Come and Meet Hugless Douglas!

On Tuesday 2 August, we're inviting you to come along and meet the big bear with the big heart - Hugless Douglas!

The last time Douglas visited Mostly Books we had a fantastic time, with scorching weather and hot hugs in the garden.

For anyone who came along and had fun with The Gruffalo a few weeks ago, Douglas isn't scary at all, and there will definitely be hugs all round...

This time round, Douglas gets involved with some baking, and as usual, things don't got entirely to plan.

In 'Hugless Douglas and the Great Cake Bake' the sheep are baking cakes and Douglas can't wait to try them. However, he's sure that food without honey just isn't yummy. Can he ever be tempted to try something new?

There will be cupcake-making activities from the beginning of August - and on the day itself, Hugless will be making a special guest appearance. There will also be a book signing from award-winning author and illustrator (and creator of Hugless Douglas) David Melling.

We'd really love you to come along and transform our window with some brightly decorated cupcakes. There will be activities all week, and special prizes to win on the day itself. And there may even be the odd yummy treat to try if we're really lucky...

There is no need to book - but if you'd like more details of the event, including more details on timings closer to the day, please email us.

David Melling is an author who is an incredible talent of whom Abingdon can be particularly proud. Over ten years, David has taught children how to draw Hugless Douglas, told us about his writing life, produced masterpieces live over the Internet sat as a 'live window display' while he has worked and hosted a goblins party in Abingdon Library.

We'd love to see you on August 2 in our courtyard garden - and celebrate one of most endearing picture book characters!

It's been a Vintage Summer in more ways than one...

The end of August is always a good time to look back and reflect, before everyone has fully returned to school and the madness of Chr*stm*s starts to ramp up. But 2014 has been a Vintage Summer for us in more ways than one...

The gorgeous weather has meant that we've been able to do every single event since May in our beautiful courtyard garden, and our reading community have shared some very special moments with authors Alison Mercer, Bethan Roberts, Mark Forsyth, Louise Millar, Kate Clanchy and, yes, The Gruffalo. We've also been able to hold four bookgroup meetings in the garden as well...

Winning the 'Julia Donaldson Children's Independent Bookshop of the Month' for August meant a lot to us. We have had a lot of families in over the Summer, and we're looking forward to discovering (slightly nervously) how well our recommends went down over the long Summer holiday!

We also spent the whole of August celebrating Vintage Books - so if you did wonder what the weird, wonderful and, yes, 'vintage' items in the window were for the last month - now you know...

And we can't resist sharing a few pictures with you...

Our thanks to various family members for the props - and particularly to Oxfam just down the road who loaned us various delicate pieces for display!

We are still running our 'buy one, get another half-price' promotion mixing contemporary favourites such as William Boyd's 'Solo' with classics such as Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'... so if you haven’t had a chance to take a look at the great titles in this promotion, then you have one more week to enjoy!

If you need any inspiration for how to choose a good mix of interesting titles, for the whole of August we have been sharing our favourite Vintage titles with the hashtag #VintageSummer for young and old on Twitter - and we've collected all of them - and responses - in a single, storified, page.

Our bookgroups have been reading 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks and 'I Am Forbidden' by Anouk Markovits – why not choose a classic to curl up with as the nights start slowly to draw in?

This week is also the last chance to join in with our 'cover treasure hunt' - children need to identify eight Vintage titles from cover details for a chance to win a great prize from Vintage.

We kicked off our 'Vintage Summer' with author Bethan Roberts...

...and we'll be closing our Vintage Summer by supporting Lewis Dartnell with his book 'The Knowledge' at The Unicorn Theatre, just down the road in Abingdon on Thursday, September 4 with Science Oxford Live...

 

Why not come along and hear an interesting, erudite and witty debate on how to rebuild civilization in the event of an apocalypse? You never know when these things might come in handy...

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!