Books Books Books

Science journalist and writer Laura Spinney is coming to the bookshop on 5th June to talk about her latest book Proto : How One Ancient Language Went Global. The book explores how one language emerged from the last ice age before exploding around the world until today its descendants constitute the world’s largest language family, and are the thread that connects Dante’s Inferno to the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings to the love poetry of Rumi. Indo-European languages are spoken by nearly half of humanity. How did this happen? Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread these languages far and wide. In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve those lost languages: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed this ancient diaspora. What they have learned has vital implications for our modern world, since people and their languages are on the move again. Proto…

We are pleased to announce that the writer Paul Scraton is coming back to the bookshop on Friday, 23rd May to talk about his latest novel A Dream of White Horses. I have admired Paul’s work since he published In the Pines, and even travelled to Berlin for the launch of this book. In some ways, very appropriate as the story is about journeys, with Ben travelling from London to a small German island to see his friend Pascal, who is in his last days of his life. As he travels, Ben listens to voice notes from Pascal, each relating to a photograph from a different moment in his life. In the same way that In the Pines, is for anyone who has been young, A Dream of White Horses is for travellers in both the physical sense, and for those who journey backwards in time to explore friendships and absence. A tale of friendship, the book also explores what happens when the idols of our younger years grow old and turn to us for help and validation. As well as being a great writer, Paul is a thoughtful speaker and his events are well worth attending for his ability to create an intimate atmosphere and…

I spoke to Swiss-based author Caroline Bishop on the publication day of her debut novel The Other Daughter. Caroline is a journalist, editor and now author. Her book tells the story of two women working in Switzerland 40 years apart. Sylvia visits Switzerland in 1976 to cover the feminist revolution taking place after women were granted the vote. Jess arrives in Lausanne in 2016 with a mission of her own. The book is published today and is available from Books Books Books and independent bookshops throughout the UK and Europe. Please contact us if you would like a signed copy.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Morges Book Festival regular and award-winning writer Paul Lynch. Paul is the author of four novels. His debut, Red Sky in Morning was followed by The Black Snow, Grace and Beyond the Sea, which was published by Oneworld in 2019. His fiction has won numerous prizes and his journalism has been publishes in The Sunday Times and The Irish Times. Another Morges Book Festival regular, Michelle Bailat-Jones, joins me for a chat about Beyond the Sea, a story about what a pair of fisherman Bolivar and Hector find when a storm flings them flung far out into the Pacific. Please contact me if you would like to order a copy of of any of Paul’s books for either deliver or collection.

I caught up with Clare O’Dea to talk about Voting Day, her novella published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of women’s sufrage in Switzerland. The story is set in 1959 on the day of the first referendum on women’s suffrage. While women did not get the vote, the events of that day changed her characters’ lives forever. Clare lives in Fribourg and is the author of ‘The Naked Swiss’ and ‘The Naked Irish’. You can watch the interview here: Please contact me if you would like to order a copy of her book for either deliver or collection.