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Rebelling against the idea that ‘If you’re not online, you don’t exist,’ Jonathan created a pocket-sized review which collects together poetry, essays, fiction, illustration and fine art for those “wishing to maintain contemplative life in the digital age.’” Editions are only available in print and exclusively in bookshops. All correspondence with the publisher is conducted by post rather, and their single webpage simply l...

For this newsletter, I’m recommending books by two of my favourite authors, who I’ve most definitely mentioned and recommended before, however these particular book recommendations are a more hopeful, cheerful sort of book The Monk & Robot Duology by Becky Chambers I know I’ve recommended A Psalm for the Wild-Built before, but this duology (the second book is A Prayer for the Crown-Shy) is one of the best things I’ve read in a while. ...

Thank you for all your support this year. Please note the shop will be closed from noon, 24th December until 9am, 3rd January. Rachel and I will be catching up on our reading. Merci pour tout votre soutien cette année. Veuillez noter que la boutique sera fermée du 24 décembre à midi au 3 janvier à 9 heures. Rachel et moi allons rattraper nos lectures....

Genre: Sci-fi This book is a soft sci-fi story about multiverse travel – but you can only travel to universes where you’re dead. It’s also a dystopian novel, and explores themes of class and privilege – because only the poor, from outside the walled city of the wealthy, are likely to be dead in other realities and therefore able to travel to them.  My mother used to say I was born reaching, which is true. She also used to say...

Genre: Solarpunk / Sci-fi   This little novella packs a punch for its size, and it was a refreshing and hopeful read. Tor Books commissioned Becky Chambers to write a two book novella series in the solarpunk genre, which looks forward to a sustainable future, where humanity has managed to solve the major contemporary challenges, particularly climate change. It won a Hugo award this year.   It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gai...

Zoe Perrenoud will be in the bookshop on Saturday, July 30th from 2-4pm to sign copies of her new book, Bloodlender! Zoe came into the bookshop ten years ago, when we were back on Rue de la Mercerie. She was just finishing up a writing course, and said that she would write a book and hold an event in the bookshop. We are thrilled that the event is finally coming to fruition with BLOODLENDER! An ancient magic. A secret gar...

A while ago I got a subscription to an independent publisher in the UK called Influx Press. I read the quietly brilliant The Country Will Bring Us No Peace (Matthieu Simard), then Steve Hollyman’s Lairies, which seemed to be my life in the 90’s reflected back to me. Then I got in the post a slim book with a strange black and white photograph on the cover… . This was In the Pines by Paul Scraton and I was an instant convert. It is a ...

I first interviewed Paul Lynch around seven years ago when his novel Black Snow was a finalist for the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. I loved the book, his so-called Irish farm story from the author who had promised himself that he’d never write an Irish farm story; complex, dark, atmospheric, with hints Manly Hopkins. After Black Snow I couldn’t wait to read his next books, Grace – which the Washington Post described ...

The annual Bibliotopia literature festival at the Jan Michalski Foundation is almost upon us. Between the weekend of 13th – 15th May writers from around world will be at the Foundation talking about their work under the theme of  ‘Care’.  The programme is now online and tickets tend to sell out quite quickly. The events are multilingual with simultaneous translations. Perhaps most striking is the ev...

Genre: Science Fiction This is the fourth and final instalment in Becky Chamber’s Wayfarers series, and like the books before it, this one too is an absolutely beautiful book about interpersonal relationships, with the characters stranded at a truck stop equivalent in outer space. I’ve loved each of these books, and this one was no different, despite being much lighter on plot than many space opera novels. This book is about prejudice and xen...

Interview with award-winning Irish Writer Paul Lynch

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...

Interview with Clare O’Dea about her new novella ‘Voting Day’

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 ‘T...

New SF/F Arrivals

Genres: Science Fiction and Fantasy   Hey booklovers, while the bookshop is closed for browsing, that hasn’t stopped me from ordering in new and exciting books for our stock (and more than a little bit for me, as our sci-fi/fantasy section is basically my glorified TBR list)! These new books are a mix of new releases, and newly-recommended-to-me titles.   Fantasy   The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood  I’m apparently v...

Rachel’s Top Unread Fantasy Books 2020

Continuing on from last week’s post about the top science fiction picks from last year that I haven’t managed to read yet, here’s my list of top fantasy books that I haven’t gotten to! There are two YA fantasy titles at the end that also look like excellent general fantasy books. In no particular order:   The Obsidian Tower by Melissa Caruso One woman will either save an entire continent or completely destroy it in a captiv...

Rachel’s Top Unread Sci-Fi Books 2020

Well, once again we come to the start of a new year, and there are many books that I discovered last year, but didn’t find the time to read! This list is some of the top books that I haven’t found time to read yet. They’re not necessarily all books that were published last year, but they’re books that I stumbled across and ordered for the bookshop in the past year, and am excited about reading! While the bookshop will be closed ...

What Rachel’s Reading

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Superhero   Well booklovers, I finally got my most-anticipated book of 2020 this month, Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythm of War, book 4 of the Stormlight Archive. This is my favourite epic book series, and this volume didn’t disappoint! I’ve been restraining myself from rereading it again immediately – I’m saving that for Christmas! If you like epic fantasy and haven’t heard of Brandon Sanderson, ...

Rachel Recommends: YA

Genres: Fantasy/alt history, Sci-fi   I haven’t been reading very much Young Adult lately, but two of the titles that I have read recently have really been standouts. The first, Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, just sounded cool.   Trained at Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls in both weaponry and etiquette, Jane McKeene is poised for a successful career protecting the wealthy from the encroaching plague o...

What Rachel’s Reading: Sci-Fi Trilogies

Genres: science-fantasy, science fiction    Well booklovers, it’s been quite some time since I posted some recommendations, and I’ve read a number of very good books in the past few months! It had been awhile since I read much new science fiction, so I set about ticking a few of the books off of that list – although most of them were more science-fantasy than strictly science fiction.   One of the books that had bee...

Le Livre sur les Quais
Blog , Event /

Save a space in your diary this weekend for Le Livre sur les quais, the annual literary festival in Morges. This year the English programme consists of – ahem – actually just me talking to Jonathan Coe on Sunday at 16.30. We’ll be discussing his new novel, Mr Wilder and Me, which follows a naive young woman called Calista who sets out from Athens into the wider world and finds herself working for the famed Hollywood di...