter, or follows us on Twitter or Insta etc will go into a hat and we’ll pull out a name at random next Friday and donate one of the CRISIS AT CHRISTMAS packages in your name to help someone who has found themselves without a roof over their head this Christmas…
Okay, that’s all from us this week - hope you enjoy the chance to get some Fahrenheity Christmas shopping in before the madness starts properly next week.
This weekend we’ll mainly be ignoring books altogether and watching the Autumn International Rugby matches - top game pick is France -v- New Zealand on Saturday we reckon.
Whatever you’re doing look after each other and stay safe.
Better times are coming.
We kiss you.
xx
P.S. We’re pretty thrilled to say that THE BUTCHER’S PRAYER by Anthony Neil Smith has been short-listed for ‘Indie Book Of The Year 2021’.
Now that the judges have short-listed it the final decision goes over to the public vote.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen to us too often and it can make a massive difference to a book/author so we’d really love it if you’d go and vote for us…