So we now have a date for Harry Potter 7 - Saturday 21st July. Which gives me 4 and a bit months to plan exactly what we'll be doing to make this even more exciting than the previous launches. One thing for sure will be a midnight opening. I've got to say that, despite the hype the build-up to the midnight HP release is always great fun. I've done a few now, including a 6-hour queue winding around the streets of a North-East city, carefully watched by several vans of police doing there usual Friday/Saturday fight-night patrols, and a midninght opening in one store, finishing at 2ish before going onto a 7am breakfast opening! Here's hoping we come with something even more spectacular to send Harry off with - anyone have some trained owls?!
Well, after last post I thought I'd better read one of the Richard & Judy titles, as part of my booksellerly duties! I've had a proof copy of William Boyd's Restless on the shelf for a long time now, almost read it last year (but I'd just finished Sarah Waters excellent The Night Watch and didn't want more WWII) so thought now was the perfect time to get stuck in, especially as it had also just won the Costa Best Novel prize. I enjoyed Boyd's Any Human Heart but had never read anything else from his sizeable backlist. And unfortunately, if Restless is anything to go by I won't be reading anything else. I really wanted to like this book, and was determined to plow on despite reservations. But by the halfway point I was succesfully predicting every forthcoming plot development, and felt that the strongest presence in the book was Boyd himself. I hate giving up on a book halfway through but sometimes it's best to cut your losses and run!
So now I'm almost finished my next book, a debut novel by American author Brad Listi called Attention.Deficit.Disorder. This is book well worth getting hold of, despite only being published in the US (at the moment). At first it appears to be, as the title would suggest a random series of events, starting with the suicide of the main character's ex-girlfriend. But as you move through the novel a bigger picture emerges from the randomness.
And once that's done...?
Yesterday was shopping day so I've got some exciting NEW books to look forward to:
Felt really animated by the extract in The Observer a few weeks back so I'm eager to read the whole book. It's good to feel inspired by politics again!
A beautiful looking book, if dauntingly large (768 pages!). I regret not signing up for Penguin's innovative serialisation of this before Christmas, but at least I can read this format at my leisure.
My absolute favourite crime author, if not just favourite author! Sicily, food, mystery - if you haven't read any Camilleri yet please, please, please check out his backlist. I usually wait for the paperback editions but now I have to find out what's happening in Inspector Montalbano's world!
...there's nothing better than staying in and curling up with a good book. Every year C4's Richard & Judy run a book club , producing a list of good books perfect for passing the time on these stormy winter days.
There's no doubt that R&J know how to sell books, with their choices always topping the book charts from the moment they get mentioned on the show. Initially some were fairly snobbish about two daytime TV presenters suggesting what the nation should read; but over the years the club has been running they've found some real gems, and brought reading in general to a far wider audience then any bookshop, library or newspaper review column ever had done. My one suggestion would be for more non-fiction titles - this year there's just one, depsite the prominence of non-fiction on the bestseller lists: Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion was the number one bestseller in Borders for several weeks, along with Why Do Penguins Feet Freeze, The Dangerous Book for Boys and several bigraphies. But anyway, what's on the list in 2007?
When a wealthy young debutante is discovered bound, whipped and strangled in a luxurious apartment overlooking the city, and another society beauty narrowly escapes the same fate, the mayor of New York calls upon the visiting Sigmund Freud to use his revolutionary new ideas to help the surviving victim recover her memory of the attack, and solve the crime.
Rose and Ruby Darlen are closer than most twin sisters. Indeed, they have spent their twenty-nine years on earth joined at the head. Given that they share a web of essential veins, there is no possibility that they can be separated in their lifetime. On the eve of their thirtieth birthday, Rose sets out to write her autobiography. But because their lives have been so closely shared, Ruby insists on contributing the occasional chapter.
In 1939, Eva is a beautiful 28 year-old living in Paris. As war breaks out, she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious, patrician Englishman. Under his tutelage, she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one: even those she loves most. Since then, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life - but once a spy, always a spy. And now, she must complete one last assignment. This time, though, Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help. Restless has already the winner of the Costa Novel of the Year.
For five years Pearl has managed to keep the past from catching up to her and her bright, frail five-year-old son. Life has given her every reason to mistrust people, but circumstances force her to trust her neighbour Mitch with watching Leonard while she goes off to work. Then one day Pearl drops her son off and never returns.
They are an unlikely pair: Mitch is a young, unattached business owner, and Leonard is a precocious, five-year-old boy. But together they must find a way to move forward in the wake of Pearl's unexplained disappearance.
This year's non-fiction choice, in Semi-Detached Griff Rhys Jones recreates his suburban childhood and adolescence in precise and evocative detail; every young trauma, embarrassment and joyous rebellion, hazily-remembered summer afternoons released into the wild of the woods and forming feral gangs.
A vivid novel about compassion and transformation, This Book Will Save Your Life reveals what can happen if you are willing to open up to the world around you. Since her debut in 1989, A. M. Homes has been among the boldest and most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her storytelling.
This highly anticipated new novel from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is set in Nigeria during the 1960s, at the time of a vicious civil war in which a million people died and thousands were massacred in cold blood. The three main characters in the novel get swept up in the violence during these turbulent years.
Set in contemporary Scotland, the novel uses the literary device of a discovered manuscript, the testament of Gideon Mack, which has fallen into the hands of a journalist. A son of the manse, Mack has grown up in an austere and chilly house, dominated by a joyless father. Unable to believe in God, he is far more attracted by the forbidden cartoons on television. To this story, Robertson adds a wealth of insight about the mood of post-war Scotland on the brink of the social revolution of the Sixties, and dramatizes the country's struggle to stay true to its history while swimming within the powerful current of Americanization.
So there we go. A really interesting list, with some established names and some you might not have come across before. Discovery - exactly what a good Book Club should be about.
I said I'd be back as soon as, and here we are! As I'd mentioned Scott Pack's blog over at The Friday Project I thought I'd recommend a few other blogs well worth a visit:
shadowsandclouds is an old friend, and the photos and words on their blog are really beautiful. If you fancy a break from the usual flashing lights of the web then stop by here.
Another friend I'm afraid. Ged is a hugely talented author, storyteller and much, much more. I've just read a manuscript copy of Cedric Fartlebottom and the Wang Bottom Super Wind , one of the funniest books for either children or adults you'll ever read! Ged will have a monthly residency at Borders Bournemouth between April and June this year - if you're in the Square then pop by the store and enjoy a story.
A regular stop this one. Susan is obviously best known for her novels, but she now also publishes fantastic books through her company Long Barn Books . Her blog is exactly what one should be - opiniated, thought-provoking and often very funny.
Anyway, there's three to be going on with. Let me know if you enjoy them.
Well I've finally got round to posting on here again. So much has happened that I can't really some it all up - Christmas in retail does tend to blow your mind.
Still, we've made it to January and we're now starting to look at all the other things that makes a Borders store different. So...
... on Tuesday 30th January at 7pm we have the first meeting of our Stitch 'n' Bitch knitting group. Knitting is fashionable right now so if you're interested then please come along.
Also, if you enjoy crafts in general then why not join us on Sunday 4th February at 2pm when the good folks from www.getcrafty.co.uk will be in-store for their first Borders Craft Crop - making Valentine's Day cards.
In February we're excited to be hosting a day of events with Andy Stanton , children's author extrodinaire! That's on Feb 6th .
And on March 1st we are very proud to be joined by Julia Golding , winner of the 2006 Nestle Children's Book Award Gold Medal. This is the first of our World Book Day events - keep your eyes peeled for more.
As well as all this, we're still booking more author events, still looking for reading group members, and clubs and societies who'd like to use our events space. Just contact Borders Southampton for more info.
As for as Reading, Listening and Watching... well, I'm going to try to read more this year than last, that's for certain. Already enjoyed Aladair Gray's collection of short stories Unlikely Stories, Mostly , a fantastic, but now sadly out of print Finnish novel called Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo - if you can find a second-hand copy then buy it! - and a short but sweet novel called Gents by Warwick Collins. I was put onto Gents by Scott Pack, ex-Waterstone's Head Buyer on his blog Me & My Big Mouth . After tracking a copy down it turns out Warwick Collins lives just down the round in Lymington - small world!
No new music to speak of - Xmas is traditionally time for any Best Of... compilations to dominant the new releases, and I won't inflict my weird taste in Xmas tunes on you! But, I am very, very excited about the new album from The Hold Steady . Chips Ahoy!, the first single was fantastic and the album promises more of the same - in fact, you can hear Chips Ahoy! on the free CD on this month's Uncut magazine.
I think I'll call that that for now. Here's hoping the next post is sooner than a month away!
Here we go then... After another long, back-breaking week, at 9pm on Thursday we stood back and realised we had made a bookshop! And then, 13 hours later the ribbon was cut and away we went into one of the craziest weekends I've had! Highlights included:
Helping to judge the Borders/Daily Echo Design A Bookmark Competition. Congratulations to the winner, 12-year old Sana Aleem. You can still get her bookmark in the shop for free.
Visiting the wonderful people at Southampton Children's Hospital to tell them about our Giving Tree. This is up and running in the shop right now - all you do is pick a gift tag from the tree, find a suitable gift for the person on the tag and take it to the tills. We'll collect all these gifts and take them up to the hospital in time for Christmas. The folks at SCH work incredibly hard, with little time to raise extra funds so any support they get is received with immense gratitude.
Original 106 held an OB on Saturday, giving away gift vouchers, goodies, balloons and blasting out great tunes. We're really fortunate in Southampton to have a new radio station that thinks differently to everyone else - if you haven't heard them yet then turn that dial!
First weekend events: we've already had Simon Murray, Ben Fogle & James Cracknell, Ian Ogilvy, and The Levellers pass through our doors, and all of them enjoyed really responsive audiences. And still we have Peter Gluckman & Mark Hanson, Trinny & Susannah, and Ali Sparkes to come this week!
And of course... CUSTOMERS! It's been so nice to be able to get real people into our store, hearing what you think of Borders Southampton, and what you'd like from us - already we have more participants for Stich 'n' Bitch, potential reading group memebers, request for some additional foreign newspapers and mags, and much, much more. If there's something you'd like from us, please let me know.
Reading
As a bookseller I'm always fascinated by people's book shelves. So, after reading GGMM's post on cookbooks I thought I'd list my Top 5 food books (in no particular order):
One thing and one thing only: new Tom Waits triple album! I'm about to remove the shrink wrap and get stuck in - will let you know.
Watching
Saw the end of list programme about the greatest ever film stars (Al Pacino over De Niro - hmmm) and realised there are loads of classic films I haven't seen or haven't seen for years. So today (a day off!) is film day. And with that it's off to the on-demand feature on my telly and goodbye for now.
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