coddie

  • Limericks

    As booksellers who love real books printed on paper the advent of e-books has not been a welcome development. And the Kindle in particular as it binds users into a certain dominant online retailer. Here’s a couple of anti-Kindle limericks which I hope may cause a smile.   A spy novel lover called Jane Found her Kindle it drove her insane For the battery failed as the spy was unveiled. Now she’s back reading real books again!   A lass of a ‘certain age’ Stamped on her Kindle in rage. For it wouldn’t display ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Now she’s back […]

  • Books Made Of Paper

    A paper book is a wondrous thing No batteries are needed You can shelve it for a hundred years Then take it down and read it.   You can read it in the bath tub You can read it on the train You can read it when the sun is bright You can read it in the rain.   It needs no wires or charging No cables and no socket It’s soft and flexible enough To stuff it in your pocket!   You can scribble in the margins From the first page to the end. You can write a message in […]

  • Out of This World

    Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Jonathan Swift. What have these writers got in common? One answer is that they are all writers of science fiction…..yet none would feature in most lists of science fiction writers and in bookshops and libraries you are unlikely to find them in the science fiction section. In popular culture science fiction and its cousin, fantasy has long been big brand, big budget entertainment from Dr Who and Star Trek to Lord of the Rings and George R R Martin’s Game of Thrones. Yet in the book review section of most newspapers science fiction […]

  • World Book Day Books and children of fathers in prison

    As enthusiastic supporters of World Book Day we are involved with several local schools and always tend to order too many copies of each yearly crop of fantastic WBD titles. After all, the last thing we ever want to do is to run out! It does mean that after the dust has settled on the WBD events we are always left with extra stock. We have found some good uses for them over the years but the latest is maybe the best – a link with the local library service who take books into prisons. For children, the occasional visit to […]