Guess What This Is.

This is a photograph of a thing we have made in the shop. It is about 4 foot tall and is at the moment, blank. 

but what the hecking flip is it?

Yes, it's an 'ometer of some sort, but what sort? There will be a rather lovely book related prize for the best  (not necessarily the correct) guess. We'll finish it over the weekend and announce what it is on Monday or Tuesday next week.  

That's all.

London Tales. An update & some thoughts

Two months ago, I published a book. It was called London Tales and the author/illustrator of the book was Greg Stekelman. Here is a link to a blog post I wrote about it.

And this is the book itself. Mmm, isn't it gorgeous?

Being in the book trade since 1984, you would have thought that the world of publishing would be something that I knew all about. However, much like the journey from bookseller to bookshop owner, it was a magical mystery tour. From sorting out contracts with authors/printers to the more technical side of things. I now know what Wibalin fine linen 570 is, I never thought I'd ever say that. Greg was incredibly supportive too and took up pretty much all of the workload when it came to formatting the book itself. The book was checked over 2 or 3 times by the most diligent of editors (who volunteered their time to do this). I also had some amazing help from Ali at Gallic Books (an excellent publishers if I may say so), whose advice throughout the whole process was vital. The finished product is truly a thing of beauty and I am very grateful for all the help I had and also very very proud of the book.

It's sold really well and of the Limited Edition of 250 that we printed, there are now less than 50 left. If you want one (of course you want one), here is a link.

This has also led to some other interesting opportunities. I was interviewed last week by a researcher at the Independent, who was running a story of bookshops who also publish books. I'm keeping an eye out for that in the near future I hope.

I've also been asked to talk at the London Book Fair this year about my experiences with this project.

So, as the new year slowly trudges it's way into view, I am beginning to tease with the idea of the next book to publish. I've sent out one or two feelers to people who I'd love to work with. The limited edition format that London Tales is published in seems to be the most effective and manageable way for me to work and I think this is the way I'd like to continue.

If you have any advice, suggestions, thoughts or money, please feel free to share them.



Kids Book Group

One Saturday a month, we hold a Childrens Book Group. It's open to anyone who loves books and also loves talking about books. It's quite a new group, and so far books we've read have included Artemis Fowl, The Knife of Never Letting Go & Katherine Langrish's Troll Trilogy.
This month we are discussing is A Boy Called Mouse by Penny Dolan.
Here are the thoughts;

• we liked the short chapters
• it started slowly but really built into a great story.
• we like the different points of view (each chapter is told by a different person)
• we like the chocolate flapjacks.

Look, here they are.

Yes, there are snacks too. The next meeting will be on Saturday February 25th at 10.30am and we will be discussing Skellig by David Almond. Please feel free to come along and join the discussion. It is ace.

Bookshop in a Bookshop

Tonight we are selling books at the launch party of Jubilee, a new novel by Shelley Harris. We do lots of launch parties, but you may be interested to learn that this one is being held at the Champagne Bar at Waterstone'''s in Piccadilly.

 Look, here is Tim (he has a very impressive beard, doesn't he?), with Shelley (on the right) and Kirsty Dunseath, the editor of Shelley's book. 

It's all a bit odd, selling books in another bookshop, but a combination of factors, the most important one being Shelley wanting us to do it, means that here we are. We really appreciate this kind of support and we will hopefully sell loads of copies of her book and help to make it a memorable night for her. Because that's what launch parties are all about. The author. In many cases, it is years and years of hard work, finally acknowledged by an agent and then a publisher, who backs up your talent by publishing your book. A book launch is like a christening, where the parent (author) invites all their friends to celebrate the birth of their book.

Thankfully, we didn't need to build a trojan horse to penetrate the walls of Waterstone'''s in Piccadilly and they have been most accommodating.

We've done lots of launches and events away from glorious Wood Green. On a boat, in a synagogue, in a park, in a theatre. Have books, will travel. So if you're looking for a roving bookshop to help you make your book dreams come true, you know where to come.  





Imposterophe

Look what I found hiding on our window earlier this morning.

It obviously saw the 'S' and thought that if it snuggled up behind it nobody would notice. We feel a bit sorry for the apostrophe, so we're going to look after it for a while. If anyone's missing one, please get in touch.

Bookselling stuff.

It's always a bit strange in the bookshop in January. After the buzz of Christmas, where you're sometimes so busy you don't get time to think about stuff, the New Year offers a slightly different challenge.
In most cases in the shop, the stuff we buy in December has to be paid for by the end of January. Obviously we buy a lot in December, both to fill the shelves with joy and wonder for our customers, but also to get in the books that we don't have that our customers ask for. Most of those we can get with 1-2 days.
So at the end of December our bills are big. Ideally, we'd like to minimise these bills, so it is traditional that January is a good month to do returns. Returning books that haven't sold, is something I don't enjoy doing. It is, in a sense, an admission that the books that you chose to sell in the shop were the wrong ones. Obviously you can't get it right all the time, but it still makes me sad. I think that we had a pretty good range of titles this year & were able to pick up on titles that we'd originally missed very quickly. Probably better than the last couple of years, if i'm honest. However, we still have lots of books to send back, so for the next week or two we'll be clearing the shelves of slow selling titles.
January is also the month, where for no other reason than the fact that it is a new year, people traditionally make resolutions. We do this for the shop too. One of these is that I will do more blogposts. Sadly for you, this means that there may be lots of dull posts like this one. But you never know, I might occasionally do something relatively interesting. Who knows.
I plan on doing book reviews, getting guest bloggers, talking about the everyday business of running the bookshop and also announcing new stuff that we have planned. But what else do you want to see on here?
If there's something about books or small businesses or the local community that you'd like to see more of, let us know.

2011. It happened.

It is hard to sum up how incredible 2011 has been for us. But I am going to try. Many things happened and I can't list them all (I could, but it would take a very long time and I need to sleep), but I hope this gives you some idea of why we love what we do.
Let's go.....

This time last year, we realised that we were in a little bit of trouble. Financially. We decided that the best way to try and deal with this was to let people know. We had a solution to the problem and just needed a bit of help to get us through the tricky situation we found ourselves in. So we wrote this  'Please Help' message, and posted it on the blog, Facebook, Twitter and we sent it to all the people on our mailing list. The response was staggering. Withing 24 hours we were inundated with incredible offers of help, donations and the sales in the shop increased sixfold. This continued for weeks, and raised the profile of the shop like nothing before. It also got us out of our immediate financial difficulty. The goodwill and warmth that the bookshop was shown still brings a tear to my eye.

Remember the Strugglometer?

We started a monthly Comedy Night this year in the bookshop. I think it was February that the first one happened and it has grown and grown since then. It is awesome, and this is mainly down to Chris and Ben, two of our friends who have taken it upon themselves to organise it all for us. This is such a great thing to be happening in Wood Green and we are now regulalrly getting standing room only audiences, such is the talent of the acts who perform here. (next night is on Friday January 20th at 8pm)

We also started a Monthly Poetry Night which with the help of Eliza will hopefully be as big as the comedy night soon.

In July, I cycled 120 miles overnight, from Hackney to Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. I wasn't by myself, or else I would have got lost many many times. Luckily there were about 1,500 other cyclists who turned up too. It is a thing called the Dunwich Dynamo and here is why I did it. It was amazing and I loved it. It is a truly incredible feeling cycling down a hill in pitch blackness following  the red back light of a bicycle 50 metres ahead of you. It is also a truly incredible feeling watching the Sun come up after cycling 100 miles. I would recommend it (if you like cycling a lot).

This is me and my magnificent bicycle after 120 miles. Seconds after this photo was taken I was asleep.

August will be remembered for the riots, which started on Saturday August 6th in Tottenham. During that night of trouble, loads of people turned up in Wood Green, having realised that the police were busy a couple of miles up the road. For 5 hours they looted and smashed shop after shop. The following day I wrote this post . I was angry and upset, as were many other people, but trying to find a positive, one of the things that came about from what happened in Wood Green and Tottenham (and i'm sure in many other areas affected), was how strong the community was. The support that those affected were shown afterwards by the local people was phenomenal. People gave their time and money to help those who'd become homeless or had lost their businesses and for the weeks afterwards there was a kind of steely determination not to let this dreadful series of events damage the area permanently. As I said then, I am in no position to offer solutions, but there is a strong core of people in Haringey who, given the chance, can make a real difference. Let's hope they are one day soon.

Glamorous musical visitors this year included Pauline Black from the brilliant 2Tone 80's band The Selecter, Hugh Cornwell lead singer of the legendary punk band The Stranglers, and the superb Jimbob from Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, who played a brilliant acoustic set in the shop. We also had a visit from (sweary) darts legend, the King of Bling, Bobby George.

Bobby George. I hugged him. This is what he looked like afterwards (sorry Bobby).
 We have had more than 100 authors an speakers visiting this year, which is rather an achievement.We love putting on events in the shop and without these wonderful people giving up their time to visit the shop, it wouldn't be the same. I started listing them, but quickly realised this was a very long job. So I won't. But here's a few...David Vann, Karen Maitland, Andy Stanton, David Nichols, David Lammy MP, Hayley Campbell, Naomi Stadlen, Zehra Hicks, Nadia Shireen, Mark Watson and the Gruffalo. Thanks to everyone. Really.

Storytelling and Songs for the under 5's have been a real hit this year. Tim has nailed the guitar classics like 'Zoom Zoom Zoom, We're Going To The Moon', and 'The Wheels on the Bus'. But more recently, he's added the Wiggles classic 'Hot Potatoes'.

We started our Local Market in July. We decided that it would be cool to get people who did locally produced stuff (honey, cakes, knitted goods, ceramics, cards, veg and fruit etc) to come and sell it in the shop once a month. So, on the last Sunday of the Month at 10.30am-1.00pm the shop turns into a Local Market. It's had really good months and also it's had slow months, but we think it's a good idea (and so do a lot of other people) and we're going to keep at it next year.

We tried to break a World Record for the World's Largest Reading Group. It was hilarious (for us) and failed magnificently. But Norris McWirter certainly didn't give us much help. However, we did get about 50 people involved and that, I think, is good. We have the systems all set up now for this years effort. Which will happen btw.

I published a book in November. I published a book in November. I thought i'd better mention it twice, because it really is a very exciting development for me. London Tales by Greg Stekelman. It is the greatest book ever published and you should all buy it. It's only £40. Here is a story about how all this came about.

LOOK. THIS IS THE GREATEST BOOK OF ALL TIME. BUY IT NOW.

The rather good author Haruki Murakami had a book published in the UK this year, which was all rather exciting. It was called 1Q84 and those cheeky little pumpkins at Random House (his publishers) wouldn't let anyone sell the book until 18th October. Right, we thought, let's have a special shindig with food, film and fun on the eveining of October 17th stay open till midnight and then sell his book. We ticketed this event, (read this cos it is rather good) Fantastically, lots and lots of people wanted to come. It really was a brilliant night and many thanks go to Hungrywolf for their incredible food.

Murakami night at the shop. One of my highlights of the year.

There were loads of other stuff wot happened too. NaNoWriMo, Booker Prize Book Challenge, we have a new Graphic Novels Book Group and a new Children's book group. Knitting Club continues, as does our monthly Boardgames Day.

Plus we had this geezer turn up too;

Thanks for making this year one of the best ever. We love what we do and we can't thank you enough for allowing us to do it .

2012 will be even better.... 

Our friends on Twitter save the Day

This is a quick message.

On Saturday, a delivery that should have arrived at the bookshop didn't. It was supposed to be delivered by Yodel. This isn't the first time that this has happened and it seems that Yodel are not having a very good time of it at the moment. I guess their problem is that they are supposed to deliver parcels to people at agreed times and singularly fail to do so. Yeah, that's probably it.
There were a few customer orders in the box that never arrived and so we tried to get in touch with Yodel to ask where the box might be. We tracked it online, and apparently it was in a van, but somehow didn't quite make it to the shop.

On Monday, we kept a close eye on its' progress.
At 9.17am it was 'Out for delivery'. Excellent, we thought. It will arrive sometime soon.
When we looked again at about midday it stated that at 11.41am it had been 'unable to gain access' to our shop. Mmm, interesting. I don't remember closing the bookshop at 11.30-12.00 in the busiest retailing week of the year. Oh well.
Then, at 12.21 a new message came up. It had been delivered and had been signed for by somebody called Steve.
Who is Steve? We'd love to meet you and get our box of books. But that is unlikely to ever happen, as you don't actually exist.

So, this put us in a tricky position.

We checked through all the orders that hadn't arrived and re-ordered all the books that customers had asked for to arrive before Christmas.
Sadly there were two books that were no longer in stock at our suppliers.
This was bad. Very bad. We had promised these customers the books before Christmas and because of Yodel's shiteness, we were going to struggle to fulfill this.

So, this morning I sent out a message on Twitter.

' I need help to find 2 books for our customers that stupid Yodel have lost & are now out of stock at the publishers'

I am not going to name the books as the recipients of these may read this blog, but magic happened and we found both books and two of the people who follow our twitterfeed (and who we follow because they are superace) @lucebrett and @kaitharshayr helped us find, buy and deliver the books to the Big Green Bookshop.

This is a great example of how brilliant and thoughtful our customers (I think possibly a better word would be friends) are and also how rather wonderful a 'social networking site' can be.

Lovely friends. Lovely Twitter.

x

One of my Bookshelves

I've taken a photo of one of my bookshelves at home. I thought it might be fun to introduce you to it.  I look at my bookshelves all the time and i'd like to share with you how each book makes me feel. There is a conclusion to this blog, so you can skip to the bottom if you like, but if you don't mind reading how I feel about these books, i'd appreciate it. So let's start at on end (how about the left) and have a stroll along it. I've numbered the books (or series of books) 1-26. With a bit of luck you can click on the picture and it will get bigger. I don't know how these things work. Anyway, shall we set off?

1. Love and Summer by William Trevor.
    This was on the longlist of the Booker Prize in 2009. This was the first year we ran the Booker Book challenge in the shop, where we challenged our customers to read all 6 of the Booker longlist before the prize is announced. We met up on the night of the announcement and discussed each of the books and then decided who we thought would win. Then we watched the result and were delighted or appalled (depending on who we were). It's great fun. Anyway, when the longlist was announced, I thought i'd get a head start, and trying to be sneaky, I guessed which of the longlist would get into the shortlist. William Trevor was one of my guesses. I'd never read any of his stuff before and, although it took about 50 pages to get into, I absolutely loved it. Of course, it didn't make the shortlist and yet JM Coetzee did (!), however, if we hadn't done the Booker book challenge, I might never have read it. I love that this book reminds me of all this.

2. Noel Park. A History, by Caroline Wech
    Noel Park (it's a lovely little area in Wood Green) is where my girlfriend Katie and I bought our first flat. This booklet is something that every resident of Noel Park was given after Noel Park won a grant to put it together. I'm fascinated by the history of our area and this is a book I constantly go back to. Lovely

3. Box of Delights by John Masefield.
    I bloody love this book. This has the cover with Patrick Troughton (the second Doctor Who) on it, who played  Cole Hawlings in the BBC adaptaton of this brilliant Christmas story. Katie and I watch the DVD of this every year sometime in December (we also watch It's a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Planes Trains and Automobiles and  National Lampoon's Christmas, but don't judge us) and i've read the book more times than I can remember. I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough, so I can read it to her.

I'm warming up now. There is a point to all this, so please persevere.
4.  Where Would I be Without You by Guillaume Musso.
      This book reminds me of a delicious meal I had in Old Brompton Road with the author and the publishers, Gallic Books. It also reminds me of our World Record Reading Group attempt we tried earlier this year. I have very happy memories of both these things. Guillaume is charming, the book is bonkers brilliant and looking at it always makes me smile inside.

5. The Rebel Bookseller.
      Whenever i'm feeling a bit down about work, I take this book off the shelf. I don't even need to read very much of it before I feel better again. It's about how a small Indie bookshop in the US survived and thrived in a very difficult market, by thinking outside the box, being massivley stubborn and hugely positive. It's ace.

6. Testament by Alis Hawkins
       Alis was among 8 authors who came and spent some time at the bookshop on it's opening day. She and I had chatted after she read about us on the blog and I heard that her first novel was coming out thought Macmillan new Writers. She doesn't live in London and made a special journey to the bookshop to be there for the opening. I bought this copy at her book launch in... ooh gosh, what's the name of that bookshop just off Charing Cross Road that sells lots of signed first editions and stuff? No, I can't remember. Anyway, it was lovely as was Alis.

7. Tescopoly by Andrew Simms
        Tesco. What a bag of poo they are. Avery large and dangerous bag of poo, but nonetheless, a bag of poo. This is my opinion, and also that of the author of this book. Clone town monstrosities, community destroyers, I feel a bit icky writing about them. I remember when I first moved to the Waterstone's in Wood Green (having just read this book), when it was still there, I ordered 50 copies of this and made it our Book of the Month. Yeah, I know, Waterstone's didn't do shop based books of the month. Ha ha ha. Anyway, the good news was that we sold all 50. As you can clearly see, this has brought Tescos to their knees.

8. Mark Leyner.
        The greatest contemporary writer I know. Not available in the UK, I import these and occasionally try to gently sell them to our customers. I realise he is not for everyone. For a start it is sometimes hard to find any narrative in his writing. It's like a rollercoaster ride of words and thoughts, but in my opinion Leyner pulls it off every time. He is totally incredible. I would never part with these books.

9. Crawlers by Sam Enthoven and Witchfinder by William Hussey.
     Two brilliant young adult books that I read within 3 days of each other. We hired a theatre and  put on a Horror Night in Stoke Newington last year and Sam and Bill were a big part of the show. William's book is staggeringly good. It's the start of a trilogy that has quality written all over it. It's bloody scary too.
I read Crawlers in one sitting and finished it at about 4.30am. That's how good it is.
I like that these two books sit next to each other.

Hey, are you still with me. Well done we're getting somewhere now.

10. Sound Bites by Alex Kapranos
       Katie and I went to the launch party of this. Alex is the lead singer of Franz Ferdinand and the launch party was in Wapping (I think). The party was brilliant. Free drink, great live music and lots of famous people. We got lost on the way. As the party drew to a close I told Alex that we were going to a pub down the road and asked if he'd like to join us. I drew him a map of how to get there and off I went. 20 minutes later he came through the door. The dozen of us who'd been at the party and had come to the pub had another great couple of hours of fun as Alex and his chums played pool chatted and were generally delightful. I will not forget this night.

11. Two books by the Publisher Gallic
    The Suicide Shop and Hector and his Search for Happiness.
When I look at these books I smile. Hector is an interesting book. A multimillion bestselling story about a psychiatrist who decides to travel the world looking for what it is that makes people happy. The Suicide Shop is about a guy who is born into a family who own a shop that sells stuff for people to kill themselves with. Poison, rope etc (use your imagnation). However he is far too positive and happy for this serious business of death and this threatens to ruin the whole thing.
I was introduced to the Suicide Shop by Scott Pack (a lovely chap) and from this introduction Big Green and Gallic have become very firm friends.

12. Company of Liars by Karen Maitland.
    Wow. This is another book that makes me very excited when I see it on the shelf. Penguin sent me this book a few years ago and said it would be worth a read. I read it. I LOVED IT. This is the first book we decided to make Big Green Bookshop Book of the Month. Historical fiction, brilliant pageturning fun. If you haven't read it, then you really ought to. Seriously. Karen is a superb author.

13.Threepenny Memoir by Carl Barat.

      One my loveliest moments in the bookshop. Who would have thought that we could get one of the biggest musicians of the time to play a set in the bookshop. But that is what happened. I'd seen the Libertines live (and also Carl's band Dirty Pretty Things) and when it was announced that Carl was bringing a book out I thought it was deffo worth asking if he's be up to play in the shop. Why not? I put together a pich and sent it off. The next day i heard back that Carl said he'd be happy to do a gig in the shop. And he did. This was within 3 weeks of The Libertines reuniting for the Reading Festival and it was amazing. Carl was superb and he stuck around for a couple of hours afterwards to chat and sign and generally be lovely. I was very happy that night as you can see by this photo.

Happy

14.Meat by Joseph D'Lacey
       This has a blank spine. But I know what it is. One of the best horror novels I have ever read. Incredible imagery, brilliant pacing and totally horrific. This was sent to me whilst we were trying to set up the Big Green Bookshop and it sat on my shelves for a long time until i got round to reading it. I'm so glad I did though. I got in touch with Joseph after i'd finished it and asked if he'd visit the bookshop if and when we actually opened it. He said yes and he was our first ever author to come and sign copies of his book in the shop. He turned up 2 weeks before we opened in a 'meat wagon', but it was such a lift for us and Jose is now a good frienof mine. Eco horror has never been so good, so read his books.

15. The Inner Game by Dominic Lawson.
    The story of Nigel Short's attempt to win the World Chess Championship by beating Garri Kasparov. OMG, this book is incredible. I remember watching the chess matches on the TV and being baffled but fascinated by the whole thing. I love chess, although i'm not great at it, and this book looked inside the story, at the incredible work that is put into playing a seemingly simple game of chess. It staggers me every time I read this book. Short got battered, but there were one or two games where he showed total brilliance and this is what chess is all about. Kasparov (a bit of a hero of mine) shows brilliance more than most and I often dip into this to remind myself just how good he is.

16. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter.
      one of my top 5 books of all time. I wrote about it here. I love the cover too. her most complete novel. Amazeballs .

We're on the home stretch now. Not long to go.

17.  Dog Binary by Alex Macdonald.
    There's a story behind this book. I've written about it before, and Alex (the author) has no idea how highly I rate him, but this is a very very special publication. If you want to know more about it here's a link. The book is also lovely to stroke and its cover has pots of meat and urine on it. Top notch.

18. Tom Hodgkinson.
     Tom is one of the people who influenced me in deciding to open the Big Green Bookshop. 'How to be Free' is a book that ultimately encourages you to rid yourself of all the stuff that gets in the way of you living the life you want to live. WORK was one of those things. Work. A thing you do all your life to ensure that when you're old you don't have to. It's a weird idea isn't it? I prefer to do something I want to now. So let's open a bookshop! Hurrah.

    Tom's been to the bookshop a few times and it's always great to see him. We keep in touch, especially now that he has his own bookshop (copycat) and it's great to be able to offer what little advice we can to him.

19. The 30 Minute Cookbook by Nigel Slater.
     Nigel Slater is a shiny man who you want to hug and pat and stroke and say 'Thanks Nigel, you're lovely, and a real foody inspiration (but don't overdo it on the TV)'. He has produce some of the best cookbooks I have and 30 Minute Cookbook is one of the best. It is also THE FIRST BOOK WE EVER SOLD IN THE BIG GREEN BOOKSHOP'. A very special title indeed.

20. A Year in the Life of TheManWhoFellAsleep by Greg Stekelman
    I have written many things about Greg Stekelman. Here's a link to an interview I did with him. I love this book, I look at it all the time, I can open it at any page and it makes me smile. Greg is a very good friend of mine and I would feel odd not having this in my house.
 Oh yeah, buy his new book too. I publish it.

21. The Complete Novels of Geroge Orwell
    George bloody Orwell. If I see a copy of any of his books in charity shops I have to buy them. This man was a total genius. Years ahead of his time. He spoke to everyone and was unafraid to say things that weren't considered popular. Coming Up For Air, Keep The Aspidistra Flying, Animal Farm, 1984, this geezer knew how to write. I read an Orwell book once a year at least and this reminds me to do it. It looks down at me LIKE BIG BROTHER.

22. Memoirs of a Sword Swallower by Dan Mannix.
    Not in print any more, which is a real shame. It really is the memoir of a carny performer who slowly learns how swallow swords (as the title gives away) as well as flourescent tubes and worse. I read this for the first time when I was lying by a swimming pool in Italy and seeing this on the shelf not only reminds me of the dark and dirty world of freakshows, it also reminds me of this wonderful holiday I had. Aces.
23. Stuart Evers and ting.
    Stuart wrote a book which was published earlier this year. Ten Stories About Smoking was published by Picador and is a series of short stories where the general theme is loosely cigarettes. It is excellent and therefore sits proudly on my bookshelves. Actually it is more than excellent and his style has been compared to Raymond Carver and Raymond Chandler. I used to work with Stuart when we were booksellers in in Charing Cross Road. He introduced me to Hermann Hesse (not personally) and also was an excellent drinker. A fine combination.
  Before we opened the bookshop, after we'd finally got the keys to the shop, we asked if anyone could volunteer to help us with the decorating etc. Stuart was one of the first people to get in touch.
here is an example of this. The other book arrowed here is called Beginning In Bookselling, a book that Stu gave me on the day before we opened. Thanks Stuart.

Well done. 85% of the bookshelf done now.
24. Reach For The Ground by Jeffrey Bernard.
    Another one of my treasures. Bernard is a true antihero, who lived life to the full, usually at the expense of everybody else. But his charm (and talent) always seemed to get him through. A gloriously awful man to know I imagine, this book is a collection of his contributions in the Spectator magazine. I have his other collctions too, but this one is the one that, when I notice it on the shelf, I like to pick it off and dip into it. He is a true master.

25. The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse.
     If you go back to book 23 you will see that Stuart Evers introduced me to Hermann Hesse. This is the book that did it. Staggering. Only available from America (and the Big Green Bookshop), this is a superb collection of adult fairy tales, which have been lovingly translated by Jack Zipes (he knows everything you need to know about Fairy tales). It's a book that, if I didn't have on the shelf, I might never return to. But i'm so glad I do.

26. Legend of a Suicide by David Vann.
    A very special author. I got a postcard from him once from USA, thanking me for the stuff i'd written about this book. Joe Pickering, from the publishers (Penguin), sent me a copy of this and asked me to read it, cos he thought it was brilliant. I did, and it was.
David came to our shop last time he was in the UK and it really was an amazing evening. I struggle to think of an author so dedicated to his craft, but so generous and friendly.

So, we have reached the end of my shelf. I ask myself this question. Would my memories still be this strong if I saw this instead.

No

Books are more than just pieces of paper with words on them. They each tell a story that is more than the one that you read. I love looking at the books on my bookshelves and the way they each evoke special memories. I hope that there are enough people that feel the same way so that books will stick around for a long while yet.

3 for 2 on All our books. Oh No, Not Again.

I could tell you about KNITTING on Sunday, our CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIR next Thursday or our COMEDY NIGHT next Friday. But you could look up this on the Website here http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/events-diary/info_6.html

What we’re going to tell you about though, is this. 

TOMORROW, SATURDAY 3^rd DECEMBER 2011 BETWEEN 9AM & 6PM WE ARE HAVING A 3 FOR 2 ON ALL BOOKS AND BOOK RELATED STUFF ON SALE AT THE BIG GREEN BOOKSHOP.

As is traditional with these things, the cheapest item is free and we will PROBABLY have biscuits. This doesn’t include Book Tokens or Vouchers, but it does include pretty much everything else. The offer is just for books that we have in the shop on the day, so this is a brilliant chance for you to get ALL your Christmas shopping done in one massive go.  

You might want to have a look at our second hand books department while you’re here. We’ve expanded it and it now has its very own special corner in the bookshop.

My advice would also be to bring your own bag, as we are running low.

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow.