If you fancy a good read check the new revamped store whcih now has a complete folk focus. The following are in the recommended books section:

Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics, 1820-1883 (as recently reviewed by the EFDSS)

The English Year: (one you will finding yourself dipping into time and time again. A personal favourite, a month by month guide to English festivals and customs from May Day to Mischief Night!)

Drone On (an entertaining look at Celtic Music)

Class Act: The Cultural and Political Life of Ewan MacColl (A Highly acclaimed biography of Ewan from Ben Harker)

Celtic Music: A Complete Guide (I don't think you can ever get a complete guide of any genre but this does a fine job and offers a great read to both those new to the genre and those well versed. Filled with history and recommeded music. I found it a great read)

Alias MacAlias: Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature: Henderson was continually drawn to the North-east and its folk art heritage; in particular, the tinker-gypsies, whose contribution to folk culture he gave full recognition. He was a scholarly song and folktale collector, a songwriter, a serious political fighter who rejected Margaret Thatcher’s offer of an OBE, and a poet whose sequence of war poems Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1949.

Find these and lots more in the newly designed and Folk Specialist Store