Things about Things.

It's been a while since I wrote one of these here blogposts. Let's see if I can still do it.

OK, we've opened Tuffet's Toys and Tales, our new little Bookshop/Toyshop in Brookmans Park.

Pretty Bookshop

Brookmans Park is a lovely little village and we've had a very positive response so far from the community. Obviously, it's still very early days, but we are slowly building up a little customer base.
I've been in touch with all the local schools, letting them know we exist etc, and seeing what it is they want from a local bookshop. I've had a meeting with one already and have arranged another meeting with another just after half term.

The Big Green Bookshop is quiet at the moment. Very quiet. Since we got the keys to the new shop, all the effort to open it and set it up has meant that we haven't spent as much time as we'd like on the good ship Big Green. This, among other reasons has meant that we've had a lot fewer people through the door.

But with a bit of luck, a succession of 16 hour days, no holidays and a tailbreeze, we can turn this around.

Over the last couple of weeks we've been interviewing candidates for a job at the bookshop. And i'm delighted to say that Carmel, for this is the name of our newest member of staff, has started today!
She'll be based mainly in Wood Green, but will also work up in Brookmans Park once a week. Carmel's role is essentially to look after the day to day running of the Big Green Bookshop.We want her to look at the place with a fresh pair of eyes and introduce new and exciting initiatives at the shop as well as revisiting the layout and general look and feel of the place. Tim and I are aware it looks a bit tired at the moment, so it's reassuring that Carmel will be there to breathe new life into the place. No pressure Carmel.

Work has started on the Literary Festival and in the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to give you a much more complete idea of how things are progressing. Suffice to say we are freakishly excited about it all.

Now that Carmel has started, I can now revisit a few of the other projects I've put on hold since the new year. It also means I can update the website more often, book some great new events, write more blogposts and generally be a lot more noisy about the bookshop than I have been.

Speaking of events, we have Ben Fountain coming to the shop tomorrow evening. He's going to be 'in conversation' with Guardian book critic Sam Jordison and it's going to be amazing. (TICKETS HERE)

Next week, it's our Big Green Bookswap, with the magical Matt Haig and Andrew J Lambie. (TICKETS HERE). I am particularly excited about this, for a couple o reasons. Firstly, Matt Haig is a brilliant writer, who I've been meaning to get to do an event at the bookshop for ages. And secondly, Andrew J Lambie has written a novel that made me go "ooh, blimey, this is good. Better than good actually".
It's called Carnival of the Flesh .

I'm going to try and embed a video on here now, of Andrew reading the first chapter. Let's see if I can do it.



Andrew J. Lambie reads A Carnival of the Flesh from Guerilla on Vimeo.

I can!!

It's a very enjoyable 8 minutes long.

Anyway, there. I've written a blogpost. I enjoyed it. I think i'll do it again tomorrow.