Category: bookshops

As I said last weekend in my post about The Works, I’ve been on a bit of a bookshop odyssey and during that I finally made it to Kibworth Books. This is only about 20 miles from home, but as is the way of country roads, actually takes about 45 minutes to get to, hence not having got there before. But it was worth the trip because the selection is great and the staff are incredibly knowledgable and helpful. I can confirm: I bought books. Three of them.

So this is the front of the front table which has a really good selection that tells me that this is a bookshop that might understand what I like and have recommendations for me! I’ve read the Sittenfeld and I have the Hornby on the pile waiting. I’ve also raed a bunch of the crime selections there – and have the Elly Griffiths on the pile too. So I eyed up a few of these, although my actual purchases didn’t come from this table!

And you know me, I always check out the romance section, because I read so much of it and I also think you can tell quite a lot about a shop by what they do with romance. and in this case it’s a small but seemingly carefuly chosen selection. There’s stuff here that I’ve read like Funny Story and One Day and authors that I’ve read (If not those precise books) which suggests that some of the others might be things I’d like too. Also I have Match Point on the pile and I really should get around to that too.

And the other section I always look at is the crime section. And apologies for the wide shot, but it seemed to make more sense to do one big paragraph on crime than three small ones! So there is plenty of series action here including loads that I read (and some I don’t but might get around to some day) – with Elly Griffiths, including Ruth Galloway ( can you believe that that binge was this time last year?!) and her Brighton mysteries; Mick Herron for the people who’ve been watching Slow Horses, Kate Atkinson for the Jackson Brodie fans; Richard Osman, Richard Coles, Anthony Horowitz, and all the rest – along with some less usual stuff. When I was chatting about books at the till, the recommendation was the Holly Stars which I’ve read (and the sequel) but the next one I hadn’t even come across so of course thats one of the ones that I bought. And a quick mention for the Agatha Christie and BLCC selection to cover off the classic crime fans.

And finally, how amazing/adorable is this? I thought this was so cool, although my picture of it isn’t the best so doesn’t really do it justice. Google tells me that it’s a little kit that you make yourself which makes it extra impressive because there is no way that I would have the patience and find motor control to assemble something this tiny and finicky – and that makes it extra impressive. Anyway, I really had a great time visiting Kibworth Books, bought three books even though the pile is huge and will be going back again next time I’m up that end of the woods.

Have a great weekend everyone.

It’s Saturday and I’ve been touring the bookshops recently so I’m back with some posts for my recent visits over the next couple of weeks. I’m starting with The Works, because I use it to analyse the trends of what’s selling in popular fiction.

So the main thing for me here is that a couple of books I thought were really good from the last couple of years have made it here now – namely The Favourites and I’m Glad My Mom Died. Aside from that, the romance selection continues to be dominated by dark romance, sports romance and cowboy romance.

The romantasy and fantasy section continues to expand – and once again it’s the crime section that is contracting to fit it. There is still Frieda McFadden though – so it’s the cozier/traditional end of the crime shelves that are losing ground here. I feel like I’ve gone from having read a lot of authors on the shelves here to very few. But there’s still Not in My Book at least.

There are a couple more that I’ve read here though – Mrs Porter Calling is great as are the other books in that series – Dear Mrs Bird is tucked at the top of the bottom rack stack; down the bottom left is one of Kate Claybourn’s Chance of a Lifetime series and Paper Towns too. I guess it’s good for my bank balance that there’s next to noting in the three for… any more, but it does make me sad that my tastes are diverging from popular fiction, even if I have enough books on the shelf waiting to last me for years at this point!

Have a great weekend!

Happy Saturday everyone. As you know, I was in Sheffield last week watching about 35 hours of figure skating. But in the mornings before the action got started I had a lovely time wandering around the town and of course I visited some bookshops. So here we are today with one of them.

Tucked away down a side street off one of the man shopping streets is Juno Books. It’s an independent, feminist and queer bookshop, where the majority of books are by women and queer people and have a really strong focus on showcasing books and voices that are under-represented and/or marginalised. You can read their manifesto here.

It’s a really cute store and a really interesting and clearly very carefully curated selection. I saw a lot of things that I hadn’t seen elsewhere – I would definitely have bought In Love with Love if it hadn’t been in hardback and I wasn’t going to have to lug it around with me all day at the skating (don’t worry, I did buy something, more details to follow) as I had about about two miles still to walk and I already had sandwiches and drinks in my size-restricted bag (which was a shoulder back because rucksacks were banned…). Anyhow, rant over. I also hadn’t see the Crystal Jeans either – I read The Inverts a couple of years ago – and The Girls Who Grew Big looks interesting too.

I also hadn’t seen anything about the Gish Jen, which looks really interesting, as does Read Yourself Happy and Vulture. Obviously there’s more than just the tables, but it’s a small shop and it was quite busy and I do try not to be a pain when Im in a shop. But I had a lovely wander, could havebought a lot of books, resisted because of my poor shoulders. If you want to support Juno books, their bookshop.com page is here. You’ve already seen my actual purchase in last week’s Books Incoming – it is Just As You Are, which as I said in that post is a Pride and Prejudice retelling, but is set in and around a queer magazine in New York that has just been saved from closure by two wealthy lesbians.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Saturday everyone, I’ve been bookshop wandering again this week and I’m back with another new spot. I tried to visit The Riverside Bookshop last time that I went to see a show at the Menier Chocolate Factory, but they were closed early for an event. But this time I managed it, and I’m glad that I did!

As you know, my main reading interests are almost always Crime and Romance and here they’re right next to each other so that’s pretty perfect. It’s a bijou selection for both, but I think you’d manage to find something for most reading tastes. I’ve read a lot and I still managed to find a couple of books I hadn’t seen before that were in my sort of reading wheelhouse.

As you can see, here is A Murder for Miss Hortense looking all pepermint-y in the wild but also Nicola Upson‘s new standalone book – which is a Christmas mystery that’s probably slightly longer than a novella but not hugely so. You can also see a pretrty good sense of the range: a couple of Maigrets, some Japanese crime, a bit of Irvine Welsh, Stuart Turton, Louise Penny and Kristin Perrin.

I love a table of new non-fiction, especially where there are things that I haven’t seen before, like Ghosts of the British Museum, How to win the Premier League and Supremacy along with things that I’ve read reviews for like If Russia Wins and The View from Down Here.

And finally I had to put the new fiction shelves too – because right at the top there is one of my recent reads The Murder at World’s End along with the new ones from Salman Rushdie, Bob Mortimer, Ken Follett and Richard Osman. A truly eclectic selection.

Happy Saturday – go out and support your local bookshop by buying some books for Christmas!