At The Village Bookshop on 19th June we decided to celebrate Independent Booksellers Week by hosting
a signing with a local author Peter Doyle. Peter is a historian and
paleontologist and had written several books on different aspects of the
First and Second World Wars and also a book on fossils. Several of the
books are part of the Shire series, excellent summaries of the topic
with colourful pictures they are £5.99 and make a great gift for anyone
interested in the periods covered or someone researching family history
who wants to understand more about what it was like to live through
those wars. Below in photo one you will see Peter with Lisa Kane, Woodford Green Postal Worker who popped in after her round to meet Peter. ******************************* Joe Layburn spent 2 hours with us on Saturday 8th May to sign copies of Street Heroes. Joe used to be an investigative journalist and his book features a group of psychic kids who come up against a fascist politician. It's a fast moving, exciting well-told story and deals with issues of race and prejudice. As Joe is a teacher at Bancrofts we had lots of children from the school come to visit the shop including Julia Jones in Photo Number 2 below with Joe. The follow-up to Street Heroes is Runaways which will be out in January 2011. ****************************************** We were delighted to have Jack Trelawny visit us on 12th
December to sign copies of his Kernowland series of books. The high excitement
was over “Colosseum of Dread” the 6th and final adventure in the
series and the big question was, “Would Tizzie and Louis, the heroine and hero
of the stories get safely back to Cornwall?”
You will have to read the books to find out! Several fans joined us in the shop including Louie
Baker-Collins and Dominic Hartfree-Pearce (Photo 3 below). They are firm fans of the series and
had been excitedly waiting for this final episode.
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National Book Tokens sponsored a Book Lovers Competition during Independent Booksellers Week. Last year we were delighted to have three winners amongst the shop's customers and we were even more delighted to hear that another three customers had won this year.
In the photo album below you can see Isabel Sharkey, our adult winner, together with Keziah Jones and Lydia Doye who won the Children's competition. (Photos 4 and 5).
Isabel was astounded and delighted when she got the call to say she had won. She loves all sorts of literature particularly poetry and novels by women writers. In the picture she is holding her well-thumbed collection of John Betjeman's poems.
Keziah is going to Mexico with the Girl Guides this summer and will have a long plane journey and several coach trips while she is away so she is planning to buy some books for the trip and will also treat her younger sister to a book. Keziah is an avid reader and in the picture is holding a lovely illustrated edition of Jane Eyre.
Lydia was excited and surprised when she heard she had won and hasn't made any decisions yet about what she will buy but is really looking forward to choosing some good books. Her favourite book is the "Giant Rat of Sumatra", a mystery novel.
In order to win, Isabel had to match locations with books and Keziah and Lydia had to answer questions about a variety of children's books.
All the winners said that The Village Bookshop is their favourite bookshop and praised our selection of books and the staff's willingness to find the right book for all our customers. We thank them all for their very kind comments and we are delighted that they have each won £50 of book tokens.
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Sarah Matthias (Photo 6) joined us on 3rd October as part of the Woodford Festival to sign copies of Tom Fletcher and the Three Wise Men. This is Sarah's third novel for children aged 9-14 and she was delighted to sign all 3 books for our customers. 30 books were signed in all and Sarah showed off a plague mask and talked about the medicines that were used in Medieval times. Below in the photo you will see Deirdra and her daughter Ellen who enjoyed meeting with and chatting to Sarah. (Photo 7)
David Mason joined us on 19th October to talk about his Great Uncle Len Smith (a Woodford resident) who kept a diary during World War I of life in the trenches. Len was a skilled war artist and his diaries are full of his drawings which have been faithfully reproduced in the book. David brought along the original diaries and drawings and our customers were delighted to see pressed poppies from the battlefields and the many photos and drawings. Here you can see David Mason in the middle with Frances and David Morgan who were the first customers to come to the book signing (Photo 8).