0 Books For Bags: Celebrating Local Bookshops! by Emma Barnes

Recently on ABBA I posted about Book Festivals  - and how they are going from strength to strength.  It's not been so easy for bookshops.  Discounting in supermarkets, the decline of the high street, and the growth of online retailing have all made it much, much harder for bookshops to compete.

Last month, a national celebration of bookshops - Books Are My Bag - brought authors and bookshops together to try and do something about this.  Across the country, there were all kinds of festivities to help make the public more aware of the importance of local bookshops.

Here in Leeds, my fellow children's author Alison Brown (the author/illustrator of picture books Mighty Mo and Eddie and Dog) had the idea we should be part of this, and so on Saturday 11 November I was chuffed to be part of <i>Books for Bags</i> at Radish, the fantastic bookshop close to us in the high street in Chapel Allerton.

Me, Alison and Lisa at Radish

Radish is a great shop and the atmosphere, the selection of books, and the recommendations by knowledgeable staff provide something you cannot find online.

Bookshops are vital - part of the infrastructure of a reading culture.  Bookshop staff read the books they sell, can make recommendations, and know the kind of things their customers enjoy.

Many books have taken off not because of a mass marketing campaign by publishers, but because of grassroots recommendations and a slow spreading of word of mouth...often originating with the independent bookshops. 

We need to support them.  It really is a matter of Use Them - or Lose Them.

I just wish I'd had more time to browse the fantastic children's selection on the day.  Never mind.  The joy of local bookshop is you can pop in any time.



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Emma's new series for 8+, Wild Thing, is about the naughtiest little sister ever.  Out now from Scholastic. 
"Hilarious and heart-warming" The Scotsman

 Wolfie is published by Strident.   Sometimes a Girl’s Best Friend is…a Wolf. 
"A real cracker of a book" Armadillo 
"Funny, clever and satisfying...thoroughly recommended" Books for Keeps


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Detail: Books For Bags: Celebrating Local Bookshops! by Emma Barnes

0 World's End - Eve Ainsworth

When I was thirteen, something quite amazing happened.

Prior to this, I had been scribbling ideas at home. I had even sent a children's story - Muddles the Mouse - to Penguin, typed on a second hand rusty typewriter, to which I'd received a glowing letter and several paperback books. But my inspiration was drying up. I was young and no longer felt inspired by either books or my writing.

But then I found a bookshop - World's End. This was an age when I was first allowed to trek to town by myself or with friends and it was during this time that we discovered the shop, tucked away in the back streets. It was an unassuming building, hardly the most exciting thing to see - but when we wandered in, we found the thrill of books overpowering.

To be honest, it was pretty intimidating. The back of shop was full of comics and graphic novels. Teenage boys filled the aisles, leafing through the boxes and glaring at us skinny, nervous girls as we slipped in.

I remember rows of new shiny books, stacks of crime journals which pricked my curiosity. And then - on a bottom shelf, in the far corner - was a shelf marked TEEN.

We crouched down and pulled out some battered second-hand gems - the majority of them American. My eyes darted across the text. Christopher Pike, Lois Duncan, Lois Lowry.

My first purchase was Christopher Pike -  Gimme a Kiss. This book kept me up at night. It was pacy, thrilling, daring.  I never looked back.

Every week I would be in that shop, ignoring the boys at the back - just leafing through my new inspiration. Some days I could afford to buy, others I would just plan my next purchase. I particularly grew to love Pan Horizon books and gained an impressive collection.
The owners got used to seeing me, as I took away another book encased in a crisp paper bag. Inside my head was buzzing with ideas. I knew now that I wanted to write just like these authors.

It was a sad day when the shop finally closed in the late 90's, but of course by then the teen market was expanding rapidly. Things were changing. But I missed my backstreet shop, the smell of old books, the rough carpet against my legs as I sat reading, the gentle bell as the door was opened.

And I'll never forget it.

Perhaps even stranger - I ended up marrying one of those intimating teens that lurked at the back - so at least we can reminisce together.





 

Detail: World's End - Eve Ainsworth

0 Shakespeare and Company - Lucy Coats

There have been many bookshops marking all the pages of my life from childhood onwards. There was Mr Oxley's in Alresford, there was the first ever Hammicks, there were all the bookshops of Hay, there was James Thin in Edinburgh, the Libreria Aqua in Venice - each has a special place in my heart. But the one I love most is in Paris.

Shakespeare and Company sits across from the Seine, on a street slightly aslant from the Quai St Michel, and I loved it the moment I first walked into it in 1981. In those days (and probably still), you could work there for a bed in one of the book-lined upstairs rooms. 

I did for a while, and it was a place of companionship, laughter, and above all, a shared love of books. It is, quite literally, a treasure trove, a mish-mash of the new, the secondhand and the simply arcane and archaic. I went back there today with my children, and they were immediately lured in and entranced by the smell of dusty paper, the feeling that the perfect book must be just around the next corner, or just out of reach up that wooden ladder. 

For all that it is much more of a tourist destination nowadays, the old magic is still there. It has that indefinable Narnia feel which makes you believe that somewhere in there is a door or doors to another world. There are, of course, because that's what books are - but surely somewhere there's a tiny key, or a bookspine to rub which will take you somewhere else entirely. 

Every writer who visits Paris has been there - and it is a great honour to be asked to read in the little upstairs room with the sofas and the book nook with a tiny desk and endless fluttering pieces of paper, covered in scribbled dreams. Some of those writers are even featured on the wallpaper...

There is a wonderful children's and YA section, where I was happy to see many of my lovely author friends featured (though sadly not me), and an invitingly padded alcove just perfect for a child to curl up on and read one of the pile of picture books which leans against the wall. 

If you go to Paris, do try to make time to go there - and may you be as transported with delight as I have always been...(and take note of my favourite quote above)! 

New dates announced for Lucy's Guardian Masterclass on 'How to Write for Children' 

Captain Beastlie's Pirate Party is now out from Nosy Crow!

"If you’re going to select only one revolting, repulsive pirate book, this is arrrr-guably the best." Kirkus

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Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at The Sophie Hicks Agency

Detail: Shakespeare and Company - Lucy Coats