Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been?
I’ve been to London to see the Queen!
Ok, not exactly the Queen, but a group of UK book bloggers instead (far more exciting!). This meet-up was organised by Simon of Stuck In A Book and 18 of us turned up to chat, eat and swap books.
I managed to get a couple of London book shops in before I met up with the gang – a seconh hand bookshop that had nooks and crannies everywhere where I managed to pick up a couple of Amos Oz’s books (which I have been dying to read as he is an Israeli author and I used to live in Israel). Then I found Foyles which is the largest independent bookshop in London and I was like a kid in a sweet shop! All these thousands of beautiful books just calling my name from the shelves (it would have been rude to leave them all there so I got 3!) I got Mary Wesley’s The Camomile Lawn as I have just read another of hers and adored it, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (for Nymeth’s 1930′s challenge) and Edward Rutherford’s The Forrest which I can’t wait to read as I love books with nature and animals.
My lovely new books!
Then I headed over to meet ithe others in the Persophone book shop which was so pretty: all these gorgeous books piled high with matching bookmarks for each. Again, how rude would it have been to walk out empty handed (so I got 3 again!) After a quick pit-stop in Starbucks we headed down the road to The Lamb, where Simon had hired us a room and here are the lovely peeps who I met:
Annabel (Gaskella)
Claire (Paperback Reader)
David (Follow the Thread)
Guy (Pursewarden)
Hayley (Desperate Reader)
Jackie (Farm Lane Books)
Katy (5th Estate)
Kim (Reading Matters)
Kirsty (Other Stories)
Lizzy/Marcia (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Naomi (Bloomsbury Bell)
Polly (Novel Insights)
Rachel (Book Snob)
Sakura (Chasing Bawa)
Simon (Savidge Reads)
Verity (The B Files / Verity’s Virago Venture)
One of the highlights of the evening (as any bookaholic will know) was our book lucky-dip! We all donated a book (wrapped) and then picked another out of the pile.
It was like Christmas!
The book I picked up was from Sakura and although it’s not one I have heard of before it looks really good. It’s called The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki. I have heard that there is a group read going on for this book sometime in the summer so I will look out for that.
It was so lovley to meet up with so many like-minded people on Saturday and yes, the conversation was all about books, books and more books (with a hefty does of recommendations that I will, of course, now have to seek out for myself.)
A competition for the chance to decide the plot of an authors book!
This is a prize if I ever saw one. My fabulous friend Lori, over at The Next Best Book Blog, has a competition open until 15th May where not only can you win a copy of a book called The Book (which sounds really good – especially if you like dystopian fiction as I do) but also there is an opportunity to have your idea turned into the authors next book with your name up in lights in the book itself when it comes out.
All you have to do is write the outline of a plot (about anything at all) in less than 300 words! I will be entering myself as I really want a copy of that book if nothing else. Hop on over to Lori’s blog to check it out.
1930′s mini challenge
I am jumping at the chance of joining in this mini challenge as I have read a few books lately that have been set between the wars and so the 1930s sounded right up my street. The lovely Nymeth of Things Mean A Lot has come up with this challenge and I have already started on my first book – The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley.
I have a few more already lined up and ready to go like some Dorothy L Sayers, more Mary Wesley, Dashiell Hammett, a couple of Persophone’s etc. Any one else fancy joining in?
My beauties!
Look at you getting all artistic with your book shots (the last one in particular)
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Glad you at a good time at the blogger meet up, and what a wonderful ‘lucky dip’ title to come away with.
Warmest
Rob
Ha ha, yes, I have a brand new camera – a very posh (almost weep at the price) one so I was doing my “oh daaahling, that’s beautiful” impression to my books (who were such amazing subjects – they didn’t move an inch!
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Are you gonna come to the next one?
sound fun boof ,hope meet you some day stu
I hope you can come to the next one, Stu
Lovely to meet you Boof, and lovely pile of Persephones! (EVEN if you didn’t get Someone At A Distance
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I know, I’m very maughty, especially as it was presented to me so beautifully
wow Boof sounds like you guys had a wonderful day! And I loved the idea of book lucky-dip, that pile sure looks like Christmas
I hope this can become a tradition so I can join you guys when I’m in the UK next year
Lua, that would be GREAT! We are having another in Oxford in the summer; you’re not over here then are you?
When and where are you next year?
No, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to Oxford
But I’ll be there somewhere around 10th of September, and my school is in Canterbury, but I’ll go anywhere in the UK for a bookish meeting
Lua, are you at school in Canterbury then? How long for? If you are in the Uk for a while we must meet up!
Oh, I am turning GREEN over here (with envy!), just thinking about this most fabulous experience.
Love bookstores with nooks and crannies.
And bloggers getting together? Fun, fun, fun!!!
Me too, Laurel. Nooks and crannie shops always have hidden gems in them somewhere. I wish I’d rememebered to take my camera with me to show you!
I’m so jealous. Visiting bookstores in London. *sigh*
I like the way the bookswap was done.
Sue, at the end we were chatting about all the bookshops in London and I was turning a funny shade of green! There are so many that I just HAVE to go and see; we don’t get shops like that where I live either
I’m doing Nymeth’s challenge too!
Yay! Which books do you think you’ll read?
It was great to meet you and I’m pleased to see that you made use of those London book shops. I hope to see you again sometime soon.
Thanks Jackie; it was lovelt to meet you too.
By the sounds of conversation there are plenty more bookshops I need to check out too!
You must tell me where those bookshops are!
I visited a few myself and shall reveal all in the course of the next week or so.
And next time we’re both in London, we must go bookbuying together – I like your style!
Marcia, I have been checking your blog and waiting for all the London updates. I am dying to know which shops you visited and yes, next time we should do it together! Can you imagine how many we would come home with? We’d be egging each other on to buy them all!
I’ve just posted about bookshop #2. I posted about #1 yesterday.
Sounds like you had a whale of a time in London! Now I’m curious, which were the final 3 books you bought (I don’t think you mentioned them)? I love Mary Wesley – my favorite is Harnessing Peacocks.
You’re right, I didn’t! Tsk tsk! Thanks for pointing that out to me. I got Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Fergusson, Sapplings by Noel Streatfield and The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
I haven’t read Harnessing Peacocks yet but I do have it at home and I’m looking forward to getting to that one soon
That Foyles is so bad for me. I cannot walk into that place and fail to come out with at least five books. I don’t know why! I exercise perfectly good restraint in most bookstores! It’s a good thing I do not live in London or I would soon be homeless and spend all my time trying to find shelter for my thousands of books.
LOL Jenny, you really make me laugh! At least you would have company though, as if I lived in London I would be homeless too: at least we could shuffle round the streets in our sleepingbags together carting our trolley-loads of books behind us
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i love your pictures! and i’m so jealous that you have book bloggers in meet-up proximity. someone needs to make a trip to hawaii! or i need to take a trip somewhere else…
i’d never heard of The Makioka Sisters either, but it does look really good. i’ll be looking forward to your thoughts.
Lisa, I can’t think of anything better than being in Hawaii and discussing books! Double whammy! If I am ever lucky enough to get over there we should definitely meet up and talk books
Lisa, there is a *small* chance that I might be visiting Hawaii in September (Halfway meeting point for me and a friend from Australia). Would love to meetup if time permits …
Can you stick me in your suitcase please, Sue?
Sounds like a great meet-up! I definitely need to discover some more UK blogs! Nicer still, would be good to find more Scottish book blogs so that maybe we could do a meeting/have some discussions closer to home!
Book swap = great fun!
Where are you, Bethany? I’m in deepest, darkest Lanarkshire …..
It has somehow taken me several weeks to get back to this – oops! But I’m in Edinburgh (and desperately awaiting the brochure for this year’s book festival)!
The meeting sounds like so much fun! You need to have another one after September so I can go too.
I see that one of the Persephones you got was Saplings! That’s one of my very favourites to date. Also, can’t wait to see what you’re reading for the mini-challenge!
I really like the look of Saplings too – I am going to read that one for the 1930′s challenge. Others include some Sayers, more Wesley and Dashiell Hammett.
Boof, I’m going for MA in Creative Writing @ The University of Kent and I’ll be there for a whole year! We must meet up, it will be so wonderful to meet you in person
Yes definitely! Oh wow, that sounds like a great course – you can give me some tips
What fun! I don’t know any book bloggers IRL and don’t even think I love close to any online friends. I need to go to BEA next year and meet some. I wish I could come to England!
I love the sound of this UK book bloggers meet-up! You have such a great community – I read a few of these blogs so far and it has such a great feel, not isolated but so friendly
I don’t know any book bloggers who live in Toronto, not off the top of my head anyway. Isn’t that sad?
So great you’re joining in on the 1930s mini-challenge! Oh Mary Wellesley! Was she a 30s writer or just wrote books set in the 30s? The only one I’ve read is Harnessing Peacocks which I think is contemporary – but then I remember the movie more strongly than the book and that was, ah, early 90s? (Wonderful movie, have you seen it? So funny! My family still quotes from it to this day!)
I’m very interested in The Makioka Sisters – I’m not at all familiar with it but I love reading contemporary Japanese fiction and would like to read some classics too.