3 4 Friday: Daring Princesses, Bookgroup Places and Booker Prizes

Today (Friday July 27) is the last day to do your ‘Where's Wally’ hunt around Abingdon and to get your entries in to us for a chance to win prizes in our grand draw. On Saturday (July 28) we will be doing ‘Where's Wally’ activities all day at Mostly Books to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first book. And anyone coming in dressed as Wally (or Wanda) get's an instant prize. From 2pm we will be drawing prizes – including some fantastic prizes from the shops involved, and the ‘grand prize’ of a very special limited edition ‘Where’s Wally’ book.

Whether it was Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France, or the bell-ringing this morning (!), Mostly Books is definitely in the mood for the Olympics. Our collection of Olympics books cannot be missed (literally – it’s the first thing you see when you come into the shop) and includes Mark’s favourite ‘How To Watch the Olympics’ (“a book that will turn yourself into an armchair Olympics expert”) to the official guide to the games for children. Come in and take a look at our range that’s sure to take gold (no, can’t believe we wrote that either...)

Calling all princesses! Have you heard about the princessparty we are hosting on Tuesday August 7? Then read on...

If you were a princess, would you be content to spend all day doing your formal duties and practising the perfect curtsey? Or might you sneak out after dinner and enjoy some freedom playing on a zip-wire after dark? The ‘Rescue Princesses’ is a fab series for girls who are just starting out on chapter books. They feature lots of gorgeous dresses and are set in fairytale castles, but have a great mix of traditional story with a modern twist as these princesses don’t let duty interfere with friendship or fun.

If you like princess stories, or stories about saving animals, or just about girls being daring and having adventures, you have a chance to meet author Paula Harrison and join in some princess fun activities at our Rescue Princess Party on Tuesday Aug 7 at 10.30am. Tickets are £3 and include activities and refreshments – everyone can leave with a crown or tiara they have made. Dressing up is optional, but if you want to dress as a princess, or even the animal you think you’d like to save, we will be awarding prizes! Find out more more here.

And finally: Bookgroups

We get asked a lot about Bookgroups, and although we run three of them, we only seldom have free places. So for those of you would like the opportunity to join you will be pleased to know that we will have vacancies in our Thursday evening group from September.

If you think you'd like to join, or would like to find out more, please come along to our special Abingdon book group evening. We will be discussing the book 'My Policeman' with guest author Bethan Roberts on Thursday Aug 9 at 7.30pm – take the chance to meet us and see if you think our bookgroup will be for you.

The event with Bethan Roberts is being hosted by Abingdon library. Tickets are £4, which includes wine and, of course, is open to all, and we will be joined by members from several local bookgroups.


Finally – we were excited to see that the guest author at the last Abingdon 'Big Read' in the library, Rachel Joyce, is on the Booker longlist with her debut book ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ that we discussed earlier in the year:

Congratulations to Rachel and best of luck with the shortlist!

3 4 Friday: Gorgeousness, Sportiness and the Natural World

Over the last week, as well as a veritable abundance of new titles, we've also been doing a lot of changing around of the shop (what our American friends might term 'remodelling'). So if you haven't been in for a while, we've chosen three titles from three sections of the shop to showcase the changes...

Firstly, we've brought together gifts, crafts, cooking, parenting and books for very little ones into a 'lifestyle and home' corner - and very gorgeous it looks too (though we say so ourselves) under the new lighting. This should also make it a tad easier for parents (and grandparents) with buggies...as well as looking jolly nice.

Stand-out title(s) here - the Design Museum's fiftieth anniversary publications that highlight landmark examples of design in areas such as cars, hats, chairs, shoes, bags and dresses.

 

Superbly produced from the Design Musem archives, these are both excellent source books for designers - but also fascinating social commentaries of the consumer age.

We now have a dedicated table for all things Olympic, and inevitably many of us will get swept up by the whole thing, even if we don't find ourselves up at 3am watching re-runs of Fencing (guilty as charged for one member of staff!).

As well as some excellent titles on the history of the games and famous olympians, one of our favourite titles has to be the sublime "How To Watch The Olympics" by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton.

For any armchair olympics fan - and indeed, if you've been lucky enough to get tickets to an event that perhaps you are not fully up-to-speed on - this is a cribbers delight, a book which instantly allows you to become an expert on almost the entire games.

This is the handbook to have next to the chair for the duration of the games...but particularly for young sporting fans, do come in and see our other selection for young readers who may suddenly want to compete on the Modern Pentathalon!

Finally, the front of the shop is now the 'get out there!' section - local walking, interest, travel, nature and sport. Either stand in front of our selection and start the jumping jacks, or else pick out a few key titles to look at:

Bottom right you might just catch sight of the new-in-paperback 'Bird Watching with your Eyes Closed' by SImon Barnes.

This is a delight, a book that teaches you not just about birdsong, but about tuning into nature - the science, beauty and importance of the natural world where you live.

And finally, congratulations to author Teri Terry, whose debut YA novel 'Slated' was published this week. As promised - here it is on face out on our YA shelves...