Books in the Wild: Persephone Books

As well as Book Conference, my trip to Bristol a few weeks back included a day out in Bath, where I finally got a chance to go to Persephone’s Bookshop, which moved here from London a few yeas back and was basically everything I was hoping it would be.

As you may remember I got a Persephone subscription for Christmas a few years back, which yealded a fair few BotW picks, and I now have a fairly substantial collection of their books, but as with a lot of forgotten-type books, it can sometimes be hard to figure out which ones are going to be your thing from the blurbs, so it was a real joy to have so many of them in such close proximity to each other so you could have a read and sample to work it out.

And they’ve got a couple of comfy chairs for you to sit in to work it out and it all just looks so lovely and welcoming and the displays look so good. They have a multibuy going as well so if you buy in multiples of three you can save a little money. They also have a nice selection of Persephone related merch and items that you might like if you like the books and their design ethos.

And then there is this shelf of the fifty books that they wish that they had published, which includes a fair few that are on my shelves – like The Light Years from the Cazalet series, Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Jenkins’s The Tortoise and the Hare, Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

I bought two books for me (which you’ve already seen), a third that was a gift and a little fabric pouch to put your book in to keep it nice in your bag – which is an improvement on the padded envelope that I had been previously using. All in all a great stop on a lovely day out.

Have a great long weekend if you have a bank holiday on Monday.