In response to popular demand in the comments, here’s my look back at last weekend’s Bristol Book Conference. I’ve already posted my book haul, and told you about my sales. We did turn it into a proper outing – with stops on the way down and a day out in Bath on the Monday afterwards, so this isn’t the last you’ll see of the Bookish Odyssey of 2026!
Once again we were back at Wills Hall at the University of Bristol, which has the delightful old Quad that looks like it could have come out of a boarding school story and a new quad that comes straight from all my experience of 80s and 90s-built school and uni buildings! As ever the official name of the conference is Twentieth Century Schoolgirls and their books, but the theme this time was Fresh Air and Freedom, so books with holidays and sports were the main subject of the talks.
As ever the main series were represented – with a dedicated talk on Elsie J Oxenham and the Chalet School popping up in more than one talk. There was also a fairly large spattering of Enid Blyton this year, because holidays feature so heavily in her books as many of her series occur during school holiday time, which definitely helped me at the sale table. I had a stack of Blytons that I dithered over taking to sell because traditionally I have a lot of stuff that is too common for anyone else to buy, but took on the off chance – and I only went and sold the lot! Not for much, but a sale is a sale and given that you don’t get any money if you donate them to somewhere, it’s a total win.
Because I’m at the younger end of the attendees, often my favourite talks are about discovering a new author, often a bonkers one – we’ve had Rita Coutts and C Bernard Rutley, this time it was Dorothea Moore and the insane rate of disasters in her books. I’ve only ever read Judy, Patrol Leader of hers which I spot all the time at vintage shops which is absolutely crackers (and which I sold my copy of last weekend, sorry mum!) but it was fun to see that Judy’s exploits (starting guides at her school, foiling two burglaries, several rescues and finding emeralds stolen by an 18th century highwayman) are by no means out of the ordinary for the Moore Oeuvre!
This was my fourth time at conference and as I said back in my post about my first time, it is wonderful to be able to talk to people who love the same thing that you do. I was hesitant about going the first time because I’m basically a massive introvert and large groups of strangers make me anxious. In fact I probably wouldn’t have gone if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had another friend going (and we agreed together that we were going so she may well have been the same). But I’ve now got a little group of friends that I’ve made through conference – we have whatsapp groups and even meet up when it’s not conference – and there’s a whole group of people that know through conference, which means that I have plenty of people to talk to and if I ever fancy going to one of the other groups that’s related to these books I will know people there too. There were a bunch of first timers this year too – I chatted to loads of them – so if you’re thinking about going in two years time and worrying about being the only newbie don’t be.
I leave you with a slide from my friend’s presentation about unusual sports in books – mostly because the book in the picture traumatised me and my sister when we read it as children and it turns out we’re not the only ones. A true if you know you know – I won’t spoil it for you but it’s so shocking I’ve never re-read it and never wanted to – and gymnastics is one of the sports that I watch! Have a great Sunday everyone – and here’s hoping we have a tenth conference in 2028!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 