New Arrivals this Week...

This week we've had quite a selection of books on Home and Garden, which is great while the weather's nice and we can get out in the garden! Click any of the images to find out more about each book.

New In Home and Garden...

Small Garden - John Brookes
RRP:£17.99

Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £4.50

From initial inspiration to final layout - create your own small garden with the help of gardening design expert John Brookes. Whether you want a ‘room outside’ for leisure and entertainment or simply a space to call your own, inspiring photographs and detailed diagrams show what you can achieve whatever space you have, from grassy lawn to balcony, roof terrace, window or passageway.

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Quick & Easy Container Gardening - Tessa Evelegh
RRP: £26.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price:£6.99

"Quick and Easy Container Gardening" is packed with ideas and inspiration. As well as all the basic techniques you need for successful planting in pots, there are 20 step-by-step projects, showing you how to recreate the pots shown in the photographs. If you wish to grow-your-own, a chapter on 'crops in pots' shows how to grow fruit, herbs and vegetables on a small scale. Whether you are a novice needing advice and techniques or a seasoned gardener looking for new ideas and inspiration, "Quick and Easy Container Gardening" will provide the answers

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New In Fiction...

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Timoleon Vieta Come Home - Dan Rhodes

RRP:£7.99

Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Meet the mongrel. Timoleon Vieta. A deeply loyal, undemanding and loving companion . . . with the most beautiful eyes. He's living an idyllic existence in the Italian countryside with Cockroft, a composer in exile. Until, that is, the mysterious and malevolent 'Bosnian' comes to stay. Timoleon Vieta Come Home is a free-wheelin' take on the Lassie legend, deeply moving and hysterically funny.

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Lucky's Lady - Tami Hoag

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.99

She is willing to risk everything - Lucky Lady, from a New York Times bestselling author. When Serena Sheridan's Grandfather vanishes into the vast and infamous swamps of Louisiana for no apparent reason, she feels compelled to abandon her successful career as a psychologist and go and find him. But Serena is deeply afraid of the hostile territory she is confronting and her only guide is the renegade Lucky Doucet, a dangerous Cajun who offers little hope of protection in the steamy Bayou swamps. However, determined to find her Grandfather at whatever cost, she sets off with lucky on a journey into the watery maze that will change both their lives irrevocably.

If you would like to reserve any of the above titles or enquire about a book please contact us.

From Bookshelf to Box Office

This month’s Mums Reading Group choice (The Memory Keeper’s Daughter) has got me thinking about books that were made into film, so I thought I’d share a ‘Books to film’ guide with you. It could prove useful if you fancy a searching out a good read this summer which you can watch in film afterwards.

Reel Books shows a selection of some of the best UK writing from the last 20 years that has been turned into film. Each entry offers a brief description of the book, along with the relevant publication details. You can download the Reel Books part 1 and Reel Books part 2 online.

Here are the Telegraphs 25 best book to film adaptations – or twenty-five films that they consider made it from the book shelf to the box office with credibility intact. The Guardian posted their top 50 adaptations here. There are some great ones in both lists, but do you agree with their choices? Have they missed any of your favorites out?

As you’d expect Russell also has a number of these book titles in stock - I’ve listed half a dozen or so below.

Books to film currently in stock...

Armadillo

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

One winter morning Lorimer Black goes to keep a business appointment and finds a hanged man. This is just the start of what turns out to be a horrendous period for Lorimer as he realizes that he's being set up at work and cast adrift outside the office.

This is a very funny novel with its dark side that shows a good man being boxed in and unable to see how to help himself.

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The Lovely Bones

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumours about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unravelling.

Atonement

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender?

Chocolat

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

When the exotic stranger Vianne Rocher arrives in the old French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique called "La Celeste Praline" directly across the square from the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock. To make matters worse, Vianne does not go to church and has a penchant for superstition. Like her mother, she can read Tarot cards. But she begins to win over customers with her smiles, her intuition for everyone's favourites, and her delightful confections.

Last Orders

RRP:£7.99

Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish, to have his ashes scattered into the sea. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them.

On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day's outing, Last Orders is Graham Swift's most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.

Summer Reads For Kids and Teens

If there’s any truth in the line that things that were better back in our days then books from that era must surely make for the best summer reading! Michelle Pauli noted in the Guardian yesterday that “...when thinking about what "summer reading" meant for me as a child. It certainly wasn't about purpose-bought new books!” Nor for me.

The same article and it’s related comments list many great children’s books, several of which Bridgnorth Books currently have in store. Books by Meg Rosoff, Judy Blume and Roald Dahl to name but a few. (In fact I recently read one of Meg Rosoffs books myself, which was actually quite good from an adults perspective! That’s now also available in the shop.)

Russell has several of your contemporary children’s authors too but I personally still prefer the likes of Fantastic Mr Fox or Georges Marvellous Medicine anyday! Roald Dahl brings back such wonderful memories.

What were your favourite summer reads as a child? Or what are you children reading now? Do let us know in the comments below...!

Contemporary Writers in the UK

Do you ever want to know more about our British writers? Then this website may be useful - Contemporary Writers in the UK is an online, searchable database that contains profiles of many of the UKs most important living writers. Included in each author's profile is their biography, bibliography, prizes they have won and their photograph. For many authors, a critical review of their work is also available. To use the site you can either browse the index of authors or use a search box on the authors page to search for writers. There are a lot of authors there - click here to see just those beginning with A and B!

I’m always curious to see what new authors they add to the site, but was slightly surprised to see that Salley Vickers was just added this March, particularly since she’s been writing since 2000. I read her novel “The Other Side of You” a fortnight ago and it was quite brilliant. It taught me a lot about love, missed opportunities and Caravaggio and if that book didn’t make me want to visit an art gallery sometime soon nothing could! I’ve since picked up a copy of one of her earlier books, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’, which I managed to get locally from Russell (for just £1.50 might I add!), so I hope to read that very soon. In the meantime I’ll be keeping an eye on the ‘Contemporary Writers’ site, to discover new authors and their work, and as a useful point of reference.

Hope you also find it useful.

Bridgnorth Books Half Dozen - Award Winning Books

This week there has been a lot of talk of awards and long and shortlists after the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 long list was announced on Tuesday. I must confess to having read only a very small number of those on the list but I will certainly be keeping an eye out for them in Bridgnorth Books as possible future good reads!

In the meantime, I had a look in the shop earlier and noticed that Russell already has a large number of previous prize winning books in stock. I’ve listed just a handful of some of my favorites that he currently has available below. As usual, I’ve also linked each image to more information about the book. I'm sure you'll see, that there are some great reads even in that short selection! If you wish to secure any of these titles just get in touch, remember with used copies Bridgnorth Books only has one of each and when it’s gone, it’s gone!

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The ManBooker Prize
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Will the tiger be menacing; will the ocean be threatening; will the island be something out of Frankenstein or will it be an Eden?"--Yann Martel Life of Pi, first published in 2002, became an international bestseller and remains one of the most extraordinary and popular works of contemporary fiction.

2.Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
The ManBooker Prize
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Vernon Little is fifteen years old and lives with his mother in Martirio, a flea-bitten Texan town. His best friend just massacred sixteen of their classmates before killing himself. The town wants vengeance and turns its sights on Vernon, who is arrested at the start of the story.



3. Samuel Pepys by Clare Tomalin
The Whitbread Book Award
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

For a decade, beginning in 1660, an ambitious young London civil servant kept an astonishingly candid account of his life during one of the most defining periods in British history. In Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin offers us a fully realized and richly nuanced portrait of this man, whose inadvertent masterpiece would establish him as the greatest diarist in the English language.

4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Whitbread Book Award
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Narrated by a fifteen-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions.


5. Property by Valerie Martin
Orange Prize for Fiction
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Valerie Martin’s Property delivers an eerily mesmerizing inquiry into slavery’s venomous effects on the owner and the owned. The year is 1828, the setting a Louisiana sugar plantation where Manon Gaudet, pretty, bitterly intelligent, and monstrously self-absorbed, seethes under the dominion of her boorish husband. In particular his relationship with her slave Sarah, who is both his victim and his mistress.

6. Small Island by Andrea Levy
Orange Prize for Fiction
RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmer's daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, until the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve. Told in these four voices, "Small Island "is a courageous novel of tender emotion and sparkling wit, of crossings taken and passages lost, of shattering compassion and of reckless optimism in the face of insurmountable barriers---in short, an encapsulation of that most American of experiences: the immigrant's life.

So there are my half a dozen. Have you read any good prize winning books lately? If so please feel free to share your thoughts with us using the comments feature below.

Summer Reads - Get three for two!

There are so many recommendations in the media at the moment for great books to read through the summer. To support this time of increased reading Bridgnorth Books is now offerring a special offer of 'three for two' on all our summer reads.

Below are just a handful of the titles that they currently have in store to get you started - click on any of the images to learn more about the books. Remember you can also check back on this site to keep up with samples of new stock as they arise.

You may also reserve any of these books for collection, just drop us an email or contact us by phone and we will be happy to arrange that for you.

Mums Reading Group - The Memory Keepers Daughter

In July, Bridgnorth Book's 'Mums Reading group' will be reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.

"Kim Edwards’s stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother’s silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is an astonishing tale of redemptive love."

Links and useful information:

This book was reviewed by the Guardian - see what they had to say here.

For more information on the book you visit the books official website at http://www.memorykeepersdaughter.com/ There is also a Penguin Reading Guide available here, that offers a number of useful discussion questions to get the discussion rolling.

This book has also been turned into a film - if you wish to you can see a preview of its trailer below - warning, this may have spoilers!




To obtain your own copy of this book, contact Russell by email at GAW@email.com or by phone on *****.

The meeting to discuss this book will take place at 7.30 on 13th August at the shop in Central Court. (Email us if you would like more details.) We will also post some information up on here with our thoughts on this months choice. Feel free to comment on that if you have read the book but can't make the meeting.

We look forward to seeing you there!

New Arrivals this Week...

This week we've had quite a selection of books on cookery etc etc.... click any of the images to find out more about each book.

New In Fiction...

The Road Home - Rose Tremain

RRP:£7.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £1.50

In The Road Home, Tremain tells the story of Lev, an Eastern European migrant worker who has left his village and travelled to England so that he can finance a better life for his mother and daugther. He takes with him his grief for his dead wife. There is an almost fairytale-like quality to Lev's chance encounters and where they lead him, although, that said, they also feel natural and possible; Tremain has always been good on the essential randomness of experience.

Sweet Thames - Matthew Kneale

RRP: £6.99

Bridgnorth Books Used Price:£1.00

London in the summer of 1849. With a deadly cholera epidemic threatening, young engineer Joshua Jeavons is convinced it is his mission to save the capital and reform its festering sewers. Meanwhile in his dometsic life he is troubled by the baffling coldness shown towards him by his beautiful bride, Isobella. As he struggles to win her round, he works feverishly on a revolutionary drainage plan. This is his dream, his dazzling vision of the future: a London free of effluent. Then a sudden and mystifying disappearance throws his whole life upside-down. He is forced to embark on a harrowing search, which plucks him from his respectable life and throws him into a London previously unknown to him.

New In Cookery...

Cooking in Provence - Alex Mackay
RRP:19.99
Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £3.50

New Zealand chef Alex Mackay stormed his way into high cuisine in the late 80s and early 90s and made his name as, not only a talented sous-chef working in Michelin-starred kitchens, but as a culinary enthusiast keen and very able to impart this love to others. A chance meeting with celebrated photographer Peter Knab and his wife led to an eclectic threesome. This is a celebration of that successful partnership: recipes from Alex Mackay accompanied by the sumptuous, colourful photographs of Peter Knab, reflecting the vivacity and gastronomic adoration endemic to the region.

Apples for Jam - Tessa Kiros

RRP:£25.00

Bridgnorth Books Used Price: £4.99

It's the colour that catches your eye first. The bold pink and red cover of Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam is immediately distinctive, particularly with its eye-catching photo of a pair of red, well-worn children's shoes. And colour is hugely important in this book as Tessa and her colour-coded recipes explore the spectrum of childhood through chapters that include gold and monochrome, pink, yellow and red.

If you would like to reserve any of the above titles or enquire about a book please contact us.

Read and Recycle - Rewards for returns

At Gerald Alexander we like to be green. We 'read and recycle' and are happy to reward our readers who do the same!

If you return your read or unwanted books to us we may be able to offer you a discount on future purchases within the shop. This discount can be applied against new sales in exchange for donated or returned books that meets our specified terms and conditions.

This not only helps to ensure there's something new each time you visit, but it offers you the chance to make further savings on our already low prices, as well as helping the environment. Read and recycle. It's why we are here!

For more details simply pop in the shop and ask, or email us.

Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls

Dexter and Emma meet on July 15th 1988 on the night of their graduation, young and wondering what the future holds... well, Emma is at least. Dexter would like to stay exactly the way he is now. It's within the first few pages of this book that you are drawn into these 2 characters who seem just like any other 2 students about to go into the big wide world. Dexter is wanting to slip away and make excuses however, despite himself, he doesn't and the next thing you notice is it's a new chapter and the date at the top proclaims it's a whole year later on the same day and we're reading about the same 2 characters and just what has happened since that one day in 1988.

The book is set over 20 years and goes by too quickly, just like real life, and everything feels like it's been left too late. Emma and Dexter are so life like and jump right out of the book. Dexter is a very unlikeable character in the early stages of the book as he leans towards the drink, drugs and party side of life whilst Emma is struggling and wondering what to do about her career whilst working as a waitress in a cheesy Mexican restaurant.

Despite having finished the book I'm still thinking about Dexter and Emma and that's really got to say something about the quality of this book. This book made me laugh and actually cry, the only book to make me cry since The Time Traveler's Wife which I found quite amusing as a quote from Tony Parsons on the back of this book reads, 'the best weird love story since The Time Traveler's Wife,' and it really is! I had been looking for another book to draw me in the way that did, and I found it with this book.

This book is not one to be missed, buy it or borrow it, I am certain that the thoughts of Dex and Em won't leave your mind for days after you have turned that last page.

Summary: A brilliant book, highly recommend for all fans of modern fiction. But what did you think? Leave your comments below!

Introducing Mum’s Reading Group

Bridgnorth Books Mums' Reading Group is...

1. A place for women to meet and have a chat about their chosen book over a cup of tea/ glass of wine/other (delete as appropriate!)
2. A great way to discover new authors, new venues and new reading friends.
3. Free and open to all to join (it’s not just for mums, but will be of particular interest to women who are interested in reading female authors).
4. It’s for relaxing, reading and recycling, (and helping to keep Bridgnorth green!)

Mums reading group is not:

1. Prescriptive. Group members can choose what they want to read, and set dates and venues for each meeting.
2. It’s not a group with compulsory attendance – you can decide how many or how few local meetings you attend. Mums often have busy schedules! Dates and venues for all meetings will be emailed out and put on the website.
3. Setting strict deadlines on when you have to read a book. Because you have your own copy of each book, you can complete these at your leisure and still add your own thoughts to the groups’ comments online, at any time. Check all reading group posts here at any time.
4. It's not the TVBookclub ;-)

If you want details of how to join, or get involved, email us or telephone Russell on 01746 745887.

We look forward to you joining us face to face, or online!

About Bridgnorth Books

Bridgnorth Books is are based in Central Court, off St Marys Street, Bridgnorth, Shropshire, WV16 4DW. Find us on Google maps or get directions by clicking the image below.

OPENING HOURS -

Monday - Saturday: 09:30 till 17:30hrs
Sundays - 11:00 till 16:00hrs

CONTACT US -

Email us at bridgnorthbooks@hotmail.co.uk
Tel: (01746) 761490