"Epiphany", by the Fairy Bookmother.

On a dark day in December, "Appalled of Harringay" learnt of the statistic that one in three children do not own a single book.
"That's real poverty", she cried (for it was a she).
"This is a situation up with which we cannot put", she continued.
She ran (stopping only to catch the 141 bus) to the Big Green Bookshop for a why-oh-why session with Tim and Simon. When calm had been restored, they put their heads together and the Fairy Bookmother Intiative (FBI) was inaugurated, its aim being to share the enjoyment of reading & work towards raising literacy and reducing book-poverty amongst children in the borough of Haringey.

Using a donation from the Fairy Bookmother, the Bookshop supplied books to certain schools in the borough with the remit of getting the books into the hands of those children who were least likely to own a book. This proved tricky, but it was a START.
The Fairy Bookmother is not a millionaire philanthropist (with or without a youthful ward) and is therefore looking for people who share her outrage and would be willing to join with her in further developing the FBI. This may mean a small donation or something less tangible.
She wishes to remain anonymous, at least outside the group, but if anyone is interested in helping out in any way please contact the bookshop.
You could be an individual, a business or maybe you are someone in Haringey Council who may have the facility to take this initiative to another level. Whoever you are, if you think you can help, please get in touch.

Thanks.

Tel. 020 8881 6767
Email. enquiries@biggreenbookshop.com

PAY WHAT YOU LIKE ON ANY OF OUR SECOND HAND BOOKS

 Last month we had a big old sale of on all our 2nd hand books. We'd been inundated by your generous book donations and we'd got to a stage where we had boxes and boxes of books that we just had no room to display.
Rather than leave them in boxes, feeling sorry for themselves, we decided to set them free and offer all our 2nd hand books to our customers at whatever price they wanted to pay.
It worked really well and we were able to free hundred, if not thousands of books on the day.
What the day also achieved was raise the profile of our second hand section. This has led to us getting boxes and boxes more second hand books since the day. This is brilliant, because what it means is....WE'RE GOING TO DO IT AGAIN. 

Yes, this Saturday, ALL DAY we're having another

PAY WHAT YOU LIKE ON ALL OUR SECOND HAND BOOKS 

day.

Once again, you can choose up to 6 books and pay as little as 1p for each. You could pay a tenner for each too, but that's up to you.
We still have well over 3,500 secondhand books here and we're bringing in a load more.
We're hoping for another sunny day so that we can get the tables and boxes outside again.
It's great that we can do this, as we know that lots of you were really sad that you missed the last one.

PLEASE TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS

Fludd/Flood

One of my favourite books ever is Fludd by Hilary Mantel. It's about a dying town in the north of England. The priest has lost his faith and the town has given up on life. Suddenly a preacher called Fludd arrives, informing the priest that he's been sent to renew his (and the town's) faith. Strange things start to happen when he turns up, almost like miracles. Is he good or evil? Oh man, it's a great book.
However this isn't the Fludd i'm talking about today.
 Because this Saturday we had a FLOOD. Not just a leak (we've had lots of those before, as our roof is a bit shite), but a big old flood.
There we were in our small, relatively dry bookshop when a mini tsunami appeared from the 2nd hand book corner. It was a shock. It didn't stop either and continued to pump out gallon after gallon of unpleasant smelling water.
Ten minutes later, after we'd removed bookcases and books from the area in question, we were confronted with this.

The brown thing on the floor looks like a poorly constructed robot with no arms.

We lost a few hundred quids worth of books and the emergency plumber (who was brilliant btw) cost us another couple of hundred. Bugger.

we're getting back to normality and apart from a squelchy green carpet and a slightly damp smell, things are OK.

I guess this is the kind of thing that exemplifies the title of this blog really.

La la la. (these are my happy noises).

If there is a preacher called Fludd out there who fancies visiting Wood Green any time soon, that'd be great. x



  

Garden. A Progress Report

There's a bit of ground by the side of the shop that we have intended to make better use of since we opened. With the help of volunteers we've cleared the area twice now, with plans to turn it into a reading garden. For one reason or another these plans didn't materialise.

Until now.

(left click on the picture and it gets bigger)

Here is the plan that our good friend Louise (a garden designer) has put together. She has sourced almost all the materials that we need to make this a reality and is free to help do the work over the next month. There is also Ben and Alyson, who came to our Bookshop Meeting on Saturday who have kindly agreed to manage the project from our end.

Louise is in the process of making the benches to go into garden once the paving has been put down, and we're pretty much ready to get going.

So, as usual, we're looking for some help.

On the 'Schedule of Works', the first thing we need to do is totally clear the area. At the moment it's covered in gravel and other nasty stuff that will require gloves..All this will need to be transported to a gravel pit in Highgate, where we've been told we can dump it.

Once this is done Louise and the team can get going with putting the fence posts in and doing all the clever things that they need to do.

So , if you're free on Saturday 19th May from 11am and want to give us a hand, then please get in touch. Also, if you have a van or a car that you don't mind being used to transport gravel and stuff to Highgate in, please let us know.

It's going to look fantastic and we're keen that it's done as soon as possible so that our customers can make use of it over the Summer.

Medieval Banquet

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (in my opinion) thoroughly deserved to win the 2009 Booker Prize for fiction. It also won the National Book Critics Circle award for Fiction, The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. It was the winner of the Morning News Tournament of Books, Wimbledon and The Eurovision Song Contest. It was beaten in the semi final of the Champions League by Barcelona after a controversial disallowed goal, which once again brought up the issue of the use of goal line technology.
It is an excellent novel about the early life of Thomas Cromwell and his rise to power in the early 1500s.

Yesterday Fourth Estate published the sequel. This is BIG NEWS in our part of town, so we thought we'd do something appropriate to celebrate.
So we threw a medieval banquet in the bookshop.

This is what our bookshop looks like.

So, we needed to make it look a bit more authentic

Not bad, eh. (that's a log fire in the top left hand corner).

The food was incredible and supplied by local caterers The Hungry Wolf. There were roasted pigeons with parsley and bread sauce, fish pies with pears and spices, a staggeringly tasty mutton stew apple pies, marchipane, fruit jellies. For the vegetarians we had a mushroom and prune stuffed bread, (which was out of this world) and a borage leaf and parsley egg pie.

This was all washed down with lashings of spiced wine and ale.  





Menu

We also managed to secure SIGNED FIRST EDITIONS of the book, which guests got to take home at the end of the evening (all wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string).

We still have some of the Signed First Editions if you're interested.

As usual, we couldn't have pulled this off without the help of our fantastic customers and friends. All the material and cloth that covered the shelves was borrowed, as were the trestle tables which we used to build the long table. The publishers were great in making sure we got the signed copies that we'd asked for and we even managed to borrow the plates from the cafe next door.

So, to sum up, people got together, chatted, laughed, enjoyed a wonderful meal and took home a great book in a pretty little parcel and hopefully had a memorable evening.

Amazon must be quaking in their boots. 



Timeline Books. An Announcement.

I am  a bookseller. But I am also a publisher. My publishing company is called Timeline Books. I have published one book so far. Yes, ONE. It is London Tales by Greg Stekelman. It is awesome and if you haven't bought it by now and you have £40, then I suggest you do. There are only 250 in the whole world and tests prove that by buying a copy your life will improve on average by 3.2%*.
When I set up Timeline Books, I thought to myself that i'd probably publish just the one book. But having enjoyed the whole experience so very very much, my taste for publishing more has grown.
And this is why I am delighted to announce that I am going to be publishing Timeline Books second book.
It's going to be a collection of the finest short stories by Joseph D'Lacey. Joseph is awesome and I cannot tell you how excited I am to be publishing this.

Let me tell you a bit about Mr D'Lacey.

• He wrote a book called Meat, which I reviewed on this blog here back in 2008 (there is also an interview I did too).He also wrote a book called Garbage Man, which has some of the most powerful imagery I have read. He also wrote the novella Kill Crew, which I reviewed a bit here
• He was awarded Best Newcomer in 2009 at the British Fantasy Society awards for Meat
• Stephen King is a massive fan and has said that 'Joseph D'Lacey Rocks'.
• I have spent the last 2 months reading his short stories and I feel like I am the luckiest person alive. They are brilliant.

This is what Joseph looks like, should you want to say hello to him if you meet him.

Joseph would probably be filed under Horror in bookshops. If there was a more specific sub genre, it would be Eco Horror. But the scope of his writing means that I am reluctant to place him in one particular genre. His stories put me in mind of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, but with an even darker, more sinister (and sometimes hilarious) conclusion. What I love about his writing is that I never know quite what to expect. His latest book, Snake Eyes, published in the USA, contains two novellas. Each one takes you on a journey that has layer after layer of storyline. It takes you further and further into his crazy and imaginative mind. You don't know what's going to happen, but when it does happen...BOOM!!

The book will be published on September 27th 2012. This coincides with the publication of a book by JK Rowling, which one or two of you might know about. We thought it would be good for her to have a bit of competition.

There will be a Limited Edition of just 500 copies. Each one will be signed and numbered.

There will be a competition to design the cover of the book. This will be launched in May at the same time as the title of the book is announced.

There are more things, but this is quite enough excitement for one blogpost.

This is going to be something very special. If you know anyone who you think would want of copy of this (who wouldn't to be honest), please let them know.

*I made this up, but you should still buy a copy.

Mark Leyner's Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Late last year I was doing my usual check on our American book suppliers website for copies of Mark Leyner's books. I like to keep them in stock, because I think they're pure literary gold. As usual they had one or two copies of My Cousin My Gastroenterologist (his first novel) & a copy of the Tetherballs of Bougainville. Mark Leyner wrote these books back in the 90s along with a couple of other novels, but then stopped writing fiction.
I never suspected to see what I saw that day.
Because on the American suppliers website, in front of my very eyes, was a NEW TITLE by Mark, due to be published at the end of March 2012.
I stared at for a few moments, trying to take this information in. Mark Leyner had written a new novel after a gap of well over a decade. This made me do a small dance. Yes, I danced in the Bookshop at the thought of reading a NEW Mark Leyner book.
It was called The Sugar Frosted Nutsack (why the hell not) and I had to wait 5 months before I could get my hands on it.

So fast forward to March 2012. A parcel arrives from our US book suppliers. I open it.
It was like that scene from Pulp Fiction when John Travolta opens the briefcase, or when Charlie Bucket unwraps his Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. Because inside the box we're copies of the book I had been waiting to read for 5 months. More dancing ensued.

OK, so now I've read the book. Did I enjoy it?  Did it live up to my expectations (they were very high)?  Has Mark Leyner still got the jazz?

YES.

Reading a book by Mark Leyner is an experience. It is inspiring, exhausting, hilarious, dangerous, explosive, filthy, unpredictable and magical.

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack storyline, if there is one, centres around Ike Karton, a plaything of the Gods. There are a lot of Gods in the book. They include El Burbuja, the God of Bubbles, El Brazo, the God of Urology and El Cucho, God of Concussions, Alcoholic Blackouts, Brainwashing & Amnesia amongst other things. El Cucho is also known as XOXO and figures heavily in the book.
These Gods look down from the tallest building on the planet and observe Ike on his stoop, going to a diner, flirting with a waitress, talking to his daughters drug dealing boyfriend and ultimately getting shot.
There, that's the story. That's it. But it isn't about the story, it's about how Mark Leyner plays with it. The book is also about 'The Sugar Frosted Nutsack', an epic book within the book that we are reading, which, when performed (usually by drug-addled blind bards), any variation to the original telling then becomes the official story, which must consequently be performed with those variations. Having been performed thousands (if not millions) of times, the original story and the one that is now performed are completely different. And discussion rages throughout the book about what was the original story and what has been added. With XOXO mischievously mixing things up and changing the story throughout, it is impossible to know what the real story is.
Or are the Gods all figments of Ike's imagination? Is he a deluded madman who believes that fate had put him on earth simply for the purpose of the story?
Everything in the book has been carefully considered. I have no idea where in the book the author started writing. It's almost as though he wrote one sentence and then wrapped that sentence with two more, and on, and on until he had produced a ball of words, which the reader can then slowly unwrap. There are countless repeated passages throughout, which, far from being annoying (unless Leyner does it to be annoying, which he does on purpose at times), hypnotise and take you off on a totally new direction. He playfully experiments with sentence structure, grammar, font, and language throughout and it is certainly not a book I could read quickly. It did my brain in. It poked it and stroked it in a most enjoyable way.
I don't think I can do this book the justice it deserves. Mark Leyner is a genius and I will happily admit that some parts of the book overwhelmed me, such was the surreal ferocity of it. But even when this happened, I let the book take me along on its insane journey, safe in the knowledge that I had no idea what to expect.
If you want to read some more by Mark Leyner, I would suggest, My Cousin My Gastroenterologist. I adored The Sugar Frosted Nutsack and my tired brain has just enough strength left to stand and applaud this freakishly talented author before jumping into this 1966 Triumph Herald convertible and riding off into the sunset.

My Bookselling Life. Part One (first steps)

I started selling books to humans in 1984. I looked like this in 1984

Of course, I haven't changed a bit. But bookselling has quite considerably.
In 1984 and just about to celebrate my 6th (alright 16th) Birthday, I left school with 3 O Levels. O levels are today's equivalent of degrees, so I was clearly a genius. However, my school required that I achieve 5 O Levels to be allowed to stay on to the sixth form and turfed me out.
To say I didn't care was an understatement. I was a moody teenager, who didn't really care about very much at all. Thankfully, I had parents who did, and with their 'encouragement' I enrolled onto a Youth Training Scheme (YTS). I chose to be trained in retail and was given the option of working in one of two shops. One was a camera shop and the other was George's Bookshop in Bristol. Luckily I lived in Bristol at the time and so I chose the bookshop.
The scheme worked like this. I would be paid £25 a week and for that I would spend 3 days at college learning about retail and 2 days at George's as a sales assistant.
College was a massive eye opener. Having been to a relatively good school and just being a lazy sod, I wasn't aware that there were 16 year olds who didn't actually know what 6+5 was, or how many days in a week there were. But there I was in a classroom, a naive 16 year old, with people the same age as me who education had forgot. That lesson was the only thing that the college taught me, but it has stuck with me to this day.
The 2 days I spent at the bookshop, however, were incredible.
George's Bookshop was owned by Blackwell's and had been proudly selling books in Bristol since 1871. It was located on  Park Street and occupied 6 different locations on the street. Yes, that's right, there were 6 George's Bookshops on one street! One sold 2nd Hand, one sold Academic books, two had Art books, one was a Computer bookshop (actually this opened after I started there, but hey) and there was the glorious main bookshop at number 91. This was at the very top of the street and it was massive.

This is what it looked like in 1936 (a couple of years before I started).

This building not only held 4 floors of books, but also the unpacking department, the accounts department, the admin offices and it was also where the office of John May was. John was the managing director, who was both terrifying, creepy and lovely all at the same time. 



My first role in the shop was working in the section selling maps, foreign languages and travel (a heady mixture). My first manager was Gertrude Scanlon, who was a formidable lady in her 50's, who took me under her wing like a friendly albatross.
The travel section included an official Ordnance Survey Map Printer....

This machine took up about size of a snooker table, without the pockets, and people could come in and ask us to print off specific maps that they needed. The machine could do all scales and was very popular indeed. Being a trainee, I wasn't allowed anywhere near this machine and busied myself (when shouted at) with tidying shelves and checking what books we had.

There wasn't a computerised stock control system  in 1984. Are you mad?
No, we had stock cards. Files and files of them. Each card had the information about a book on, (Title, Author, ISBN, Publisher, Date arrived, etc), which was all handwritten by us, and it was our job to regularly go through all of these cards, checking how many copies were there.

There were drawers and drawers of these cards and this was something that took up a large part of the working day.
If something had sold we would mark the date on the card and the number of copies we thought we should order. The card would then be stuck upwards and replaced in the files, for Gertrude to check.
Should she deem that the book should be reordered the files would then be taken down to the basement, where a man in a suit sat, in the dark typing ISBN's and order quantities into what looked like a typewriter. This was in fact the cutting edge of book ordering systems and enabled books, once ordered, to be delivered to the bookshop within two weeks (sometimes as little as TEN DAYS).

It's odd to think that nowadays, people's  expectations are so high, that having to wait more than a couple of days for something seems almost unheard of. In the 1980's people were very impressed by the idea that we could get a book for them within a fortnight.

So my first months at the bookshop were great. I was still a bit naughty, and would take the occasional sickie, but they seemed to put up with me. In order to earn a bit more cash I would work Saturdays as well and my pay packet would be bulging with £37.50 a week.
We got paid weekly and we did actually get a pay packet, with cash in and everything. It was great.

After 2 months of college I had had enough of it. I wasn't learning anything, and the teachers knew this. I stopped going and took my first grown up decision of my life. I asked for a full time job at George's. I explained to Gertrude the situation and she spoke to her manager.
Staggeringly they said yes and in November 2004 I started full time employment at the bookshop. I was now earning £42.00 and life was good.

Oh yes, and I had to wear a tie.

TBC.

A Newsletter

Each week I write a newsletter to send out to all the customers on our mailing list. I think there are about 3,000 recipients. This is a very useful thing and even if only 10% read it, that's a lot of people who know what's happening at the shop.
Here is this week's Newsletter. I'd be interested if you could let me know what you think? I know it's too long....

Hello,
our comedy night last week was our most popular yet. All tickets were sold out before the event and the shop was filled for a fantastic night of laughter and enjoyment. Thanks to everyone who came along. We put the tickets for next months Comedy Night, which happens on Friday April 13th, on sale on our website here. Alternatively, if you like, you can contact us directly.

This Thursday, March 22nd, it's our Monthly Quiz. Starting at 7pm, there will be six rounds of questions, ranging from books, music, films and art as well as more quirky rounds like celebrity deaths and the dreaded anagrams round. The question master is the brilliant Greg Stekelman (@themanwhofell on Twitter) and it's always a lot of fun.
Here are the rules;
£2 per team member
Maximum of 4 per team
Get there on time.
The winning team will get £25!
Please bring your own refreshments.

The following week is going to be one of our busiest ever. There is something going on every day (sometimes more than one thing).

On Sunday March 25th, it's our regular Boardgames day at the Bookshop. Running from 1pm to 5pm, just come along and join in with one of the great games that are available to play. Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan seem to be current favourites, but if you have a game you'd like to bring along and share with the group, that'd be great. You don't have to stay for the whole afternoon and there's free coffee, tea and biscuits available for everyone. 
On Monday March 26th at 7pm, Jeremy Cassidy is here to help you experience the Alexander Technique. The theme of the evening is 'Reading with Ease', and there will be 3 other Alexander Technique teachers who will be here to give you a short lesson after Jeremy's talk. This is a FREE event.

Our Photography Club meets on Tuesday March 27th at 7pm. It's open to anyone who wants to learn more about photography or who simply wants to take better photos. Each month a subject is chosen by the group to take a photo/photos of to bring to the following meeting. This mont's subject is BLUE.
There is a Flickr Group set up called The Big Green Bookshop Photo Club, which people can download their photos onto as well.
It's £3 a month and refreshments are provided.
Come along if you get the chance.

On Wednesday March 28th at 7pm, we are delighted to be hosting an evening with Merle Hoffman, a pioneer in women's health care since 1971, a staunch defender of abortion rights, an untiring activist and writer around feminist and progressive issues. Merle is over from the states for three days to coincide with the publication of her memoir Intimate Wars. She has countless interviews and radio appearances booked and we are so pleased that The Big Green Bookshop was chosen to be the venue of her only Bookshop talk. She will be talking about and reading from her book and there will be a chance to ask questions too.
This is a FREE event and refreshments wil be available.

Merle's appearance means that for one week only the Writer's Group will be meeting in another venue (to be announced). Keep an eye out on our website for more news about this.

On Thursday March 29th at 7pm, we welcome Stephanie Butland to the shop. In her book 'How I said Bah! to Cancer', Stephanie tells us how she rallied against cancer through thinking strategies, a proactive approach to treatment, and a determination to keep the rest of her life going and retain a sense of humour. Truthful, personal, funny, and above all helpful, you could find 'How I Said Bah! to Cancer' to be the ideal straight-talking best friend to help you along your cancer journey - or support a loved one on theirs.
Stephanie will be reading from her book and will also answer any questions you may have.
This is a FREE event and refreshments will be available.

Friday March 30th at 7pm sees the launch party of Keith Lowe's incredible book Savage Continent; Europe in the Aftermath of World War 2 at the bookshop. In this epic book, Keith describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over. He outlines the warped morality and the insatiable urge for vengeance that were the legacy of the conflict. He describes the ethnic cleansing and civil wars that tore apart the lives of ordinary people from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, and the establishment of a new world order that finally brought stability to a shattered generation.
Please feel free to join him and his friends as he celebrates publication of this important new title. Refreshments will be served and it is FREE entry.

There's more??
Yes...

Overnight from 6.30pm on Saturday March 31st until 6.30am on Sunday 1st April, there will be a Writer All-Nighter at the Bookshop. The aim of this is to provide you some quiet time to get some writing done and also to meet other writers. We hosted a similar event last November and it was a huge success.
There'll be periods of time dedicated purely to writing and these'll be broken up by some fun activities, to allow you a chance to refresh and take a break from what you're doing.
Things to consider bringing;
Cushions or a blanket. We have a limited supply at the bookshop.
A sleeping bag, if you think you'll want a nap.
Multiplug. We do have some, but it might be worth bringing one along too.
Refreshments. We will be providing some, but bring some along too if you like.
Tickets are £4, which will cover the use of the bookshop and also refreshments. These can be purchased online here or you can get them direct from the bookshop.
You don't have to stay the whole night, nor do you have to turn up when it starts, but we'd appreciate it if you could tell us when you think you'll be getting there. 

We will also be selling books at the North London Literary Festival in Hendon from Tuesday 27th March until Thursday 29th March. Details can be found here, http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/news-events/literary-festival.aspx and authors appearing include Mark Billingham, Jan Pienkowski (Meg and Mog), Laura Dockrill and Alex Wheatle. If you can't make it but would like signed copies any of the authors' books, please let us know.

So, we'll be quite busy then. But not too busy to say hello if you come to the shop. Which we hope you will.
Have a great week,
Simon, Tim and Katie

London Tales (postcard offer)

We've almost sold out of the brilliant, gorgeous, and extremely tactile London Tales by Greg Stekelman, the book that I published last year. As it's our 4th birthday tomorrow, I persuaded Greg to draw some exclusive postcards to give away with copies of the book. The next five people who buy the book will each get one of these.
They're signed by Greg and are each totally unique.

 Here's an example or two.

This is an example

This is another example.

You can buy the book here or alternatively, from our website.

For those of you who are interested, i'm in negotiation with an author now about my next publishing project, which i'm really excited about. More about that later though.