Being a bookseller is like being an adventurer – heading off into the wide world to see what you can find, you have a map, you have an idea or two, but most importantly you have your curiosity
We’ve all had to make do with missing out on lots of things this last year or so – things we love, places we love, people we love, habits we’ve formed, things we just take for granted – there’s a whole host of compromises which, if you’re not a politician, you’ve had to put up with in the knowledge and hope that by playing the game as part of the team it’s all for the greater good – the sunny uplands await as the restrictions are lifted. For the book shop one of the things we’re most looking forward to is getting our Coles Book Club started again – these are the evenings when we get together with the author and discuss their book which we’ve all just read. It’s the most perfect way to get under the skin of a book, getting those questions answered by the very person who wrote the book – and of course being able to chat away with a room of like-minded fellow readers. We have tentative plans for Book Club starting again on Thursday 26th August, kick-off will be 7pm and the book we have chosen is ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ by Vaseem Khan. Vaseem will be joining us for an evening of chat for what we hope will be the re-start of a series of wonderful evenings here at the book shop. Details are below and you can buy a copy of ‘Midnight at Malabar House’ HERE – the book you buy at Coles will be your ticket to the event – we cant wait to see you!
As well as Book Club returning, we’ve been busy re-jigging the upstairs at the shop – The Signed Edition Gallery is a wonderful room, but it’s got a bit messy over the last year with so many books coming and going – as a room it’s been part warehouse, part gallery, piles of books all over the place – but now it’s looking lovely again.
Being a bookseller is like being an adventurer – heading off into the wide world to see what you can find, you have a map, you have an idea or two, but most importantly you have your curiosity and the desire to find things which are new and unusual – we hope our approach makes Coles Signed Editions a little different from the mainstream – and this week we’ve come up with some proper gems: Giles Terera takes to the stage in ‘Hamilton and Me’; the illustrator Chris Riddell always captures the essence of the story beautifully in his work, his new interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through The Looking Glass’ is a beautiful book; novelist Romy Hausmann provides the shocks and thrills in ‘Sleepless’; ‘Works’ is the first retrospective of the photographer Mona Kuhn, this collection of images is a fabulous introduction to one of the most respected contemporary artists at work today; we re-visit the life of Andy McNab in ‘Immediate Action’, to understand conflict it is worth seeing it through the eyes of those who are sent to deal with it; if you’re a football fan and English, today is a significant day – but what happens when great talent doesn’t get to a quarter final of a major international tournament? The life of Sonny Pike, a footballer so gifted he was compared with Maradonna, is a fascinating tale of circumstance – the path may be clear, the destination was not what was expected; if you’re young and curious about the world around you, there is no better guide than Dara McAnulty; for a tale of adventure, the special illustrated edition of Robin Hobb’s ‘Assassin’s Quest’ completes the Farseer Trilogy; after last week’s cricket bonanza with Dennis Amiss and Michael Holding, we keep the overs coming with the paperback version of David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd’s ‘Simply the Best’. Our pre-orders this week include the memoirs from Welsh rugby legend Alun Wyn Jones and musicians Steve Garrigan of Irish band Kodaline and John Illsey of Dire Straits. Our good friends at Rufus publish remarkable books and the stand-out title this year is ‘The Albatross Man’ produced over four years in conjunction with the late Peter Green – we have a very small number of editions signed by Peter before his untimely passing last year. And finally, do keep an eye out for titles which may come back into stock – it doesn’t always happen, but when we can, we’ll always try and get more Signed Editions of popular titles – this week Michael Stipe is back along with Stacey Solomon.
A note on our website – please do send any feedback you have, both good and otherwise to me at nigel@coles-books.co.uk or call me on 01869 320779 – building Coles Books for the internet age is the most exciting and challenging project we’ve ever embarked upon – combining the real world of the book shop with the virtual world of a website makes Coles Books that little bit different – we are real people with a real passion for great books we want to share with you. The website will continue to evolve in the coming weeks – the Search function will improve as more and more searches are carried out, the recommendations we make with our featured titles will be just as they are in the shop. There are now well over 200,000 titles available, more are added each day. Our Coles Signed Editions follow a green coloured scheme and our unsigned books follow a yellow/cream coloured scheme – many of our Signed Editions are also available as unsigned books – if it’s a signed edition you’re after, be sure the words ‘Signed Edition’ appear at the end of the title when your book is in the basket at checkout.
