#IBW2015 Bookshop Crawl!

THE BOOKSHOP CRAWL
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...

1. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (i love this book!)
2. The Night Circus by Erin Morgernstern (this is my all time favourite book, oh my god, go read it)
3. A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman (in shop spot)
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (to read)
5. Tigerman by Nick Harkaway (on my to read list)
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger (to read)
7. Who Could That Be At This Hour by Lemony Snicket (to read)
8. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (to read)
9. 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...

1. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly (love this book!)
2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik (in shop spot)
3. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (I adoooore this book)
4. The Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (to read)
5. I'll give you a sun by Jandy Nelson (to read)
6. The Perfectionists by Sara Shepard (in shop spot whilst looking for Pretty Little Liars)
7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (to read)
8. It by Alexa Chung (to read)
9. 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...

1. Leon Cookbook (to read)
2. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (read and loved)
3. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (obviously love)
4. The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman (in shop spot)
5. Gingerbread by Robert Dinsdale (to read)
6. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (to read)
7. Jamarach's Menagarie by Carol Birch (to read)
8. The Bookshop That Floated Away by Sarah Henshaw (in shop spot)
9. 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

April Book Haul

HI, MY NAME IS CHLOE AND I AM A BOOKWORM
So I bought a lot of books in April, and it was all because I found this £3 bookshop in Bristol, where all the books are obviously £3. And is if that wasn't good enough, they had a offer on of buy 4 books for £10. So being the massive bookworm that I am, I wasn't about to pass up the chance to buy books for cheap.

So here are all the books I've bought this month...

THE BOOKS

'All I Know Now' by Carrie Hope Fletcher. This book is a mixture of stories from Carrie's life as a teenager and advice for people who might be going through the same things she did. For example, there are stories and advice on bullying, heartbreak and making friends. I'm about a third of the way through it and it's great. If you are a teenager, you probably need this in your life. And if you're not a teenager, you still probably need this in your life. 

'The Song of the Quarkbeast' by Jasper Fforde. This is the sequel to his book 'The Last Dragonslayer' which I read a few years ago and loved. This book is about Jennifer Strange who is running an employment agency for magicians. I bought this in the £3 bookshop!

'How We Met' by Katy Regan. I hadn't heard of this, but the cover was what made me want to buy it, it's so pretty! This book is about a group of friends who have to try and find a way of living without their friend, Liv, who has just died. I'm not entirely sure what else happens in it other that because I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like a good YA/romance novel, so i'm excited to get into it! This is also from the £3 bookshop.

'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby. This book is about 4 people who all end up on the roof at the same time, all with the intention of killing themselves. But when they all meet, they stop each other from doing that. I hadn't heard of this book until picking up, but I did know about the film adaptation of it, which I thought looked quite good from the trailers. Plus, there is a quote from Johnny Depp on the back, saying that he loved it, which seems like a good sign. AND, it was £3 so I couldn't really not buy it.

'Flyte' by Angie Sage. This is the sequel to her book 'Magyk' and is part of the Septimus Heap series. I read 'Magyk' a few years ago (at the same time as I was reading The Last Dragonslayer weirdly) and really enjoyed it, so as this was just £3 I decided to pick it up and continue on with the series. This book is about Septimus' mission to rescue his adoptive sister Jenna, who was kidnapped by their brother, Simon Heap, who clearly has turned bad. It's very magical as they're all wizards, and as it's predominately aimed at children, it's a pretty light and easy read. 

'Days of Blood and Starlight' by Laini Taylor. This is the sequel to 'The Daughter of Smoke and Bone' which I read last year and absolutely adored. I'm not exactly sure what this one is about, and to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't read the first book, I won't write what the blurb says here! But the first book is about a girl called Karou who runs errands for Brimstone, who has raised her. However, the door that leads to 'Elsewhere', a more magical version of earth, is closing and Karou needs to decide whether to stay in her normal life in Prague or go to Elsewhere. I'm so excited to start reading this because the first book was brilliant!

'Lips Touch' by Laini Taylor. This is a collection of short stories, that are all connected by the theme of kissing. The three stories are called 'Goblin Fruit', 'These Spicy Little Curses' and 'Hatchling'. All three stories are very magical, but all with a slight hint of darkness in them. I have read this one, and I loved it! My favourite story from it was 'Goblin Fruit' but they were all excellent. 

'Sophie's World' by Jostein Gaarder. This book was actually lent to me by my best friend Amber (the person from my blog post 'Human Stories' <3) so technically it shouldn't be part of this haul, but hey this is my blog and I make the rules. This book is about a young girl called Sophie who starts getting letters in her mailbox about philosophy. She doesn't know who is sending them and so tries to find out. It's part fiction, part philosophy lessons, and it's all very mysterious. 

FIN

And so that is all the books from the month of April. Well actually I also got 'The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender' by Leslye Walton, which Mr B's sent me for the reading year that I have with them, but it's at home so I couldn't photograph and include it in this because I'm at university right now! But that book was amazing, so I'd definitely recommend it! 

Let me know in the comments if you have read any of these books, or if not, tell me if you bought any books this month! 

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for new posts at least once a week!

Love Chloe x