John Carder Bush / “Cathy” reprint

John Carder Bush is a writer, poet and photographer and also happens to be Kate Bush‘s brother. He has taken many great photos of Kate for her sleeve art over the years (the covers of the Hounds Of Love single, Running Up That Hill and Experiment IV come to mind) and back in 1986 he published a book called Cathy which is a collection of photographs by him of his sister Kate as a young girl, with accompanying text.

Now, I nearly bought this back in the day. It was a limited run of just 500. I can’t remember how you were supposed to order it, but I found out about it via the short-lived Kate fanzine Under The Ivy. Obviously this was pre-internet, and more effort was required than just clicking a button. I’m sure it was mail-order and probably involved cheques or ‘postal orders’ – too much organisation for my 16-year old self! It’s now worth a ludicrous amount of money, so there’s a lesson learnt.

The good news for me and other Kate fans is that the book is being reprinted by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group. There is a special signed edition (signed by John, not Kate!) available via the official website although personally, I’m not seeing enough to justify the £80 premium over the standard set.

Cathy is released on 20 November 2014.

• • UK Pre-order: Cathy
• • GERMANY Pre-order: Cathy
• • ITALY Pre-order: Cathy
• • FRANCE Pre-order: Cathy