THE POCKET GUIDE TO SHEDS. By Gordon Thorburn.

2011 1st edition. Tall 8vo paperback (137 x 216mm). Pp155. B/w photogpraphs throughout.

"What is a shed? Someone you know might say 'A shed? It's a shed. That's one, over there.' And who has a shed? Well, old Cyril's got one, where he makes his aeroplanes, and Wendy on the allotments, she's got one. True enough, but is that all there is to it? No. There's mystery here, and infinite variety, and the story goes back for a thousand years. Or more, probably. If there are a million reasons for having a shed, but not one solid argument against, why doesn't everybody have one? Is there something peculiar going on? The answers, my friend, are in this book. Here, you can find the man who reinvigorates the entente cordiale in wood, the woman who boils kettles outside the pub, the woman who says 'I'm Nicola from In the Shed', the man who says 'What's yours?', the dooket that Jock built, the blockhouse that Noah built, a neoclassical stately home, and all manner of things musical, yogic, animalcular, roguish, postal, humorous, ockerish and cloudy. Whether we see our shed as a place of work, a place of fun, a welcome refuge from normality, a shaded pool of tranquility, a realisation of a secret yearning, a place to pot up the geraniums, or a little bit of all of those, we Sheddies, tribesfolk of the mighty Sheddici, hold one truth to be undeniable. We have our sheds, and the others have not."