Independent Booksellers' Week 2013

It's finally arrived - Independent Booksellers' Week 2013 begins today.  The window is festooned for the occasion and we've just announced details of how you could win a £50 National Book Token in a few easy steps.

1 - Come into Look into Books

2 - Pick up a form

3 - Write a review of your favourite bok from the IBW Book Award Shortlist.  The adults' category shortlisted books are:
A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki
Behind the Beautiful Flowers - Katherine Boo
Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
Capital - John Lanchester
Flight Behaviour - Barbara Kingsolver
HHhH - Laurent Binet
The Etymologicon - Mark Forsyth
The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce
Walking Home - Simon Armitage

In the children's category, the shortlisted titles are:
Dear Scarlett - Fleur Hitchcock
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever - Jeff Kinney
Gangsta Granny - David Walliams
Maggot Moon - Sally Gardner
Matilda's Cat - Emily Gravett
Oh No, George! - Chris Haughton
Socks - Nick Sharratt & Elizabeth Lindsay
The Secret Hen House Theatre - Helen Peters
The Sacrifice - Charlie Higson
WARP: The Reluctant Assassin
White Dolphin - Gill Lewis
Wonder - RJ Palacio

4 - Return the form to us by 7th August 2013.  Winners will be notified by 7th September.  Good luck!

Book of the Week - The Quarry

This week, we pay tribute to Iain Banks by choosing his final novel, The Quarry to be our book of the week.

Kit doesn't know who his mother is. What he does know, however, is that his father, Guy, is dying of cancer. Feeling his death is imminent, Guy gathers around him his oldest friends - or at least the friends with the most to lose by his death.

Paul - the rising star in the Labour party who dreads the day a tape they all made at university might come to light; Alison and Robbie, corporate bunnies whose relationship is daily more fractious; Pris and Haze, once an item, now estranged, and finally Hol - friend, mentor, former lover and the only one who seemed to care. But what will happen to Kit when Guy is gone? And why isn't Kit's mother in the picture? As the friends reunite for Guy's last days, old jealousies, affairs and lies come to light as Kit watches on.

Book of the Week - Judith Kerr's Creatures

A lavishly illustrated retrospective in celebration of the 90th birthday of Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and many other iconic books. Her story begins with the extraordinary events of her early childhood in Berlin, dramatically cut short by the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party in 1933. Judith tells of her family's struggles with language and money, and what it was like to be a German refugee in London during the war.

We see her early attempts at drawing and writing; her sketches and work from art school, and her textile designs from her first job. We hear of her life-changing meeting with her future husband, the scriptwriter Nigel Kneale, and her time at the BBC, first as a reader and then as a scriptwriter herself. Judith's career as a children's book writer and illustrator began after she had children, and over forty years on she is still producing classic picture books.

She is a rare and wonderful talent and this is a fascinating insight into the person behind the books that have been enjoyed by generations.

Book of the Week - Spook's Alice

Our book of the week for this week is one for the young and young at heart.  Local author Joseph Delaney returns with the latest installment in the Spooks collection.

A lot of dark stuff happened when I was young that I've never even told to my dearest friend, Tom Ward. Dark and scary things I hoped I had left behind for ever ...Over the years, Alice has fought evil side by side with the Spook and his apprentice, Thomas Ward. But now Alice is alone - in the realm of the dark.

And the creatures she has helped to banish there, now have the chance to take their revenge. Alice must seek the final weapon needed to destroy the Fiend for good. If she fails, the world will fall into despair and darkness.

If she succeeds, it means facing her own death at the hands of her dearest friend. But can she prevent the darkness from overtaking her over completely ...? The penultimate instalment of the Wardstone Chronicles follows Alice, Thomas Ward's loyal companion, to the most terrifying place of all.

Book of the Week - All That Is

A major new novel, his first work of fiction in seven years, from the universally acclaimed master and PEN/Faulkner winner: a sweeping, seductive love story set in the years after World War II. From his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. In a world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds that he fits in perfectly.

But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, and finally he meets a woman who enthrals him before setting him on a course he could never imagine for himself. Romantic and haunting, All That Is explores a life unfolding in an unforgettable world on the brink of change -- a dazzling, sometimes devastating labyrinth of love and ambition, a fiercely intimate account of the great shocks and grand pleasures of being alive.