Tag: bookshops

I’ve been wandering around bookshops again… and this time it’s an indie: Quinns Bookshop in Market Harborough. And I’m going to call this one small but perfectly formed, because it’s got a really well chosen selection in quite a small space.

This is the delightful window table display – you’ll spot a few that I’ve read there – like A Case of Mice and Murder and The Cracked Mirror – and real mix of other things, including a couple of tasters of new releases in Murders at Gull’s Nest and 10 Marchfield Square. Murder at Gull’s Nest is a 1950s-set, seaside murder mystery featuring a former nun and 10 Marchfield Square is a cozy mystery set in a small residential square in London that says it’s The Maid meets Only Murders in the Building. So I think we can agree that I’m probably going to read both of those at some point. But I’m really trying hard not to buy hardback fiction at the moment.

Opposite the window display we’ve got some paperback fiction, including The Ministry of Time (Which I really need to get around to) and The Cat Who Saved the Library (which I read the other week) and the intriguing looking The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wasteland, which is a fantasy novel about a trip on the Great Trans-Siberian Express between Beijing and Moscow.

I find the easiest way for me to assess bookshops on this front is the Crime selection – because it’s where I’m reading most and a lot of what I read is relatively recently published. And you can see they’ve got the crime sign up in the back corner there, and I was really impressed with this – there’s a stuff from the authors that you’ll see all over the place, some less obvious stuff that I haven’t come across or seen around before and then some stuff that I’ve read from authors or series that you don’t see in shops with selections of this size as much – or don’t see in hardcopy much at all.

And if you’re wondering: yes I did nearly by a paperback copy of a book I had in the kindle backlog that I had never seen in the flesh before. It would not be the first time, but I ended up buying something completely fresh to me – I could tell it wasn’t the first in the series, but I liked the sample that I read so I bought it any way!

They’ve also got an art section and some lovely bookish gifts – I bought some wrapping paper but it was hard to resist the tote bags. Basically the only thing that stopped me was the fact that I’ve got so very, very many of them and Him Indoors is getting antsy about the numbers lingering around the house. And he’s already ignoring the to-read shelf overspill so I can’t try it on too much…

Have a great weekend everyone!

I finally made it into a supermarket with more than a single carcase of books, and so here I am with a quick update on what’s in the supermarket (and how much the selection has shrunk). This is my nearest Big Tesco. They used to have one side of a whole aisle in books, but things have changed. I used to be able to go in there and pick up however many books were in their deal no problem. Less so these days and the deals have got less good too – no blanket 2 for £x any more. Hey ho.

So what we have here I would say are the usual suspects – dominated by thrillers and murder mysteries from the big names, with a few bits of women’s fiction, romance, and non-fiction thrown in. There’s the new Ali Hazelwood and the Vera Wong sequel – which would have been my purchases if you’d held me down and said I have to buy something – but I still haven’t read the first Vera Wong (note to self, do sort that out) and the Deep End has a heroine who is a college athlete and I’m not sure I can cope with such young protagonists at the moment!

I was starting to worry that this was going to be the first book selection I’ve seen in ages with no Richard Osman, but there they are on the top left – just The Thursday Murder Club books though, no We Solve Murders. This was about the point where I started thinking what a strange mix of books this was – with new releases all mixed in with the older books and no “best sellers” list visible to explain why. I guess this is probably down to the fact that it’s a smaller selection, but if there’s logic to the display, it escapes me!

And finally we have a small selection of hardbacks and it’s the same sort of genres but the mix is a bit difference – this leans more into the women’s fiction end of things, as do the paperbacks at the bottom half of the shelf. I was hoping they might have the Anthony Horowitz on a good deal, but no. There’s a lot of sagas here of various types and other historical fiction. I feel like this Tesco has always had a lot of sagas, so maybe that’s what the locals like around here, although if you’re a saga reader my experience is that you also tend to be a fast reader and so whether this would keep you happy for many weeks I’m not sure!

And as a bonus contrast: These are from my local little-Asda:

I think this might actually be a better selection – it’s got the new Rebecca Yarros and the previous two, along with some Cassandra Clare and other hardback Romantasy. It’s also got a few more recent of the paperback releases.

Like Tesco, this has sagas but it’s also got a lot of Sarah J Maas to continue the romantasy trend that Tesco was almost totally missing. And it’s got a better selection of romance too – especially considering the size of display. And going back to my earlier point about the reduction in size of the book selection at the Big Tesco – this is one less carcase of books at the Asda than at the Tesco and one is a 24 hour mega market and the other is not.

Have a great Saturday everyone.