It's Indie Booksellers Week and to celebrate I participated in the bookshop crawl (I mean of course I did, it's a bookshop crawl). The set date for the bookshop crawl was actually the 27th, however I have to move out of my university halls on that day so I definitely won't have time for that and exploring bookshops, so I did my crawl on Monday the 22nd instead. As Bath has some of the most amazing bookshops I decided I would do my bookshop crawl there. Here's what I got up to...
BOOKSHOP 1 - THE OLDFIELD PARK BOOKSHOP
I'd never been to this bookshop before, in fact I didn't even know it existed until now, but I can tell I'll be spending a lot of time there in the future. It had a great selection of books and I had a good little browse whilst there.
I came away with 'The Moth' which is a collection of 50 true stories that were each told at a live storytelling event in America, and then put into the book. I originally picked this up because of the oh-so gorgeous cover and then the concept of it intrigued me so much I couldn't not buy it.
I decided that I would find 9 other books to recommend to you from each bookshop I visited on the crawl. The books range from ones I've read and loved, ones on my forever growing To Read list, or books I saw on my journey that I thought looked good. So here are my 9 recommendations from The Oldfield Park Bookshop...
- The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (i love this book!)
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgernstern (this is my all time favourite book, oh my god, go read it)
- A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (in shop spot)
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (to read)
- Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (on my to read list)
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger (to read)
- Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket (to read)
- Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (to read)
- The Axeman's Jazz by Ray Celestin (to read)
MOCKTAILS AND BURRITO BREAK
Every bookshop crawl needs a mocktail and a burrito break!
BOOKSHOP 2 - TOPPING AND COMPANY
Toppings was the first bookshop I ever went to in Bath and it's still one of my favourites to this day. I love it in there, I could spend hours just browsing the shelves. Whilst there, I bought 'How To Be Bad' by E. Lockhart, Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski. Because Toppings is so fab, they have loads of signed books on offer, and when I saw this book was signed I had to pick up a copy. (Unfortunately I missed E. Lockhart actually being in store by a day! If only I'd have done my bookshop crawl a day earlier!) 'How To Be Bad' is about three girls, Jesse, Vicks and Mel, who are desperate to get out of town and discover their true badass selves. And that calls for a road trip!
And here are my 9 other book recommendations from Topping and Company...
- The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly (love this book!)
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik (in shop spot)
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (I adoooore this book)
- The Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (to read)
- I'll give you a sun by Jandy Nelson (to read)
- The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard (in shop spot whilst looking for Pretty Little Liars)
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (to read)
- It by Alexa Chung (to read)
- The Great Automatic Grammatizator by Roald Dahl (in shop spot)
BOOKSHOP 3 - MR B'S EMPORIUM OF READING DELIGHTS
This is my all-time favourite bookshop in Bath and just in general. I absolutely adore it. It has an amazing selection of books, friendly staff who will always chat about books, plus tea and cake on offer. I had a long browse in here before coming out with 'Vivian Versus The Apocalypse' by Katie Coyle. I've heard lots of good stuff about this book and for some reason never got round to buying it, so I decided now was the time. It's about Vivian Apple (amazing name) who wakes up one day to find a 'New World', or more simply an apocalypse. Her parents are gone and all that's left is her memories of what life used to be like and her friend Harp (again amazing name). And so they embark on a road trip across America in search of any family they might have left. (There seems to be a road trip theme going on with my haul... that wasn't intentional, haha.)
And here are 9 more book recommendations from Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights...
- Leon Cookbook (to read)
- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (read and loved)
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (obviously love)
- The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (in shop spot)
- Gingerbread by Robert Dinsdale (to read)
- Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (to read)
- Jamarach's Menagarie by Carol Birch (to read)
- The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw (in shop spot)
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Saffron Foer (to read)
BOOKSHOP 4 - GOOD BUY BOOKS
Good Buy Books is a discount bookshop, offering books for half price. However, I didn't actually end up buying anything from here as their fiction section wasn't very big and nothing was really jumping out at me. But it's still a bookshop so that's what counts, right?!
POST CRAWL COFFEE
And then that was it for my bookshop crawl! We had a quick coffee at the Forum Coffee shop (which is one of my new favourites) and then it was time to head home. I had so much fun on my bookshop crawl, I'm in bookshops all the time anyway, but this just added a little something extra to my shopping! If you want to see more Indie Book Week or Bookshop Crawl stuff then make sure to check out the hashtag #bookshopcrawl or #IBW2015 or go to the Indie Bound website here: http://independentbooksellersweek.org.uk/Find-Your-Indie/Bookshop-Crawl#. I also have a vlog from my day, click below to watch it.
Thanks for reading! And make sure to follow me on here for weekly posts.
Hope you're having a bookish day!
Love Chloe x
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