Books We Love

A Series of Unfortunate Events

My Family and Other Animals

We Need to Talk About Kevin

As the Earth Turned Silver

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Just Kids

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

May We be Forgiven

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Fresh crime stack! Hot off the press is: 📖’W

Fresh crime stack! Hot off the press is:
📖’We Begin at the End’ by Chris Whitaker
📖 ‘Shelter’ by Catherine Jinks (@text_publishing)
📖 ‘Exit’ by Belinda Bauer
📖 ‘The Searcher’ by Tana French

Jonathan Franzen is not usually known for his brev

Jonathan Franzen is not usually known for his brevity. In fact, during a quiet moment in the shop, Book Birds Josh and Charlotte recently examined a passage from his novel The Corrections in which the simple act of sitting down took a character two paragraphs. Two whole paragraphs! Which is fine, because Franzen can make sitting down very interesting. So, given this, it may come as a shock to some Franzen-lovers that the writer takes his sweet time getting from a standing to seated position, but writes only 80 pages on the immense subject of climate change. Jonathan Franzen has written many articles on climate change and the coming climate apocalypse, and this short book, ‘What If We Stopped Pretending?’, is his definitive statement on the subject. It asks what is possible if we accept that catastrophe is coming, that the time to reverse the effects of climate change has passed: what action may be inspired by truth rather than denial. As Franzen writes: ‘Some climate activists argue that if we publicly admit that the problem can’t be solved, it will discourage people from taking any ameliorative action at all. This seems to me not only a patronizing calculation but an ineffectual one, given how little progress we have to show for it to date. The activists who make it remind me of the religious leaders who fear that, without the promise of eternal salvation, people won’t bother to behave well. In my experience, nonbelievers are no less loving of their neighbors than believers. And so I wonder what might happen if, instead of denying reality, we told ourselves the truth.’

Are you a possibilityist? A possibilityist, for th

Are you a possibilityist? A possibilityist, for those who don’t yet know, is a person who’s not a pessimist or an optimist but someone who believes in the infinite possibilities for bettering our world. This sweet little term belongs to Katherine Rundell, that wise children’s writer and thinker and possibilityist.
Possibility is tied intimately to hope, as Rundell explains in her introduction to ‘The Book of Hopes’, and so when the pandemic hit in the UK, Rundell reached out to her favourite children’s authors and illustrators to send her their ‘hopes’ - stories or facts or pictures that make you laugh, smile or wonder. And so here’s this collection, this book of Hopes, from over 100 creators, to inspire and comfort you. Proceeds from sales of the book go to ‘NHS Charities Together’.

Two new monster books for the little monsters in y

Two new monster books for the little monsters in your life!
Daisy Hirst’s ‘Monster Food’ follows hot on the heels of her previous board book, ‘Monster Clothes’, which point out the sheer ridiculousness of things like eating and getting dressed, and Lucy Cousins of ‘Hooray for Fish’ fame now brings us the story of young Gabriel who just LOVES to play monsters (endlessly… poor Nonna!).
‘Monster Clothes’ and ‘Let’s Play Monsters’ would sit nicely alongside other monstrous classics like ‘Nibbles: The Monster Hunt’ by Emma Yarlett.

Okay, firstly, can we please have a moment of appr

Okay, firstly, can we please have a moment of appreciation for this brilliant title. With a little KELP from our friends? Oh boy, we cackled when we read that! And the good news is that the title isn’t the best thing about this book. The best thing about this book is how it treats seaweed, underdog of the ocean, like the rockstar it truly is. Described by actor Damon Gameau as ‘a beautiful love letter to seaweed,’ this book introduces the reader to the properties, history, importance of, and uses for seaweed in an increasingly climate-conscious world. As author Matthew Bate writes, ‘The potential in a clump of seaweed could change the world. It’s not the sole solution to global warming, but it is an important piece in the climate puzzle.’ What’s more - and If you’ve read this far down then we KNOW you’ll like this - the first handful of customers to pick up a copy of the book will receive a FREE matching poster! Reconnect with seaweed through the chapters, activities, glossary and guide to common seaweed in ‘With a Little Kelp from Our Friends’.

According to the official Agatha Christie website,

According to the official Agatha Christie website, Christie is the best-selling author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. That’s… well that’s a lot of books! And it’s sometimes hard to know where to start with an author as prolific and celebrated as Christie. So, we did a bit of research, and these are our three picks for readers new to Christie’s classic crime: ‘The ABC Murders’, ‘And Then There Were None’, and ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Named by The Guardian as three of her most innovative and best executed novels, these reads will give you a pretty good taste of the Godmother of modern crime fiction. (And don’t worry if you’ve already gobbled these up - we can always order more!)

‘It was 1973 and I was fifteen. I left the house

‘It was 1973 and I was fifteen. I left the house without so much as a goodbye, joining up with four young people to head off to the promised land of freedom and music… Everything felt brighter, shinier, more welcoming, and I liked this feeling of being a part of something, no longer just an onlooker who might get caught staring.’

Tana Douglas ran away to the rock and roll circus while still a teenager, leading the kind of life most of us only dream of. She worked behind-the-scenes for some of the world’s A-listers, including AC/DC, Elton John, Iggy Pop, INXS, Patti Smith, The Who, The Police, and Neil Diamond. But being the world’s first female roadie in the male-dominated world of rock had its challenges. Douglas tells all in this rollicking memoir with the most outlandish backstage stories. As she writes, mid-way through the book, ‘You can’t make this shit up!’

In the 1990s, at Bayulu, Jukuna wrote three or fou

In the 1990s, at Bayulu, Jukuna wrote three or four pages in Walmajarri and showed it to her friend Eirlys Richards. ‘“I have written a story about myself,” she said. “Will you read it?”’ Richards describes. ‘I sat there and read an account of a young woman leaving her family in the desert to walk with her husband to the unknown country of the white people. I wondered if this might be the first autobiography written by a Walmajarri person in her language.’ This is the story of two sisters, Jukuna and Ngarta, whose lives are upheaved by European colonisation and, in Ngarta’s case, two brothers crossing the desert on a murderous rampage. This landmark publication first appeared in 2004 through Fremantle Press and was been republished by Magabala Press in 2020.

🤩 Sydney Smith appreciation post! 🥰 Sydney S

🤩 Sydney Smith appreciation post! 🥰 Sydney Smith is a master of the quiet visual narrative. Words that spring to mind when we think of Smith’s books are ‘soft’, ‘gentle’, ‘kind’ and ‘empathetic’. In ‘Small in the City’ a young person searches for their lost cat; and in ‘I Talk Like A River’, written by Jordan Scott and illustrated by Sydney, a boy tells us what it’s like to have a stutter and go through “bad speech days”. Sydney Smith’s illustration style matches these evenly-paced and contemplative stories about being and belonging. Highly recommend. ❤️

*** GIVEAWAY ***
Black Inc.’s ‘Growing Up…’ series celebrates and amplifies voices we don’t hear from often enough. To date, the essay collection includes ‘Growing Up Asian in Australia’, ‘Growing Up Queer in Australia,’ ‘Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia’, ‘Growing Up African in Australia’, and now ‘Growing Up Disabled in Australia,’ which was released at the beginning of February. In this latest addition, writer and appearance activist Carly Findlay OAM gathers together over forty contributors with a disability or chronic illness to tell their stories, in their own words.

*** To mark the release of ‘Growing Up Disabled in Australia’, the wonderful folk at Black Inc. have supplied us with a copy of each of the books in the series to give away to one lucky reader. To enter, tag some friends in the comments below. One tag is one entry. We will announce the winner on Friday 19th February. All our usual giveaway rules apply (no swapsies, pick up from the shop).

Regulars to the shop will know we’re partial to

Regulars to the shop will know we’re partial to quirky contemporary Japanese fiction. We read and loved ‘Convenience Store Woman’ by Sayaka Murata, and basically anything by Hiromi Kawakami is a winner (particularly ‘Strange Weather in Tokyo’).
So imagine our delight when we spied ‘There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job’ by Kikuko Tsumura among the new releases! In the novel, a woman fronts up at an employment agency looking for a job, but ideally a job with no writing, no reading, and very little thinking. She is given a litany of mundane jobs - like writing advertisements for bus stops and advice for rice cracker wrappers - until it becomes apparent she’s looking for something altogether more meaningful....
We can’t wait to get stuck into this one!

'This isn’t about us, though, the miserable, unf

'This isn’t about us, though, the miserable, unfortunate few who have chosen to try to sell books to make a pitiful living. It is about our customers: those wretched creatures with whom we’re forced to interact on a daily basis, and who - as I write this under coronavirus lockdown - I miss like long-lost friends.’
Shaun Bythell is the man all us fellow booksellers want to clobber over the head for revealing our innermost, private bookselling selves. But we forgive him because, aside from being right most of the time (is there anything more annoying?), he’s also very funny.
Bythell has written such titles as ‘The Diary of a Bookseller’ and ‘Confessions of a Bookseller’, and now he’s published this handy taxonomical guide to the kinds of customers one encounters in a bookshop. There’s the ‘Erotica Browser’, a species in the ‘Loiterer’ genus, and the ‘Hummer’, who belongs to the genus of ‘Not-So-Silent Traveller’ along with their whistling and farting compadres. This little book is downright amusing. We just hope his next book isn’t ‘Seven Kinds of Booksellers’...

Book Bird Josh has recently read ‘Leave The Worl

Book Bird Josh has recently read ‘Leave The World Behind’ by New York-based writer Rumaan Alam and has this to say about the book:
‘With a cerebral prose style and attention to detail reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’, Rumaan Alam contemplates our fear of the unknown and how it affects our social bonds. The story bristles with the kind of dread that keeps you turning the pages just to see what happens, to see if the world really is ending.’
Described by reviewers as ‘unnerving’ and ‘hallucinatory’, this is for lovers of books such as ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ by Ian Reid and ‘Only the Animals’ by Laura Jean McKay.

NEW MIDDLE FICTION GALLERY ➡️ Swipe for piccie

NEW MIDDLE FICTION GALLERY ➡️ Swipe for piccies of ‘Check Mates’ by Stewart Foster, ‘The Night Bus Hero’ by Onjali Q. Raúf, ‘The House at the Edge of Magic’ by Amy Sparkes, ‘My Life as a Cat’ by Carlie Sorosiak, and ‘Amari and the Night Brothers’ by B. B. Alston. 📚 Book Bird Charlotte has read ‘Check Mates’ and has written this shelf-talker to help young readers discover the book: ‘Grandad’s special talent is playing chess, which may sound dull at first, but it’s not, we promise. Because you know chess is all armies and kings and queens and horses right? Read this book and discover what the game - and other stuff, like friendship and family and scuba diving - is all about.’

What makes something Wes Anderson-esque? Symmetric

What makes something Wes Anderson-esque? Symmetrical lines, pastel colours, a blend of the odd and beautiful... sometimes grand, like stately hotels, and sometimes very quiet, like phone boxes. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of Anderson’s films or simply an appreciator of quirky facades and old-world charm, ‘Accidentally Wes Anderson’ is an invitation to keep your eyes open for those perfect, pleasing frames - from palaces in the mountains to the inside of your local cinema - that can appear anywhere in the world... 👀