More Purple Prose from North London's Most Exhausting Bookshop

It's the 8th Annual Wood Green International Film Festival between the 25th-28th March. Yes indeed, Wood Green has a film festival. Not just a little piddly one, but a rather splendid International one that filmmakers from all over the world come to showcase their films at.
We got involved last year and as well as sponsoring the award for best local short film, the amazing animation Crone directed by Mikey Please. (click to watch) we also turned the shop into a cinema every evening during the week the festival was on.

Tim was particularly agile on this day last year.And look at the size of those speakers.

We showed 4 films throughout the week to highlight that the festival was on and to encourage people to go along.
The choice of films was decided by a vote on this very blog (I was very disappointed that 'Metaphoric Enema', the seminal work by enfant terrible film director Vaz Slateman didn't get enough votes to be shown). So we've decided that as it worked so well last year, that we'd do it again. We'll be showing 3 films this year and we'd like you to choose 2 of them. Down the right of this blog you'll see a list of films. we'd like you to vote for the one that you'd like us to show in the bookshop during the week. The most popular 2 will be the ones that we show. Simple ain't it? I've designed it so you can only vote once this time ( I was a bit of a numpty last year....), so make sure that you're sure before you vote.

On the evenings we show the films we will be serving the finest wines available and possibly some Chocolate and raspberry pavlova

So there you have it. GET VOTING.

A Horror-fest. How Delicious

I've been lucky enough recently to have read these three cracking horror titles, aimed at kids. Two have just been published, and one is out in a few weeks time. The copies you see are proofs, and the finished book covers are even better than the ones here.
The First book is Invisible Fiends : Mr Mumbles by Barry Hutchison. Mr Mumbles was Kyle's imaginary friend when he was younger. Ahh, Mr Mumbles, with his floppy hat and coat and his jolly dance.
But Kyle's grown up now and no longer needs Mr Mumbles. But Mr Mumbles is back, and he's not so jolly any more. In fact he has every intention of killing Kyle.... Oh yes, did I mention that Mr Mumbles is called Mr Mumbles because he can't talk. The reason? His mouth is sewn together.
There's an brilliant back story involving Kyle's father, and there's also a kick ass goth sidekick called Ameena. I love the way there always seems to be less than a sliver of hope at the end of each chapter and then somehow...somehow something happens that means you can breathe again. The pace of the the book is furious and the author has clearly left lots of unanswered questions, so that it leaves the reader desparate for the next in the series. Excellent stuff.

The Next book is Witchfinder by William Hussey and is the first in a trilogy that's due to be published over the next year.
OK how's this for an opening gambit. Within the first 4 pages a child has his throat cut and by the time you've just caught your breath someone else (who I thought was going to be a major character) is decapitated.
This is a battle betwen good and evil that's been raging for centuries, and it seems that theres only one person, Jake, who can save earth from the apocalypse that's known simply as Demontide. Previously in order to stop this, a child had to be sacrificed and their blood smeared around the seal of a hidden doorway inside a cave. Jake's not too keen to be that child as i'm sure you'll undersatnd. William's ability to imagine such wild charactrers is praiseworthy indeed. Throughout the book you're never quite sure who's good and who's evil and at any minute you get the feeling someone could sabotage all of Jake's efforts to keep the demons at bay. I don't even want to think about the 'Cabinet'. Once again, the pace is electric and i'm already looking forward to part 2 (out in September).

Thirdly is Crawlers by Sam Enthoven.
Two groups of schoolkids on a trip to the Barbican to see a Shakespeare play are 'interupted' when gross blobs with octopus like tendrils fall from the ceiling of the theatre and start attaching themselves to members of the audience (not audiences members, this is a kids book), giving these creatures complete control over the human it's attached to. These are merely foot soldiers to a monster more deadly and dangerous than you can begin to imagine. Four girls and four boys manage to barricade themselves into a room before the 'crawlers' manage to attach onto them , and from here follows a desparate fight for survival. Throughout this book, which reads like a video game (or PSP game or whatever), there's the cleverly described rivalry between the boys for the well to do rich school and the girls from the less well off comprehensive, and some brilliant twists and turns which means you never quite know what's going to happen next. Why the Barbican? Where are all these creatures from? Is Tim growing his beard again? If you want to know the answers to these questions, apart from the third one, then you'll have to read the book. Which I sincerely hope you will.

So murders, creatures from your worst nighmares, zombies and hideous monsters who will (and maybe do) destroy the planet.
None of these authors are parsimonious in their descriptions of blood and guts nastiness that seems to happen in each of the books, and if parents or teachers are worried about letting their little dears read stuff like this, then I think they should reconsider. The writing is superb, the authors encourage us to use our imaginations and clearly don't underestimate their audience. Kids will be able to relate to the 'heroes' in the books. What teenager would be believable if, after some huge monster had whacked him aroud the face with a piece of wood, said 'ooh fiddlesticks, that smarts'?
I'm really keen that as many kids read as possible, and more than that, that they read because they WANT to read. You have to be extremely talented to be a kids author, and I would suggest that it's harder than ever now, when kids have so many more distractions. These books should have a appeal and will sell really well if bookshops stock 'em.
I don't expect teenagers to be swinging from chandeliers when the latest new book comes out, but it's refreshing and heart warming when you see how excited some of our younger customers get when they come to choose their next read.

And maybe some of you big kids out there might enjoy these books too. I certainly did, and i'm a high court judge.

Some publishers, eh?

Scholastic are a big publishing company. Huge. In fact, Scholastic Inc. is the world's largest publisher of children's books.
So you'd have thought that they would know better than to;
Exhibit A.


Put a big sticker on their books that says 'Ideal Christmas Present' that is so sticky that you can't get it off without 30 minutes of scrubbing with turpentine and gentle coaxing.
Waterstone's used to have a similar problem with those lovely orange stickers that they like to use. It took a number of top scientists several months to find a gum that was sticky enough to stick onto book covers, but not too sticky that you couldn't get it off. I know, because i've personally stickered and de-stickered tens of thousands of books in the name of marketing. So my advice to Scholastic is to get in touch with the Waterstone's scientists to find out what gum they use.
Exhibit B

Ah, 'Adult editions'. What this means is that the pulishers think that the book or series in question that was originally written for kids, has enough appeal to adults that they will now try and sell it as an adult book. And heaven forbid an adult would be seen reading a kids book, so they change the cover to look more grown up. Famous examples are Harry Potter, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and The Boy in the Striped Jimjams.
Publishers don't mention that the price of a kids book is less than that of an adult book. So if you look really closely at the example above, you will see that the price of these new 'adult editions' will be £7.99. But if you check out the price of the edition that's available at the moment (the kids edition), you'll find it's £6.99. So what's likely to happen is that the price of the kids edition will go up too. Boo. Boo. Boo.

In their defence, Scholastic publish this.

Barry Hutchison will be the topic of my next post, which will be much more positive. Unless he isn't the topic. And then it'll be something else.

Bloggers Book of the Month

We hope you like this idea. I have to admit it was Scott Pack that suggested something like this to me, but i'm prepared to take as much of the credit as I possibly can.
It's so lovely, I almost want to take it to the pictures and buy it some popcorn.

When deciding what to read next, book reviews on blogs are fast becoming a more useful resource than those found in most newspapers. As such, the Big Green Bookshop in cosmopolitan Wood Green has been in touch with some of the most high profile book bloggers out there and asked each of them to recommend a different book each month for our customers. We’ve set no guidelines for their book choices except that they choose a book that they really like. So it could be something old, something new, something borrowed or something blue…steady now.
We’ve had a fantastic response from the bloggers and we really appreciate the time they’ve taken in agreeing to do this. We’re delighted to be introducing this exciting new initiative, which no doubt will be stolen within 6 months.

I’ve listed the bloggers, their blogs and also their book choices here. You can find their reviews on the Big Green Bookshop Website by following this link and also you’ll be able to see a beautiful bookcase in the shop dedicated to this new initiative.

Here is the Dovegreyreader entry.

• Scott Pack – Me and My Big Mouth Blue Fox by Sjon
• Lynne Hatwell – Dovegreyreader Snow Geese by William Fiennes
• Jackie Bailey– Farm Lane Books Blog A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• Simon Thomas – Stuck in a Book True Deceiver by Tove Jannson
• Lizzy Siddall – Lizzy’s Literary Life Clara by Janice Galloway
• Victoria Hoyle – Eve’s Alexandria The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly
• Karen Howlett – Cornflower Books Henrietta’s War by Joyce Denny
• Elaine Simpson-Long – Random Jottings The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer
• Tom Cunliffe – A Common Reader Legend of a Suicide by David Vann
• Rosy Barnes et al – Vulpes Libris Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill


We’re really proud to be associated with these bloggers whose passion for books is plain to see. We’re surprised and delighted already by their varied and interesting book choices and we hope that this will inspire you to try something new.
Look out for a new choice each month.


I'll be producing a mighty window tomorrow, which I was going to do today but a class from a local school turned up and bought half of the kids section and then another teacher came in and bought the other half.

January in a nutshell

We've been busy again. And I so want to write more regularly on here, but I hope you'll excuse me.
We're having our flat done up nice and proper like, cos we live in a one bedroom flat at the moment, and with Katie due to be producing the newest member of the Key family in the next few weeks, it really is time we think about moving somewhere with more than one bedroom.
Obviously being skint and having (in the eyes of a mortgage lender) a new business, we'll have to try and make as much of the place we have. It is a really great flat and as our regular reader knows, I love love love Wood Green, and especially Noel Park. It's all coming along very nicely and hopefully it'll be finished in the next week or so.
The shop has been feeling a bit January this last month. After the wonders of Christmas it's always a bit hard to get back to reality. Snow hasn't helped, especially as we're on a side road and we have no heating in the shop.
However, some rather super school orders have been a real bonus and we've been able to eat more than gruel in these testing times.

January has been a 'sortng out stuff' month as well. We're curently unable to send out bulk emails, which is a real pain in the botty. We haven't quite worked out why, but it makes sending out our newsletter impossible, so sorry if you've been waiting for one. We think we'll have sorted it out by the end of the week, so look out for your latest edition of Big Green News very soon.

We've also got a Sale on. Yes, a sale. Thats all i'm saying about this sordid business, but if you want to come and rifle through a few boxes of choice books at knockdown prices, please feel free.

The leak in the shop has still not been completely fixed, but the landlord has cleared all the crap out of the guttering which seems to have helped a lot. We don't think it's a big problem (unless it rains), and the landlord has taken steps to sort it out, but it would be nice to confidently say that it won't happen again.

We've been organising some big events for later on this year. It seems that people are less inclined to come out in the evenings if it's dark (and cold), so we're only putting on a few events over the next 6-8 weeks. But after that, we'll be back to our usual insane events programme. We have some fabulous authors lined up so please keep checking back.

My camera is also playing up, so i'm struggling to make this blog attractive with pictures of Tim standing on his head or me in pigtails. In the meantime, here are some other images from the last few weeks which I have been able to download.

This was at the peak of Tim's beardy weirdness. This has since been shaved off. Who knows where he'll be growing his hair this year...

I've no idea who this is, but I found this picture on my camera on the day after our Christmas party.

Katie and Freya. The people that make me really happy.


Another blog will be forthcoming very very soon....

Did You Miss Me?

Well, I had a month off from the blog.
I hope somebody noticed....

I shall be doing a full recap of the last month's joys and the like very soon, but here are some keywords to describe my last 31 days.

• Katie
• Freya
• bump getting larger
• cold
• books
• tired
• idea
• stupid idea
• better idea
• hair
• sales
• xmas
• sleep
• drink
• eat
• sleep more
• read
• santa
• duck
• turkey
• cheese (of course)
• work
• new year
• leak
• building work on flat
• snow
• cold
• quiet
• lonely
• madness
• train
• joy
• real snow
• streetcar
• home
• school orders
• more school orders
• work
• building work on flat
• read
• tired

I suspect I will explode back into action on Saturday and I hope you'll forgive my lack of stuff. Keep coming back, it'll be worth it, I promise.

Oh, and come and buy some books too.

Update

It's busy in the shop and Tim and I are fairly happy with the way things are going. The next 11 days are the most important of the year, and we'll be doing all we can to persuade people to come and get their presents at the Big Green Bookshop. We're trying a few things that aren't books this year, like Gruffalo Pencils and Plasters and some brilliant Ladybird mugs, as well as some fab retro Penguin notebooks, and we're also selling some amazing Beano and Dandy giftwrap.. It's a hit.

It rained rather heavily on Decmeber 2nd in London. By the look of it, it rained mostly in Brampton Park Road, Wood Green N22 6BG. Our roof is not in very good condition either.
The combination of a busted roof and a massive downpour is not good, and we suddenly found small torrents of water coming through the ceiling. Not good for the CBeebies books unfortunately. Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy quickly put on their waterwings and Noc Toc took shelter in a hollowed out tree trunk. Numberjacks 3 and 4 were at sixes and sevens and Mister Maker hurriedly made an umberella from gloopy glue and some paper plates. But it just wasn't enough and we've now got a box of books that are completely wrecked.
Unfortunately it wasn't just the CBeebies books, and another box of lovely books has been waterdamaged too.
Our landlord's a good guy, and he accepts it's his fault, so we'll be taking the appropriate cash off the rent, but it's not eactly what you want to happen in December, or at any time of year for that matter.

Now that the Big Green Bookshop Top 50 has been announced and is proudly on display in the shop, we're putting together new and exciting plans for next year. There's a couple of great ideas which we'll be announcing in january, and we're also (as always) looking to put on some great events.
If any of you out there can help with getting authors to come to the shop, or have any ideas that you reckon might work at the Bookshop called Big Green, please get in touch.

That's it for now. I'll take some choice photos of things in general soon to please your eyes.

Hardback Fiction

Imagine this, if you will.

The new Arctic Monkeys album is released after months of excitement. The music press has been banging on about how brilliant it is and how it would be ridiculous not to get it now that it's finally released.
People queue for hours to get hold of a copy because they want to be the first person to listen to it.
The shop opens and there it is!! The new Arctic Monkeys album...
But hang on a minute, it's not in a usual CD case... no, it's in this slightly thicker plastic case and the box is a bit bigger too. And hang on a minute, it's double the price of a normal CD.
You pick up your copy and you take it up to the person working in the shop.
'Excuse me, but i'm a bit confused', you say, 'I want to buy this, but it's really expensive. Where are the normal CDs?'
'This is all there is' says the person in the shop.
'Is the quality of the album any better?' you ask.
'Not at all. The recording is exactly the same as you'd expect on a normal CD, but the record company decided that they'd put it in a slightly bigger protective box, and sell it to you for twice the amount.'
'but that's crazy' you say. 'why would I want to pay double for something that is pretty much exactly like a normal CD, but it's packaging is sturdier. I don't care about the packaging, I just want to listen to the album'
'Well' says the person in the shop 'the record company will be bringing out a normal packaged CD in about 9-12 months time. All the big record companies are going to start doing this from now on'
'but this is really unfair' you say. 'it just means that normal people who love music can't afford to buy stuff when it gets released. No one will put up with it. It's just a great big con.'
'well' says the person in the record shop 'it seems to work for books'

The Top 10!

We’ve been running a survey where we asked our customers to name their 5 favourite books of all time (in no particular order). We had thousands of replies and we’re really grateful to all of you who took the time to vote. From all your choices we can now reveal the Top 50 most popular books.

First of all a recap on numbers 50-11

11 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
12 Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
13 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
14 Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
15 Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
16 Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
17 1984 by George Orwell
18 Road by Cormac McCarthy
19 Middlemarch by George Eliot
20 Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
21 Persuasion by Jane Austen
22 Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
23 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
24 Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
25 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
26 Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
27 Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
28 Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
29 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30 Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
31 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
32 Book Thief by Markus Zusak
33 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
34 Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
35 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
36 Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
37 Color Purple by Alice Walker
38 Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
39 Bone People by Keri Hulme
40 Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon
41 Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
42 Life of Pi by Yan Martel
43 Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
44 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
45 Shipping News by Annie L Proulx
46 Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck
47 Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
48 Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
49 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
50 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh


Now here's the Top 10

10 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
9 Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
8 God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
7 Secret History by Donna Tartt
6 Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger
5 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
3 Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
2 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
1 Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien


There are 29 men and 21 women in the list, and every book on the list is a work of fiction. There have been a number of similar polls in the last ten years in the UK, most notably The BBCs Big Read and Waterstone’s Books of the Century. Lord of the Rings topped both of these surveys too, so it’s clearly a book that the public love.

Where's Harry Potter? Well it was a bit of a surprise to us too. Even if you add all the votes together for each of the HP books, they don't manage to squeeze into the top 50.
Obviously 2 years is a long time in the world of books. Stephenie Meyer is the latest sensation and unsurprisingly made the top 10. It was a similar scenario ten years ago, when Waterstones did their Books of the Century poll. Trainspotting had just hit the cinemas and the book was the must have title at the time. I think it made it into the Top 10 in that poll, and (although it's a good book) I suspect it wouldn't score quite so highly now. It didn't bother our chart anyway.

We really enjoyed putting this together and hope you find it as thought provoking as we do.

Now, what are we going to do next....

Top 50 - Numbers 20-11

We're getting to the business end of the chart now. Here are the books that just missed out on a Top 10 slot.

20. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
19. Middlemarch by George Eliot
18. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
17. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
16. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
15. Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
14. Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
13. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
12. Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
11. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Still, we have no non-fiction in the list, thanks to Joe at the Bristol Prize for picking up on that.
So all that's left to do is tell you the Top 10 books, as voted for by friends, customers, colleagues and anyone else who knows us.
You'll have to wait until tomorrow...