Musings
A collection of stories, thoughts and news
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Yale University Press, Bookshop of the month
A Little History of Yale University Press London Yale University Press, founded in Connecticut in 1908, first established a marketing base in London in 1961, before going on to publish its own list of titles, alongside the books produced by its US head office, in 1973. Yale now has a unique position as the only
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Back to School
I’ve just had a conversation with Jo, the manager here at Red Lion, where the C word was mentioned. How is it not even the end of Summer and we’re talking about Christmas? But that’s how the pages turn in a bookshop, we’re always looking ahead. Whether it’s the new Kate Atkinson (Shrines of Gaiety),
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Eyes on the Prize
At this time of year, we have a gaggle of students popping into the shop, each clutching one of our tokens, which they’ve been awarded as a school prize. We like to play a little game here at Red Lion Books by trying to guess what subject the student won their prize for, based on the
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Eye of Boudica Event at Red Lion Books
The Eye is all-seeing, all-consuming, always being watched and judged for good or bad actions. Big Brother is Watching you, as Orwell said. People correct themselves when they’re aware an eye is on them. Crime decreases, and people clean up their acts, behaving themselves as the ever-present Eye observes them closely. It makes sense
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April 2022, We’ve got it covered
It’s the end of April. I’m writing that opener almost like it’s a slightly bewildered revelation rather than a statement of fact. A third of the way through my bookshop year and it hardly feels like a week has passed, let alone all the seconds and minutes I’ve spent at the coalface of indie bookselling.
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Meeting Ben Aaronovitch
A blog post from Louise, our ‘newest and youngest’ member of staff’. Friday the 8th of April, 2022, was my first time working an event for Red Lion Books, and it was a biggie. The first book in the Rivers of London series, aptly titled Rivers of London, came out when I was 11,
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The Marmalade Diaries author event
I’m writing this post with a bit of a fuzzy head – although the marmalade is helping. There were a lot of inspiring things that came out of Ben Aitken’s talk last night, one of which was reminding me of the restorative effects of a good old-fashioned piece of toast with marmalade on it. The
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March ramblings
And so, March leaves us like a lamb, or so the phrase goes. Although in Indie bookshop-land, it’s been a little the other way around with a quiet, genteel period of activity at the start of the month and then a flurry towards the end. Some of that was down to Mothers’ Day, a difficult time
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Keir Starmer visit
I Photo credit: Colchester Gazette Blog post by Louise Prior (newest and youngest Red Lion Books Team member). He arrived around fifteen minutes past eleven. I wasn’t on the top floor when Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party, came into Red Lion Books but downstairs organising the TikTok Book Recommendation display. Since our
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Francis Spufford and his Light Perpetual
Daytime book club is back and we were thrilled to have Francis Spufford as our guest, discussing Light Perpetual. Book club member, Paul Burns, shares his thoughts. We were gathered in the bar area of the Three Wise Monkeys, looking at each other and chatting and wondering what he’d look like! And then there he
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Essex Year of Reading & Toto the Cat
Essex County Council launched their Year of Reading and asked Red Lion Books to supply books to St Thomas More’s Primary School, ahead of Dermot O’Leary (former X Factor host) visiting the school. “Yes“, we said. Set up by the Essex Education Taskforce, the Year of Reading is a £1million project aimed at encouraging children
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What brings you here?
Is it Lemn Sissay saying ‘Hourglass will stay with me for a long time?’ Did he tempt you? Or perhaps it’s Hollie McNish? ‘A book for anyone who ever has been or ever will be heartbroken. So that’s everyone‘. Maybe it is Max Porter saying, ‘This book glows in the heart of the reader‘. Or is
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Say it with books
There’s something rather lovely leaving the shop when it’s still light. I’ll probably say the same thing when it starts to get dark, come November, when there’s the first signs of the orange street-light glow. But for now, Spring is on its way and love is very much in the air. There’s always a lot of
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A Terrible Kindness
FACT: Warm, generous, wise authors can take you to terrible places; talented authors ensure you return home. A TERRIBLE KINDNESS proves it. Pre-publication, our wonderful Indie Alliance rep, Rosy, brought a proof copy to Red Lion Books saying, “This. You need to read this and you need to take my word for it because I
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The Insatiable Queen B
Red Lion Books met Daisy Buchanan at the EA Festival last year https://www.eafestival.com/ and instantly hit it off – finding a mutual love of bookshops, Margate and Jilly Cooper. Let me clarify, this wasn’t F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Daisy incarnate. No, this was the very much alive Daisy: award winning writer, columnist, broadcaster, and author of non-fiction
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First Impressions
It’s cold. I mean really cold. Three, sometimes, four layers cold. It was one of the things that was brought to my attention when I had my interview for the post of bookseller way back in June last year. “It gets warm in the summer and pretty cold in the winter.” “I mean how cold
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Completing the jigsaw puzzle
Somebody today, asked what a typical day at the book shop looked like and we realised there is no typical day. We start off with grand plans to ‘tidy up’, which generally means, ‘make more mess’. We always hoover and water the plants and then we usually have a grand plan. The grand plan today
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Nicholas Jubber returns to Red Lion Books
Never underestimate the gratitude that an author has for their readership (and the booksellers) who champion their work. On a cold January evening, Nicholas (Nick) Jubber travelled all the way from Dorset to speak with Red Lion Books – here in Essex – about his new book; THE FAIRY TELLERS (Published 20th January, Hachette). He
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Silent Spring: a book that made a big noise.
Books are important in so many ways. They can move us, thrill us and entertain us. They can also inform and educate us. ‘Silent Spring’ is one of the most influential books ever to have been published. It kick-started the environmental movement worldwide and established a publishing genre of science writing aimed at the widest
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Robin Ince at Red Lion Books
Is he a stand-up comic, actor or radio presenter; a writer, or explorer of the human condition, is he a science communicator or a poet? Well, this is Robin Ince and he is all of these things and more. This afternoon he arrived at Red Lion Books to talk to our customers about his new