6 Croxted Road, West Dulwich, London, SE21 8SW
Our summer book festival begins on Saturday 29th June and contines for a week until Saturday 6th July.
Don’t miss out on what will be we think is an exciting line up of authors, music & poetry, activites for younger readers, book launches and a talk from one of the UK’s best selling authors. We will also have a BBC2 DJ to help serve behind the tills…. Are you on our email mailing list? If not sign up today by sending your email address to news@dulwichbooks.co.uk
I do wonder if giving away a million free books every year encourages more people to read. For lapsed book readers does it encourage them to read at least one book this year, maybe the free book that they have just been given? If you are an occasional reader or a lapsed reader will you become engrossed in a book that’s been given to you which has no monetary value but because someone has told you how great it is? Once you’ve been given the book why should you care what happens to it or whether you read it as you have invested no time or energy into choosing that book. Even World Book Day asks the book buyer to hand in a token in exchange for a book and this is a successful initiative running for over 15 years, which as I say here I think is great.
The world we live in is sadly becoming a society where we easily and often without thought discard items. We live in an age that to buy or acquire a product can often be very cheap. As it has little or no value to us we do not cherish it, engage with it in any loving way or bat an eye when we quickly throw it away.
Why then does the book trade embrace the idea that giving away books will increase the book readership? Does the act of giving away an enormous number of free books not cheapen the product in the eye of the consumer? Books are sometimes seen an expensive items and the discussion around pricing is now harder than ever with online retailers charging in some cases pennies for books which other retailers are trying to sell that same book at the recommended retail price. The book industry has already cheapened the product at the heart of our world by pricing eBooks at 20p for example or 99p for a paperback. Why then do we expect a book buyer to pay £7.99 or £20.00 for the latest hardback?
What the book trade is essentially saying to a potential book buyer is that as an industry we can afford to give away a million books each year.
A fantastic initiative was launched at this year’s London Book Fair; I do wonder if the money that was spent on funding World Book Night was channelled into the Books Are My Bag campaign would we have a greater impact on the book buying public? Time will tell however I for one am still to be convinced that World Book Night has any positive impact on book readership or sales.
The Guardian voted The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers the best new novel of 2012 and on Tuesday 28th May at 7pm he will be making his only London appearance so far this year, at Dulwich Books. Come and hear him in conversation with Daisy Hildyard, author of Hunters in the Snow.
I have read The Yellow Birds and was deeply moved by it, rating it alongside Birdsong on my “you must read selection”. The likes of Colm Toibin, Ann Patchett and Tom Wolfe were bowled over by it. The Hay Festival says “The poet and Iraq veteran Kevin Powers has composed an unforgettable account of friendship and loss. It vividly captures the desperation and brutality of war, and its terrible after-effects. But it is also a story of love, of great courage, and of extraordinary human survival”.
Daisy Hildyard’s first novel, Hunters in the Snow, arrives in July and sees the debut of a remarkable young writer. I am currently reading Daisy’s book and it is a true delight. The Guardian says “A dazzling literary novel in which a young woman discovers her grandfather’s book, a strange history which links four journeys of four great men, separated by the centuries. ”.
Kevin and Daisy will talk about and read extracts from each other’s books. They will share with you their experiences of being first time novelists and then take questions.
Tickets are £5.00 and can be booked here.
There are so many reviews of The Yellow Birds that it would be impossible for me to include them, you can read the full selection here (http://www.kevincpowers.com/the_yellow_birds_114142.htm). However to give you a flavour I have selected two:
The Guardian’s review of The Yellow Birds
“a novel that can stand beside All Quiet on the Western Front or The Red Badge of Courage…essential…a must read…the mark of an artist of the first order“
The New York Times Book Review
“Kevin Powers has something to say, something deeply moving about the frailty of man and the brutality of war, and we should all lean closer and listen.”
Would you like to buy ebooks from us? Now you can.
click on the shop now button on the image to the left, buy the book & download it from the website. You will also receive an email confirming the purchase and the option to download the file.When you want to give an ebook as a gift, pop into the bookshop and buy an ebook gift card for them. They log onto website, choose the book and receive the file to download.
I should say that we are a “Kindle free zone” as Kindle is a closed ereader device so if you own a Kindle you cannot buy your ebooks from anywhere other than Amazon.
Dulwich Books has been voted by our industry colleagues as London’s Best Independent Bookshop of the Year 2013. We are delighted to have received this accolade for the second year running and particular against such stiff competition in London.
Dulwich Books will celebrate 30th years at 6 Croxted Road in 2013 and the trade magazine The Bookseller recently carried a feature on us.
Dulwich Books host a twice weekly story telling session in the bookshop, on Thursdays and Saturdays at 11am and everyone is welcome. Thursdays attract more pre-school children, whilst Saturdays attract any book lovers from 3 months to 7 years old.
Annie reads from a variety of books for about 20/30 minutes and there’s always a 15/20 minute activity session afterwards which is great fun.
Every year the Booksellers Associaion celebrates independent bookshop with a week long series of events. For the past few years Dulwich Books has been a leading player in this national celebration and 2013 will be no different. We are working on putting together events every evening, ranging from music, poetry readings, author talks etc. Would you like to know more? If you are not on our email mailing list please join up and we will keep you informed.
In the summer of 2012 we took part in the Vintage Bookshop of the year competition and we were runner-ups, behind the brilliant Chorleywood Bookshop.
Our window was based on the debut novel from Grace McCleen, called The Land of Decoration as well as celebrating the launch of the new Vintage Children’s Classics.
Unsurprisingly we love reading and we have reviewed our favourite books and you can read all our reviews on our book review page.
If you are interested in crime Sheila may well have a suggestion for you, if you like graphic novels then Lorna will be able to direct you. If it’s literary fiction then Philip will have books that could change your life, Dave will recommend excellent political reads for you and Dan will show you poetry that will blow your mind and translated fiction that you’ll love reading. Annie has all the children book reading needs covered, whether you are looking to challenge your child, provide them with lovely stories or engage them a funny novel, she’ll have the suggestions for you regardless of age. We are here to help you find that book you didn’t know about.
We’d love you to join in? If you want to read a particular book and then add your review to our website, just ask!
I have to confess to be taken aback by the popularity of this Coe novel with the Reading Group. The Rain Before it Falls is quite unlike Coe’s other books and especially The Rotters Club that did much to establish his reputation when it was published in 2001. He sets himself the challenge of writing most of the book in the personal narrative of a woman and claims to be writing the novel in homage to the Virago Press that publishes women writers exclusively. And perhaps must daunting is that the central narrative is the central character who is attempting to describe twenty family photographs, to a blind person, into a tape recorder, as she commits suicide.
With all of these challenges taken on board the consensus of the group is that it works. The woman’s authorial voice feels authentic, the characters are believable (if mostly unsympathetic) and the story is compelling. Along the way we test all sorts of ideas, such as the veracity held in a photograph, what is means to be blind – and indeed- blinded, mother and daughter relationships, the nature of memory, the aging process, the burden of family history / secrets. Perhaps the weakest part of the book is its ending…but then you need to read it to decide if I am right.
The book we are currently reading, to be discussed at the May meeting is I, Partridge by Alan Partridge and you can join in online as the physical group is full.
If you would like to put your name down for a new reading group that we are planning on setting up within the
next few months, please email us.
