Musings
A collection of stories, thoughts and news
-
| MusingsA diamond has been hiding in plain sight
By Anna Johnson, 2024 Unraveller – Frances Hardinge A diamond has been hiding in plain sight on the shelves of the Red Lion bookshop and I must sheepishly admit that I was late in noticing it. I’ve just emerged from the world of Unraveller, and it was enthrallingly imagined, intricately plotted and heart wrenchingly humane. As a child, Nettle is cursed to spend her life as a bird, a lonely heron. Kellen, an Unraveller, releases her from this fate and she becomes his companion, and moral compass. In Raddith, the ability to curse is a gift granted by the ‘Little Brothers’,
-
In the age of beautiful copies, giveaways, and freebies, are our reviews still honest?
By Regina Lopez Puerta For the past couple of years, I’ve been swinging between the world of bookselling and the world of book influencing. They often collide, but surprisingly, they also divert. In a way, a bookseller has to be a book influencer as well. We’re often invited to events, get free copies of upcoming books and are greatly encouraged to share our thoughts on them. The system of proofs and advanced copies helps us do our job properly for various reasons. For starters, it lets us know if a book is a good fit for our
-
This is your shop
We received the following message from a young customer who was recently won the ‘Top Young Reporter of the Year’ award. Congratulations Rosie It’s Rosie, I’m not sure if you remember me but wrote an article about the shop last Autumn. I was lucky enough to win Top Young Reporter of the Year and also received awards for some of my articles, including my interview with you! I just wanted to say a huge thank you for being so helpful and inviting last year. Your article was by far the one I most enjoyed writing! Thank you again! Rosie Gray https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/23134406.its-shop—rosie-gray-colchester-sixth-form/ (I’ve
-
Rivers, Bodies, Stars with award winning poets
We are thrilled to have an event scheduled with award winning poets, Rebecca Goss, Emily Hasler and Joanna Ingham Amongst other accolades, Rebecca is the winner of the Sylvia Plath award 2022, Joanna won second place in the BBC Wildlife Poet Competition and Emily received an Eric Gregory Award. Their new work is strongly focussed on place or person. Our event, Rivers, Bodies, Stars, on 1st June 2023 can be found on our Events page https://shorturl.at/hwRY6 Rebecca Goss Rebecca Goss is a poet, tutor and mentor living in Suffolk. Her first full-length collection, The Anatomy of Structures, was published by Flambard Press in
-
Hunger Games comeback – is this the Dystopian Renaissance?
By Regina Lopez Puerta When I opened my phone yesterday, I felt I was transported all the way back to 2013. Suddenly, I was back in my childhood bedroom, a mockingjay pin on my jacket, Katniss posters all over my wall, scrolling through billions of fan theories about this fascinating world; and it was all triggered by an important piece of news. The new Hunger Games film has released its teaser trailer and poster. Based on the prequel set 64 years before the original novels, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows the story of a young Coriolanus Snow before he
-
Anna reviews This Family by Kate Sawyer
This Family by Kate Sawyer It’s a new beginning. She should be happy. And she is. She is. But where there are beginnings, there are always endings too.’ I enjoyed Kate Sawyer’s first novel The Stranding, a powerful reimagining of the end of the world but I loved her most recent novel, This Family. Here she kicks back and settles into what she’s really good at – the nitty gritty of family life. We love our families but we often despair of them too, and it’s this nexus of joy and pain that Sawyer explores with warmth and humour,
-
Local poet, Ricci Read, preaches
Being a poet is a lifestyle. It is a commitment to being your rebellious, authentic self. I preach that poetry shouldn’t follow any rules! I hope to inspire others to find and use their voice to tell their own stories. Of course, it can be fun to write a haiku or a sonnet. It can also be worthwhile playing with rhymes schemes and alliteration. But do not let academic ideals hold you back. You do not need to write certain stanzas in a certain order for it to be a poem. You need only to bare your soul. A poem to
-
Daisy Jones & The Six: It Could’ve Been Great
For a book whose central conflict lies around being good vs being great, that emphasises the need to make history with one’s art, the new series falls short of that. Don’t get me wrong, the screen adaptation is perfectly good, and that is exactly why it fails. Because it could’ve been great. I did not want to write a “the book is better than the movie” review, because I really hoped the adaptation would ace it, but unfortunately it did not. Taylor Jenkins Reid has become a powerhouse when it comes to writing books that appeal to the new generation
-
When authors recommend other authors
Blog note: Author Kate Worsley has kindly provided Red Lion Books with a list of books that inspired her latest novel ‘Foxash‘, from ‘Fenwomen‘, a feminist Akenfield, to ‘Love on the Dole”s 1930s Salford. Foxash is published on 27th April and will be launched in Manningtree that evening. Book here FOXASH Kate’s recommended reading list Adrian Bell’s Corduroy 1930 trilogy (Faber and Faber, 2011): the arch example of urban middle-class longing for the countryside: a full-throated threnody for vanishing rural ways. (blog note: this title is no longer available but we suggest Men & The Fields as an alternative)
-
To read or not to read?
Blog note: Author Regina Lopez Puerta’s first language is Spanish, not English. This is why we have retained the American spelling of realised Incidentally, Regina will be hosting Spanish classes at Red Lion Books. Please email us@redlionbooks.live for more information. There’s a piece of advice my Dad gave me when I was little and it’s stuck with me ever since “If you’re not enjoying the book you’re reading, drop it. Life is too short to read bad books.” I’ve lived by those words ever since, and 40 pages into a very popular novel whose name shall not be named,
-
A new book club on the block (Jo interviewing Louise & Regina about YA titles)
Hello Louise. Hello Regina , this is going to be fun, interviewing my lovely colleagues. How are you both today? Regina: Hi Jo! It’s great to talk to you, we’re very excited to share great news with our customers. Louise: I’m great today, Jo and super excited to be doing this interview Could you say how you ended up working with us at Red Lion Books? Louise: I come from Clacton and have worked for Red Lion Books since February 2022. The day I got the interview for the job was my birthday, so I often call my job
-
Guest blog from regular customer Chris Coates
“I asked the doctor to take my fingers off; he refused, so I pulled them off myself and felt absolutely no pain in doing it”. I suppose it’s inevitable that as a middle-aged man I’ve started reading military history, but I’ll say this for Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart’s Happy Odyssey: I don’t think it’s typical of the genre. In a long career, Carton de Wiart was shot in the ankle, ear, face, head, hip, leg, and stomach, survived two plane crashes, escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, and probably inspired the “fire-eating” Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook in Evelyn
-
Yale University Press, Bookshop of the month
A Little History of Yale University Press London Yale University Press, founded in Connecticut in 1908, first established a marketing base in London in 1961, before going on to publish its own list of titles, alongside the books produced by its US head office, in 1973. Yale now has a unique position as the only American university press with a full-scale publishing operation in Europe Red Lion Books is thrilled to be chosen as their bookshop of the month! https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/?p=39333 Working closely with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the London office of Yale University Press quickly forged a
-
Back to School
I’ve just had a conversation with Jo, the manager here at Red Lion, where the C word was mentioned. How is it not even the end of Summer and we’re talking about Christmas? But that’s how the pages turn in a bookshop, we’re always looking ahead. Whether it’s the new Kate Atkinson (Shrines of Gaiety), Stephen King (Fairy Tale), or, as she is known here in the shop, Queen Maggie (The Marriage Portrait), we’re always trying to second guess what is going to be on our customers’ must buy lists. For now, though, I’m still very much in Summer mode writing this
-
Eyes on the Prize
At this time of year, we have a gaggle of students popping into the shop, each clutching one of our tokens, which they’ve been awarded as a school prize. We like to play a little game here at Red Lion Books by trying to guess what subject the student won their prize for, based on the book they’ve chosen. Occasionally we get it right and feel very smug about ourselves, but the most interesting occasions are when the book is a proper leftfield choice. One that appears to be getting a lot of traction at the moment, and here’s where the politics bit comes
-
Eye of Boudica Event at Red Lion Books
The Eye is all-seeing, all-consuming, always being watched and judged for good or bad actions. Big Brother is Watching you, as Orwell said. People correct themselves when they’re aware an eye is on them. Crime decreases, and people clean up their acts, behaving themselves as the ever-present Eye observes them closely. It makes sense why the Eye of Boudica is named such and why their symbol is a fiery eye watching you. The Eye of Boudica came to Red Lion Books in May to give a Standing up to Harassment Course. The Colchester-based movement and organisation wanted to provide women
-
April 2022, We’ve got it covered
It’s the end of April. I’m writing that opener almost like it’s a slightly bewildered revelation rather than a statement of fact. A third of the way through my bookshop year and it hardly feels like a week has passed, let alone all the seconds and minutes I’ve spent at the coalface of indie bookselling. There is a kind of soothing aura of calm that permeates a bookshop. Like sitting on the wooden steps of a groyne-lined beach listening to the waves gently ripple over shingle, while staring far off into the distance. This month on the beach I caught sight
-
Meeting Ben Aaronovitch
A blog post from Louise, our ‘newest and youngest’ member of staff’. Friday the 8th of April, 2022, was my first time working an event for Red Lion Books, and it was a biggie. The first book in the Rivers of London series, aptly titled Rivers of London, came out when I was 11, so Ben Aaronovitch is a name I have heard for half of my life. Now, in 2022, eleven years later, book 9 of the series, Amongst our Weapons, was being released, and Red Lion Books was part of it. The event was an author talk, with Ben
-
The Marmalade Diaries author event
I’m writing this post with a bit of a fuzzy head – although the marmalade is helping. There were a lot of inspiring things that came out of Ben Aitken’s talk last night, one of which was reminding me of the restorative effects of a good old-fashioned piece of toast with marmalade on it. The marmalade came courtesy of Wilkin and Sons, purveyors of preserves to her majesty, a sweet (sorry) gesture from the company which also served up as a visual aid to Ben’s extended metaphor for the tiny pots of sunshine. Marmalade on toast was the routine daily event
-
| Musings
March ramblings
And so, March leaves us like a lamb, or so the phrase goes. Although in Indie bookshop-land, it’s been a little the other way around with a quiet, genteel period of activity at the start of the month and then a flurry towards the end. Some of that was down to Mothers’ Day, a difficult time for me as I lost my own dear Mum last October. She loved the fact I had got a job in a bookshop – ‘right up your street’ – she said to me when I told her. I was trying to remember what her favourite book