Eliza Graham

The longer I do this job, the more I sneakily suspect that lots of booksellers have a secret hankering to be authors. Which probably won't ever happen - so the next best thing is to feel that you have discovered a famous author - who then goes on to be extremely successful. Now, I can't claim that we discovered Eliza Graham - Macmillan New Writing did that - but I'm dead chuffed that we got to know Eliza earlier this year, picked Playing With The Moon for the front table when it first came out, did it for our bookgroup, then watched delighted (and slightly smugly) as it was picked for the Books to Talk about shortlist. We then ran a wonderful event during the Arts Festival just before the shortlist was announced. Anyway, when Eliza asked if she could launch her new book Restitution at Mostly Books, we were delighted. Eliza herself has already blogged about the event - so my apologies for the tardiness in getting our report online (particularly remiss given it was such a wonderful event). Restitution is a very powerful novel, dealing with themes familiar to fans of PWTM - seismic events in war-time that still resonate years late, buried secrets and their slow uncovering as the novel progresses. Stylistically the book is also similar, splitting as it does between a number of time periods both before and after the war. But the similarities end there. Restitution - I feel - shows the author more confidently tackling bigger and more challenging themes (something you want to see in a favourite writer) even if - as here - the themes of hatred, retribution, the terrible cost particularly on women at the end of the Second World War - do not make easy reading. Here, Eliza talks about some of the motivations she had for writing the novel:

What I particularly liked about the launch was the mix of people who attended - family and friends of Eliza, and fans of Eliza who have discovered the book through us. It was a lovely atmosphere, and we really appreciated the opportunity to host this very special evening in the shop.

Utter madness

No, not the nationalisation of the US banking system, but rather the ever-so slightly ridiculous number of events that we've got coming up in the next two weeks. Having had a packed schedule over the Summer, we haven't done ourselves any favours by organising a load of events coming up in the next few weeks. But it's what we like to do - so we can hardly complain when they stack up like Heathrow on a Friday evening. Anyhoo, we've got some corking events coming up in the next few months (take a look at our events page for more details) but the next couple of weeks will be full, culminating in six events in two days next Wednesday/Thursday (which even by our standards is possibly overdoing it). Here goes. Everything kicks off tomorrow evening as Alison, Nicki and I put on our best bib and tucker and bowl up to the Natural History Museum for the Bookseller Retail Awards. We have been shortlisted for Children's Bookshop of the Year, and - like the British Book Industry Awards back in May - this is the first time we've ever been to these awards. Expect a full report after the event... It's the Gardners Trade Show this weekend in Warwick - and once we make it back from there next week begins in earnest. On Wednesday 24th September, we have our Wednesday morning bookgroup meeting at 10.30. Good luck to Ali who is taking over the group from Anu (who, I am delighted to report, had a bouncing baby girl - Marissa Joy - on 6th September - Mum and baby doing very well). From 3pm-5pm, there will be a signing by bare-knuckle boxing legend Paddy Monaghan. And if you are wondering why we have a bare-knuckle boxer signing copies of his memoirs in the shop (after all, it doesn't sound like one of our events), it might help to know that Paddy grew up in Abingdon, and famously used to host visits by his friend Muhammed Ali who visited his council house in Saxton Road in the 70s and 80s. To know how he got to know Ali, and why Ali visited so often - come meet the man and read his book... Wednesday evening we are hosting the book launch of Eliza Graham's novel Restitution, the follow-up to her successful debut novel Playing With The Moon. Like her first novel, Restitution is being published by Macmillan New Writing, and they have done a cracking job with the book design - I'm desperately carving out time to read it ahead of next Wednesday. I'm looking forward to meeting MNW's commissioning editor Will Atkins who will be there - and if anyone would like to come along to the launch, please get in touch quickly and let me know. That's Wednesday. On Thursday, samurai sword-wielding children's author Chris Bradford will be doing his martial art stuff at Larkmead School in front of the whole of year 7. Then at 4pm, we celebrate the launch of our after-school reading club when David Melling reads from his new book The Star-faced Crocodile. It's then our bookgroup in the evening. Throw in the odd storytime, a committee meeting and one Harvest Festival to attend at Alex's new school (just to get the old work-life balance sorted) and you can see it's a busy old time. But fun as always. (On another note, I've just returned from a fantastic evening spent with the WI up at Wootton, where they kindly let me waffle on about the bookshop for half an hour. As part of the evening, the ladies brought in old books to look at, with me awarding a prize for the most interesting. I awarded it for the original - get this - 1780 edition of Paradise Lost. Incredible to hold a book like that in your hands...without white gloves).