August in the Bookshop

Hello, and welcome to our newsletter!

Summer's a great time to kick back and read a good book, and we have plenty of new releases and old favourites for you to peruse.

Author Visit

This month, we are excited to welcome children's author B. Ware to our shop! She will be with us between 10am and 4pm on Saturday 9th August, so bring the kids in to say hello and join in some fun activities.

New in Paperback

New paperbacks in the shop this month include:

• The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier
• Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
• The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson
• So Thrilled for You by Holly Bourne
• Long Island by Colm Toibin

Book Club

Our book club meets in the shop at 6.30pm on the last Wednesday of each month. We're a friendly bunch, and there's usually a good crowd. All are welcome, so feel free to turn up and enjoy chatting over coffee with other local book lovers.

This month's books is: The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas.

Still reeling from the chaos of their wedding, Evelyn and Richard arrive on an idyllic Greek island for their honeymoon. It’s the end of the season and out at sea a storm is brewing.

They check in to an exclusive hotel, the Villa Rosa, where the proprietor Isabella ― a strangely intense woman of indeterminate accent ― flirts outrageously with Richard while treating Evelyn with a rudeness bordering on contempt. Isabella tells them the story of 'the sleepwalkers': a couple who stayed at the hotel the year before and drowned in a tragic and unexplained accident. It starts to feel like the entire island is obsessed with 'the sleepwalkers', but what at first seems like a fun tale to tell before bed quickly evolves into a living nightmare.

Caught in a web of deception and intrigue, where nothing and nobody are quite what they seem, Evelyn and Richard discover that their island paradise may in fact be hell on earth and that their only means of escape is to confront dark truths about themselves and those they love.

Exhilarating, suspenseful, and subversively funny, in The Sleepwalkers Thomas takes elements of Daphne Du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith and blends them with her own unique sensibility to create an unforgettable thriller of rare intelligence that cements her reputation as the most exciting and original author of her generation.

What our Staff are Reading

Working in a bookshop means we have a huge choice of books to sample. Right now, our staff are reading:

• Hayley - Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
• Ben - Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad
• Matilda - Reckless by Lauren Roberts
• Gareth - Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Did You Know?

If there's a book you want that isn't in our stock, we can usually order it for you within a day or so? Ask us for details!

Booker Prize Long List

The Booker Prize long list has been announced and features a previous winner plus two debut novelists.

• Love Forms by Claire Adam (Faber)
• The South by Tash Aw (4th Estate)
• Universality by Natasha Brown (Faber)
• One Boat by Jonathan Buckley (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape)
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton)
• Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press)
• The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits (Faber)
• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)
• Endling by Maria Reva (Virago)
• Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape)

And as always, we can order them in for you!

And that's it for this month. We'll be in touch again in September. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you in the shop, where you're always guaranteed a warm welcome!

Happy reading!

Hayley & team