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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...

Rachel’s Summer-ish Reads: Wool

Genres: Sci-Fi/Dystopian Well booklovers, I meant to write about what I’d been reading this summer a long time ago, but somehow this autumn is flying by! In August, my list of books read was dominated by two authors: Hugh Howey and Gail Carriger (more on her later…). Hugh Howey’s Wool trilogy was a wonderful dystopian tale. The synopsis from the back of the book didn’t really grab me… but the book itself definitely did, and it...

What Rachel’s Reading This Month: July

Genres: Non-Fiction, Fantasy, YA, Sci-Fi One of my goals for this year had been to read more non-fiction, and another was to keep track of what I’d read – I’m curious to see how many books I actually read in a year! Well, Matthew asked me about non-fiction the other day, and I was sad to say that I’d read a grand total of two so far this year, one of which was The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris – a b...

What Matthew is Reading this Week

I never thought I’d love a zombie novel that my thirteen-year-old daughter recommended, but M.R. Carey’s The Girl with all the Gifts is so gripping that some bad words may have left my mouth when I had to put it down. It tells the story of Melanie who waits in her cell every morning to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheel...

What Rachel’s Reading This Week

Genres: Fantasy, YA, Children’s, Thriller So. I wrote what was going to be this post yesterday at work, intending to post it today, which was as follows: The fantasy book I’m reading right now is The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg. I’d read good things about it in reviews and the basic premise hooked me: Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her cl...

Second-hand Book Sale!

Alright booklovers, it’s that time of year again! The time where we try to make some space on the shelves in anticipation of la rentrée scolaire…. So from today (Monday, June 11) until mid-July or so, our second-hand books are all on sale 2 for 1. That’s 2 books for CHF 5! So come browse our overflowing shelves and pick up some summer reads. We look forward to seeing you in the shop!...

What Rachel’s Reading This Week

Genre: Fantasy, YA                     Happy Saturday, booklovers! I just finished reading Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff, the second book in an epic fantasy trilogy, with the first being Nevernight, which was recommended to me by a customer in the bookshop and I loved it! It ticks all the boxes for me – some fun world-building (triple suns, hello), an interesting magic system, and a ve...

The Joys of Independent Bookselling
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“Every indie bookstore has a personality and every individual can find one whose character suits him. Not just the books themselves and the authors, but the very bookstore itself. It is, in a sense, finding oneself in a place where one can discover a community” Everyone needs a little bit of independent bookselling love in their lives, and Franck Bohbot  and Philippe Ungar provide it with their latest project We Are New ...

The Essex Serpent

As well as having the most beautiful cover in the world, The Essex Serpent caught my attention with its unique style and careful plot. Reviewers described it as a mix between Bram Stoker and Charles Dickens, and it does read like a Victorian gothic novel. When Cora Seaborne’s controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis – a curious, obsessive bo...

New Website
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After almost ten years of faithful service, we’ve decided to create a new website for the English Bookshop. We’re going to be adding reviews of the books we are reading and news on upcoming events, as well as lists of great books you need to live in Switzerland, by local authors, for your one-on-one time with a book on the beach! Eventually, we’ll be adding a little shopping cart so you can support your local independe...