We started work
On a new project
Helping you help yourself
Make the most of your experience and expertise.
We take clients with a solid idea and experience and turn it into a viable reality with minimum fuss and maximum deliverables.
Our main objective is to consolidate and capacitate. We help get the ground under your feet properly, bring out and emphasise what you’re best at, and enable you to take the next step on your journey.
Our clients have a good project that they want to present to best effect, and the skills needed to get to the next step up. We find ways for them to reach out to new audiences ready to hear their particular message instead of making them the same as every other social-media posting service.
Our role is in identifying their needs and making that next step happen in a way that evolves their brand and builds on their identity.
Design Proposals
At Lamplight, we aim to take what you have and turn it into a public profile or project that sets you off to best effect.
Here are a few example briefs that we’ve put together.
Treatment – The Grovesnor misadventure documentary project
Forged On the Frontier
Vol 1 of The Unbelievable True Story of History’s Strangest Character, Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.
Forged on the Frontier is a wryly humorous telling of British colonialism in South Africa, told from the perspective of a not-very-successful family. It is the first in a series of three, providing a definitive history of Joshua Norton, who rose to become Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico (1860-80).
As this story attests, Norton has a solid claim to being the strangest man in history, a position which he solidified as an 1820 Settler during the British colonisation of the Cape. Many think the patron saint of Discordianism a myth, his life absurdly exaggerated, but they are wrong. Reality is far stranger than fiction, and Joshua Norton is the absolute proof — a real-life Don Quixote, formed in tragedy and triumph, who was scarred into the delusion of a better world by the violence of this one.
To understand the man behind the myth, author Chirag Patel looks beyond his arrival in the newly-minted state of California, and back to his youth. One of eleven children, half of whom died before he left the colony, Norton’s story brings to life one of the most turbulent and legendary periods of colonial history, as the Dutch, British, Xhosa, Khoi, and Fingo all try to build a life for themselves on a land riven by constant war.
Although a tale of heroes and villains, Forged on the Frontier is mostly a story of people trying to survive where they can, when all the odds are stacked against them and great political winds tear through their desperate lives. It contains the most accurate and complete information on Norton’s early life in any book to date, providing a crucial precursor which helps readers understand his later stance in life, his resistance to slavery, and why Norton became one of America’s first tabloid celebrities.
Books and Audiobooks
Lamplight has published over 60 books, in ebook, audiobook and print. You can find these at any good retailer, or browse the shop for universal links to all retailers.
Series include:
- Illuminated Ancient Wisdom in Modern English (15 books, 13 in audio)
- The Original Masters of Modern Dark Fantasy (15 books, 14 in audio)
- Biggles, the Classic British Hero (10 books, 6 in audio)
- Fascinating Topics, Strange Experiences and Unusual Advice (7 books, 6 in audio)
- Child-focused Education in Theory and Practice (5 boks, 4 in audio)
- Still Light (5 books)
You can also browse the many store links for Chirag’s books on Reading Lists at books2read.com/rl/chiragmybooks and for audiobooks at books2read.com/rl/booksbylamplight
Chirag's writing
Chirag’s most recent books are ‘Seekers and Speakers’, a self-help book about discovering your own path written as a dialogue between himself and Arthur Telling, an author of many metaphysical books. His book ‘Forged on The Frontier’, the first in a series of historical novels about Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States (1860–1880). As this story attests, Norton has a solid claim to being the strangest man in history, a position which he solidified as an 1820 Settler during the British colonisation of the Cape. Many think the patron saint of Discordianism a myth, his life absurdly exaggerated, but they are wrong. Reality is far stranger than fiction, and Joshua Norton is the absolute proof — a real-life Don Quixote, formed in tragedy and triumph, who was scarred into the delusion of a better world by the violence of this one. He was the first real tabloid celebrity, and inaugurated a long and treasured history of weirdness in both San Francisco and Grahamstown.
His most popular audiobooks written by others are the ‘Zhuang Zi‘, ‘Arthashastra’, and the ‘Biggles’ series. The Zhuang Zi is the only audio copy in existence of the largely unknown second Daoist book, joining the hundreds of versions of the Dao De Jing/ Tao Te Ching in existence. The Arthashastra is a completely amoral guide to politics and statecraft that makes Machiavelli look like a toddler, written by an Indian vizier in 200BC. The Biggles series is about Captain Bigglesworth, a WWI fighter pilot and adventurer.
You can also browse the many store links for Chirag’s books on Reading Lists at books2read.com/rl/chiragmybooks and for audiobooks at books2read.com/rl/booksbylamplight