IBW Event: Ben Aaronovitch Book Signing - 20th June

We are extremely excited to be welcoming legendary author Ben Aaronovitch to Mostly Books on Thursday 20th June from 12pm.  

Sunday Times bestselling author of the Rivers of London series, Ben Aaronovitch, is embarking on an exclusive tour of Independent Bookshops to celebrate Independent Bookshop Week and to coincide with the release of his new novella, The October Man.  Ben will be visiting Abingdon as part of the tour.

Trier is famous for wine, Romans and for being Germany's oldest city. So when a man is found dead with, his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth. Fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything.

Enter Investigator Tobias Winter, whose aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger and paperwork. With the help of frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he's quick to link the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men - and to realise they may have accidentally reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century. But the rot is still spreading, literally and with the suspect list extending to people born before Frederick the Great solving the case may mean unearthing the city's secret magical history.

. . .

so long as that history doesn't kill them first

Email us to pre-order your copy of The October Man.  

Ben Aaronovitch was born in London in 1964 and had the kind of dull routine childhood that drives a man either to drink or to science fiction. He is a screenwriter, with early notable success on BBC’s legendary Doctor Who, for which he wrote some episodes now widely regarded as classics, and which even he is quite fond of. After a decade of such work, he decided it was time to show the world what he could really do, and embarked on his first serious original novel. The result is Midnight Riot, the debut adventure of Peter Grant.

Register for free via Eventbrite.

Ben will be signing books at Mostly Books from 12pm on Thursday 20th June. Please arrive in good time for the signing to ensure you get the chance to meet Ben, he is a very popular author and we expect a crowd.  Please note that registration for the event cannot guarantee meeting Ben.

IBW Event: Katherine Rundell in Conversation with Lucy Mangan - 20th June

Award-winning author, Katherine Rundell, will be at Mostly Books on Thursday 20th June talking to Guardian journalist and author, Lucy Mangan, about why we should be reading more children's books. 

In 2016, Katherine Rundell - Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and prize-winning author of five novels for children – found her understanding of the world she lived in upturned: by Brexit, Trump, a sweep across Europe towards nationalism and insularity, terrorist attacks.  Literary fiction did not help her understanding, so instead, she turned to old narratives, told for the benefit of children and adults and anyone who would listen.

This Independent Bookshop Week (IBW), join Katherine Rundell – author of The Good Thieves, Lucy Mangan, Journalist and author of Bookworm; a Memoir of Childhood Reading, for an inspiring conversation about how children’s books ignite, and can re-ignite, the imagination; how children's fiction, with its unabashed emotion and playfulness, can awaken old hungers and create new perspectives on the world.

Katherine Rundell is the bestselling author of five children's novels, for which she has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize amongst many others. She spent her childhood in Africa and Europe before taking her degree at the University of Oxford and becoming a Fellow of All Souls College. As well as writing, she studies Renaissance literature; and is learning, as a direct result of writing her new stunning adventure story The Good Thieves (June 2019), to fly on the flying trapeze.

Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.  Tickets are £12.50 and include a drink and a copy of Katherine's essay written exclusively for IBW called Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.  

Copies of The Good Thieves and some of Katherine's backlist plus Lucy's new book, Bookworm; a Memoir of Childhood Reading will be available to purchase on the night.

Tickets are available from Mostly Books and from EventBrite.

Find Wally! 16th June - 14th July

Where's Wally?  The world’s favourite children’s book character in specs and a stripy shirt is back! Wally is travelling the country, visiting ten different local businesses in Abingdon along the way. Wow!  Launching at the beginning of Independent Bookshop Week, the campaign runs from 16 June to 14 July. Those who find him can win prizes including stickers, books and more. The search is on!  

Anyone who wishes to take part can pick up a “Find Wally!” search list with the names of all the participating businesses, and collect an “I found Wally” card when they spot Wally.  Collect the cards and hand them in at Mostly Books to win Wally stickers and an entry for other, larger prizes to be drawn at the 'Where's Wally' prize draw on 14th July. The grand prize includes a copy of Where’s Wally? The Sticker Book and a copy of Where’s Wally Now? Deluxe Edition. 

Come and meet the Gruffalo! Help celebrate Independent Bookshop Week 2016!

To help us celebrate Independent Bookshop Week 2016 - and as part of our tenth birthday celebration - the Gruffalo is coming! And we'd love you to come too!

The Gruffalo last visited Mostly Books in 2014 and because he had such a lot of fun, he's coming back!

We will be running two special Gruffalo Storytimes at 10am and 3.30pm on Wednesday, June 22.

The storytimes are free, but space is limited so you must book!

We will be reading the Gruffalo, and you may even be able to have your picture taken with him!

Pop into the shop - or email us to reserve a place. And help us celebrate!

Independent Bookshop Week 2015 - Laura Barnett, Sally Nicholls, Father's Day and Bookgroups

You know the one about the Texan who goes into the airport, right?

"Give me a ticket!" he demands.
"Where to?" answers the agent.
"Anywhere, I've got business all over!"

Well, that's how we feel during #IBW2015 - so much love around for indies, so many opportunities, authors, events and offers - and all in celebration of the wonderful, the quirky, the unique and diverse world that is independent bookshops.

We've got a whole heap of things going on this week that should give just a glimmer of the amazing range of activities that keeps us viable, relevant and part of our community. But ultimately we couldn't do any of it without your support - so this is also our chance to say THANK YOU for coming to us and entrusting us with choosing those books that will amaze, enthuse and delight.

It's a big responsibility - and we don't take it lightly...

On Saturday, June 20 we have a special Father's Day Storytime taking place - and we'll be unveiling a few surprises as well. Join Nicki and Maddy at 2pm - no need to book, just drop in (and bring little ones!).

We have a rather impressive display of Father's Day book recommendations as part of our 'Buy Dad A Real Book' campaign now in its fifth year. Find out about our dozen choices here.

Who hasn’t wondered ‘What if?’ about their own life? What if you’d taken a particular job, taken that path instead of this one, or that one chance – said ‘yes’ one time instead of ‘no’? The random nature of chance is the subject of Laura Barnett’s ‘The Versions of Us’ – a thought-provoking story about the complexities of human nature and the essentially random nature of life. Laura will be at Mostly Books on Thursday, June 25 at 7.30pm - learn more about this appealing, surprising and fabulously written exploration of fate and destiny here.

(And listen to Laura interviewed on this week's Open Book here)

On Tuesday morning, we have a local school bringing students in to choose prizes - and we'll be on hand to advise and choose the perfect book. This is the first in a series of schools visiting - and is something that creates a fantastic buzz in the shop (in past year, other customers have got themselves involved in some ad hoc recommending!)

Bookgroups are a hugely important part of the bookshop scene, and on Wednesday, the morning bookgroup will be meeting to discuss 'I Let You Go' by Clare Mackintosh. Recent books discussed have included 'All My Puny Sorrows' by Miriam Toews at the Wednesday evening bookgroup (which Nicki describes as 'A small miracle of a book') and 'The Children Act' by Ian McEwan at the Thursday evening bookgroup. Sign up to our newsletter (right hand side of this blog) to find out when spaces become available on any of our groups...

This year, Mostly Books bookseller (and young bookseller of the year shortlistee!) Imogen Hargreaves founded a brand new bookgroup, the YA bookgroup - and on June 27 we are holding a taster session for anyone wanting to come along and discover more about it.

Imogen is keen to make it much more than just a read-and-discuss group - we're choosing the newest and best YA fiction to discuss - but on June 27, we are very excited to be welcoming award-winning author Sally Nicholls, who is coming along to the group to talk about her books, why and how she writes - and what exactly books for teens are.

Sally is the winner of the #IBW2015 Children's Book Award for her latest book 'An Island of Our Own' - so it's doubly fitting that she will be coming along - and as she has offered to even serve behind the till, we are encouraging as many people as possible to come along and meet her!

For the love of bookshops: Mark Forsyth, IBW2014 and The Future of the Book

What could be more lovely?

A sultry summer evening, a glass of Pimms, a crowd of book enthusiasts and a bestselling author gathered in the courtyard garden at Mostly Books.

It felt slightly surreal then to find ourselves discussing the very future of books and bookshops.

But why the need for a debate?

Surely independent bookshops are much-loved and have a secure future? Is there a real threat? Are people seriously suggesting that independent bookshops will be squeezed into extinction?

The gathering was to mark Independent Booksellers Week – an industry initiative given wholehearted industry support from publishers to authors, the media and readers – which specifically sets out to remind people of the value an independent bookshop can bring to their community. 

It urges people to re-engage with their local bookshop and to rediscover that bookshops really do add ‘something else’ to their communities, to reading and to shopping for books.

A traditional part of the week has been the writing of an essay, published as a small pamphlet, that invites people to celebrate independent bookshops. 

This year’s is entitled 'The Unknown Unknown' and was penned by Mark Forsyth, who writes delightful quirky books, including ‘The Etymologicon’, based on his passion for words. Mark was on a big IBW tour of bookshops, and was fresh from a previous evening's visit to Foyles, taking part in 'The Great Bookshop Debate'.

He was invited to Mostly Books to discuss whether we are seeing the beginning of the end of the independent bookshop – or if it is a sector creative and robust enough to continue to find ways to have a healthy future.

‘The Unknown Unknown’ celebrates the joy of finding a bookshop, of being in a bookshop with the time to browse, and to discover a book you would never otherwise have even known you wanted to read.

‘Discoverability’ as it is known in the book trade.

Debating with Mark Forsyth for the evening was Mark Thornton of Mostly Books, who started off playing devil’s advocate, asking when bookshops are so clearly well-loved and so well supported – is there even a need to have a special week to remind people to celebrate them? Or is it - as one of customers wryly remarked last week via a Tom Lehrer reference - merely a week to patch over problems that loom all too large for the other 51 weeks of the year?

Do people really need reminding to go out and do something as pleasurable as reconnecting with a real bookshop and discovering an Unknown Unknown within?

A show of hands revealing that nearly half of the audience like to read on electronic devices (though not exclusively) was a clear demonstration of a trend that didn’t even exist a few years ago that bookshops now have to compete with.

How to stay relevant in this digital age, and to stay profitable and in business in the face of the rapid decline in sales of print books, has very quickly gone to the front of this debate.

Mark Forsyth explained how, as an author, he is aware how the Kindle is changing the nature of discoverability. Anecdotally from his publisher he is aware that, when new, popular and bestselling books are offered as an eBook ‘deal of the day’ for 99 pence, there are plenty of purchases not just of the eBook, but of the print book too.

To offer a book for such a cheap price is a persuasive way of getting people to try a book you didn’t even know you wanted and to some extent simulates the serendipity of browsing, but without the need to switch off the computer and go out into the world. To judge by our own conversations with Kindle users, this is an increasingly popular way of discovering new books. In fact, many Kindle try never to pay full price, and instead wait until books are on offer.

Discoverability, and the ability of independent bookshops to provide this, has seen much news coverage this week, with several authors adding their voices to the thought that they would never be around today if their sales had been purely down to whether they generate buzz on the internet. 

If you can’t explain the concept in 140 characters and tweet it today, authors are finding it increasingly difficult to get anyone to buy and read their books – particularly new authors.

Jonny Geller, the literary agent and joint CEO of Curtis Brown, said in the Daily Telegraph: ‘There's a whole mid-range of novels that don't have a hook or spectacular angle that would have been published five years ago, but fewer publishers want to take the risk. When the Borders and the Ottakars [bookshops] started closing, the market for more experimental novels and novelists with no track record got smaller.’

E-readers have meant that for a short time there has been a boom in book sales; the total book market grew for the first time in twenty years last year as the surge in eBook sales more than made up for the drop in print sales.

EBooks are now 48 per cent of total fiction sales (they were seven per cent in 2012, with sales up by 366 per cent last year) and in 2014 they are predicted to overtake sales of fiction paperbacks. 

And as at least 90 per cent of eBooks sold are on the Kindle, which can only be bought on Amazon, this is less than brilliant news for independent booksellers. 

Figures show that the UK eBook market is set to triple over the next four years and will by then have overtaken the paperback and hardback as the preferred option for reading novels, as sales of print editions as expected to fall by more than a third in that time.
Why are eBooks so popular was something else up for discussion.

"Now, where did I put my
copy of 'The Etymologicon?"

One aspect of its appeal that we debated was that digital devices help overcome the problem of all the physical space you need to have a really good library. 

Having too many books can be a problem with deciding to allow yourself something new to read. And people have difficulties in knowing what to do with all the books that they have – even those they don’t think they will read again. 

Everyone agreed that books are difficult things to give away.

(Except Mark Forsyth – who caused ripples of consternation when he mentioned he had recently been on a long trip around Europe, and found a fascinating delight in disposing of the books as he read them – putting them in bins or recycling containers, or throwing them out of the train window.)

Perhaps we need to encourage people to sacrifice all the old books taking up room and make space for an Unknown Unknown?

However, Mark said he couldn’t possibly do without his library at home, but agreed that people are buying fewer books, and now being far more selective, tending towards buying print copies only of titles they wish to keep on their shelves, being happy to have the rest as eBooks, taking fewer risks with physical books.

The questions of storage, or possessing a physical book, was further explored following a question about the reading habits of teens. It was pointed out that, given the audience sitting in the Mostly Books garden, you could accuse an event with an author and bookseller as simply 'preaching to the converted'. Today's kids are growing up 'digital natives', and whilst an older generation might wax lyrical about 'the smell of books', etc. the next generation may not have that affinity to physical books - and instead may be more interested in social aspects of reading online - sharing favourite authors, snapchatting shots of reading the current 'must-read', reading from Wattpad, and even writing fan fiction.

The question was perhaps left unanswered, although Mark Thornton explained that at a number of recent events at secondary schools a common phrase heard was 'I've got it on my Kindle'. This seems like the perfect 'talk to the hand' teenage response to quickly shut down any discussion about whether they might want to engage with the book at all - particularly in front of peers where it might not be cool. Whether the book was already on their Kindle - and more importantly, whether it had been read - goes to the heart of possibly a new kind of consumerist experience, that of having 'experienced' the book socially without actually having read it. As social buzz about books explodes, and 'fear of missing out' is almost classified as a psychological condition, the form of response is perhaps understandable. You can only read so many books.

Forces combined: Mostly Books and Abingdon Library
jointly welcomed Rachel Joyce and  'The Unlikely
Pilgrimage of Harold Fry' in 2012

There were other questions from the audience: in an age of austerity, surely more people should be using libraries, so did bookshops see libraries as competitors? Both Marks categorically agreed 'no'. Independent bookshops and libraries were natural partners, and research has shown that more library users in a community means more book buyers, because of an overall rise in the level of a love of books. It is interesting to note that libraries are facing their own existential threat - albeit for very different reasons.

So, if Independent Booksellers Week is all about visiting a physical bookshop, what can bookshops do to make people want to head to their local high street to visit them? How can we get more people to want to discover their next Unknown Unknown on the high street?

Mark Forsyth definitely felt that curating the stock choice, with fewer bestsellers, fewer celebrity biographies – and less room for coffee and more room for books, were definitely on his wishlist for the bookshop of the future.

Mark Thornton agreed that bookshops needed to keep at the very top of their game in terms of events and curation, services and community. But he also agreed with one audience member who said that, ideally, readers would have the best of both worlds: eBooks and physical, High Street and the Internet. But the economics of being on the High Street does represent a real and present 'Reality Gap' that may not be overcome.

Whatever we feel about independent bookshops, the figures tell their own story.
In the past 10 years, the number of independent booksellers in Britain has halved. More than 500 independent outlets have shut since 2005. Last year 67 local bookshops closed, leaving 987 still trading – the first time it has fallen below 1000.

The story is not the same all over the world. In France booksellers cannot discount French-language books by more than 5 per cent below the list price and there are grants and loans available to those looking to start up bookstores. France has 2,500 bookstores, with e-books counting for just 1.8 per cent of the market.

As the number of bookshop closures mean the distance between independents grows ever larger, some bookshops have turned themselves into multi-purpose outlets (from cafes to chocolate concessions, ice-cream parlours to creches), or even community bookshops run by volunteers, just to survive and to find a way to keep physical bookselling alive when the economics say otherwise.

The book world continues to evolve at a bewildering pace. Last week author James Patterson announced that he is offering a grant available to keep bookshops going. This has caused a perhaps surprising number of our customers to enquire whether things are really that bad for bookshops. Will it be only through the support of grants that they can continue to provide much loved services, as bookshops are no longer terribly robust businesses? Are we saying the French model is not only desirable, but essential?

Are indie bookshops like elephants: we all love them, we'd hate them to disappear from the wild, but commercial realities are causing more of them to disappear and in the end - and, you know, the world won't end if they do.

Looking at the figures it is hard not to conclude that in a very few short years the preferred way of the personal reading of fiction is very fast becoming digital - and the preferred way of discovering new reads and authors is online. 

Is it because there are fewer and fewer bookshops around, or is it more to do with the fact that as we lead busier and busier lives, something like browsing in a bookshop is a luxury we no longer find the time for? Or are we genuinely falling out of love with print books, except as gifts? And are we falling out of love with bookshops?

If browsing is a dying art, then here is a recent experience that may offer a way forward.
A few weeks ago, a local English teacher brought in a dozen of her pupils (boys aged 14-15) to buy something challenging and different for their Summer reading, outside the usual YA genre. The experience was nothing short of amazing. We were challenged to select and display a range of new books and authors, we spoke to them about the skill in selecting a book in a bookshop:'How to Browse 101'. Sullen faces and closed body-language evaporated as a genuine excitement about choosing books was turbo-charged with one-on-one conversations - and even customers joined in. It was one of those pieces of magic in a bookshop that we would love to replicate with other schools next year.

In one hour, all the strengths of a bookshop - community, education, physicality, passion, enthusiasm, expertise, curation - came together to produce a moment of real and lasting value. This is, in our opinion, what IBW is attempting to do, a great way of giving people an opportunity to try to find some time to think about bookselling on the high street - and to find an unexpected new book to read.

As IBW draws to a close for another year it is always worth reminding people that bookselling is a joy and a privilege – helping people discover new books and authors from our side of the counter is something we love to do. Providing a community hub for people to meet and engage with books feels like something worthwhile.

We're fortunate at Mostly Books to have an amazing, and diverse, range of hugely supportive customers. They are as likely to be in the shop, discovering new titles, when the snow is piled high in January as when queues form out of the door on the last Saturday before Christmas. We also have seasonal visitors who - often with no independent near them - take the opportunity to visit, share and discover new books whilst travelling, or visiting family and friends.

We really hope High Street bookselling is something that continues to be enjoyed and appreciated.

Our sincere thanks to Mark Forsyth and Icon Books for organising the tour and for selecting us to be amongst some very august bookshops to host the visit during Independent Booksellers Week. Thanks also to the Bookseller's Association for their herculean efforts to make IBW happen.

If you still haven’t paid us a visit to celebrate then any time over the summer we will be pleased to see you – and hopefully you will also discover an Unknown Unknown to discover, to take home and treasure.

The Future of the Book with Mark Forsyth and IBW2014

Is it 'time up' for books and bookshops?
Photo credit: Scott Wishart

During Independent Booksellers Week (#IBW2014 from 28th June – 5th July) author and self-confessed ur-wordgeek Mark Forsyth (aka The Inky Fool and author of The Etymologicon, The Horologicon and The Elements of Eloquence) will be touring an independent bookshop every day to lead discussions about the importance of books and bookshops. Bookshops on the tour include Foyles in London, Red Lion Books in Colchester, Jaffé and Neale in Chipping Norton - and Mostly Books in Abingdon.

Mark will be in conversation with the other Mark, owner of Mostly Books, to talk fittingly enough about 'The Future of the Book'. The event takes place on Thursday July 3 at 7.30pm at Mostly Books.

As well as having exclusive early copies of the paperback of Mark's brilliantly subversive book on the rules of rhetoric 'The Elements of Eloquence', Mark has also written this year's exclusive essay for IBW entitled "The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted".

'The Unknown Unknown' will be available as a pamphlet from independent bookshops from 28th June. It will explore important questions such as why Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy would never have met online, as well as the pleasure of leafing through a dictionary and "why only a bookshop can give you what you never knew you were looking for”.

Mark explains why 'Bond, James Bond'
is far more memorable than
'My Name Is James Bond'...

Mark Forsyth said: “I firmly believe that the bookshop is alive and well with a long life ahead of it, and I intend to explain my reasoning on the night. [And] these being talks in bookshops – places that specialise in providing you with something you didn’t know you were looking for – I may also talk about something that you never knew you were interested in."

Come and listen to the two Marks and join in the discussion about the future of the book.

Tickets £3 which includes a glass of wine. Places will be limited - so please reserve your tickets by email, or call in at the shop...

(Find out more about the whole #IBW2014 tour with Icon Books here. And Mark is no stranger to Abingdon as you'll find here).

What Makes A Good Bookgroup Book? IBW event with Kate Clanchy and Louise Millar

What makes a good bookclub book? Is it a chance to read an author you wouldn’t have otherwise discovered? To provoke or to entertain? To divide opinion – or help to unite it?

On Wednesday 25 June at 7.30pm – as part of celebrations for Independent Booksellers Week – we’ve invited two dynamic, and very different, authors to Mostly Books to help us find out.

Louise Millar writes psychological thrillers, and Kate Clanchy is a poet and Costa-shortlisted author. Together they are going to debate the qualities that make a book that gets book-groups talking.

Louise Millar has published three novels and is making a name for herself as a writer who puts her characters in almost unbelievable situations – but also ones we can all imagine happening to us.

She began her journalism career in mainly music and film magazines, working as a sub-editor for Kerrang!, Smash Hits, the NME and Empire. She later moved into features, working as a commissioning editor at Marie Claire. Her books ‘The Playdate’ and ‘Accidents Happen’ have won huge critical acclaim for her combination of family drama and slow-building psychological suspense.

Her latest novel 'The Hidden Girl' is another taut, psychological thriller in which wife Hannah Riley and her musician husband move to Suffolk, and an idyllic life threatens to unravel - but are the increasingly sinister events Hannah is witnessing simply in her head?

Kate Clanchy was born and grew up in Scotland and now lives in Oxford. Her poetry collections have brought her many literary awards, she is the author of the much acclaimed Antigona and Me, and was the 2009 winner of the BBC Short Story Award. She has also written extensively for Radio 4. In 2011 she was appointed as the first Oxford City Poet to encourage the reading and writing of poetry in Oxford and the region.


Her Costa-shortlisted debut novel ‘Meeting the English’ is about a group of characters living in that quintessentially English borough of Hampstead, but whose backgrounds could not be more different. It’s a richly conceived, original and very entertaining social comedy about the lies we tell to fit in.

The two authors will be debating what makes a good bookgroup book – as well as talking about their own writing.

Even if you are not a member of a bookgroup, we promise an evening of lively discussion – and a celebration of a good read in the company of two writing talents. The event takes place at Mostly Books at 7.30pm, on Wednesday 25 June. Tickets are £3, to include a glass of wine.

Places will be limited – so please email to reserve your tickets, or call in at the shop.

Strictly Come Bookselling: Nosy Crow authors take-over Mostly Books!

On Saturday, July 6, Mostly Books will be handing over the shop keys to three amazing authors from fabulous children's publisher Nosy Crow. They will be running the shop, serving at the till, recommending their own favourite books and giving out writing advice, interviews, and doing story times. There will also be a chance to have afternoon tea with them.

We will be putting our feet up, drinking coffee and eating cake (OK, we might be on hand to give advice occasionally...).

During the day you will have the opportunity to:

• be served at the till by a real, live author!
• have afternoon tea with an author! (ticketed session – please book your place for this)
• have one-to-one advice, conduct an interview or get feedback on your writing! (Again, there are only a few slots available - please let us know if you would like us to book you a slot)
• win giveaways from Nosy Crow all day 

(If you want to book a place - email us with who you would like to meet)

Here is who you can expect to be standing behind the counter with cheery smiles and loads of bookselling advice on Saturday July 6th:

Paula Harrison is the author of the 'Rescue Princesses'. She was born in Bletchley (home of the wartime code-breakers!) and grew up in Bedfordshire. About becoming a writer, Paula says "I always said I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't actually get round to it for quite a long time". She trained to be a primary school teacher and spent many years teaching. It was only after having her own children that she became serious about writing. Then she met lovely publisher Nosy Crow, who liked the Rescue Princesses idea, and the rest is history...

Paula has visited Mostly Books before. As well as the Rescue Princesses, Paula has written 'The Faerie Tribes' for slightly older readers...

Fleur Hitchcock started writing when she was eight when she wrote a story about an alien and a jelly. It was called 'The Alien and the Jelly' and filled four exercise books! She later went on to study English in Wales, and, for the next twenty years, sold Applied Art in the city of Bath. She soon went back to her first love by taking a ‘Writing for Young People’ MA at Bath Spa where she graduated with a distinction. She now lives outside Bath where, as well as writing, she works as a toymaker, looks after other people's gardens and grows vegetables.

Her books include 'The Trouble With Mummies', 'Shrunk!' and 'Dear Scarlett'. She recently visited St Swithun's School, where she proceeded to mummify some of the children...

Helen Peters is the author of 'The Secret Hen House Theatre'. She grew up on an old-fashioned farm in Sussex, surrounded by family, animals and mud. She spent most of her childhood reading stories and putting on plays in a tumbledown shed that she and her friends turned into a theatre. After university, she realised that she needed to find a job where someone would pay her to read stories and put on plays (though maybe not in a tumbledown shed) and so she became an English and Drama teacher.

Several years later, finding herself as a stay-at-home mother of two, she decided to have a go at writing the sort of book she’d so enjoyed as a child. Now that 'Hen House' has been published to such critical acclaim, she can hardly believe that she now gets to call herself a writer...

It's all happening as part of Independent Bookseller's Week - a week to celebrate and support indie booksellers up and down the country. There's loads of events taking place - we hope you'll get involved and come and join us for this exciting event!

50 Shades of Bookselling

One of the most maddening things in the booktrade must be dealing with Independent Bookshops. Everyone seems to want to help us. Everyone - at some level - understands that independents deliver more value into the book supply chain: collectively we allow different books to be discovered and championed, we do 101 different things both in and outside the shop with events. Some work, some don't - but all create communities around books.

But it's so frustrating. Independents refuse to be neatly pigeonholed. They are all so, well, independent.

Which is why this week's Independent Bookseller's Week is such a great initiative. With fantastic support from publishers and authors (and, judging from this week's response, the wider public) it offers up a selection of initiatives, limited edition books, authors for events - even a bookshop song - which provides an umbrella under which we can do our crazy, independent activities which suit our shops.

Our big contribution this week has been a Where's Wally Hunt around town involving ten other local retailers - and we've had people discovering shops in Abingdon they never even knew existed. Hopefully a great example of local bookshops supporting their shopping ecosystems - a word used a lot with digital devices, but far more applicable when talking about the High Street...

All this week Malcolm Boyden on BBC Radio Oxford has been inviting indie booksellers on his show to talk about initiatives around Oxfordshire. I was very pleased to be invited to talk about Mostly Books - and Wally - on Tuesday. Until July 10, you can listen to me talk about the daily miracles wrought by independent booksellers here (you'll need to fast forward to 1 hour 19 minutes into the show).


Malcolm gamely posed for a shot with bookseller, shameless IBW T-Shirt and Wally:

On Wednesday we joined in with 'Independent's Day' - a countrywide retail initiative, which had us talking to shoppers, and tweeting their purchases online.

And we also announced our game-changing (we hope!) tie-up with Angry Robot - the Clonefiles Initiative. Basically, buy the book - get the eBook free. Read the book in whichever format you want. Very exciting and we'll see what the response is over the coming days...