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Oh the places we will go…. Do you love a road trip? Tim and I do and given the chance we will jump in the car and head off on ‘the open road’ to track down ‘all the bright places’ and re-fill our creative reserves by visiting other villages, towns and cities. As...
Q: What do you do for a living? Me. I’m semi-retired but work part time in a bookshop. Q: Semi-retired! What did you do before? Me. I was in the Army. Q: What bit? Me. I joined The Light Infantry (my local regiment) at 16 yrs old then transferred to The Army Air Corps...
Fiction: The Night Ship by Jess Kidd Based on a real-life event, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars, that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, over three hundred years...
It’s the holiday season. Time to……..relax. This is the moment I have waited for over the last 3 years – a long overdue and very welcome return to one of our ‘Happy Places’ – the idyllic Cycladic Island of Santorini. I have arrived in paradise – blue skies, crystal...
This month, The Crime Writers Association has named Booka their Bookshop of the Month! Bestselling Crime Author and CWA Board Member, Vaseem Khan interviewed Tim to find out all about Booka’s journey, read all about it below: Behind Tim Morris’s shoulder...
Fiction Book of the Month – The Halfways by Nilopar Uddin Nasrin and Sabrina are two sisters, who on the face of things live successful and enviable lives in London and New York. When their father, Shamsur suddenly dies, they rush to be with their mother at the...
Ever since I was little, I’ve loved writing stories. My first-ever book was one I stapled together from printer paper and painstakingly illustrated it myself. It was about a worm, called “He Will”, who liked helping his friends (hence his name,...
It’s 8am on Monday, the dog needs walking and it looks like I may not manage my early morning run, again. But at least I won’t be stuck in traffic. All you need to be a publisher is a laptop, a desk, and somewhere to put lots and lots of boxes of books. Plus wonderful...
Forward – until the future, whatever it was going to beApologies to anyone who saw me shedding a tear on the train recently. I wasn’t poorly, I wasn’t homesick – no I’d just finished Emma Straubs heartwarming and hopeful ‘This Time Tomorrow’ – it’s...
As a child growing up in the noughties, I very rarely got to see myself in the books I read. There certainly weren’t books with characters like me on display in the school library or available in bookshops. In the shadow of Section 28, and before the...
June Book of the Month – Fiction You made a Fool of Death with your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to live again. It’s been five years since the accident which killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now — an artist with her...
Gooday and a friendly ‘hello’ from Booka’s newest bookseller! I joined the team at the end of March from what I believed would be a lifelong career in teaching. But as usual, life has its way of throwing curveballs at you when you least expect it. Teaching I qualified...
My Miracle Morning Are you an owl or a lark? I’m definitely a lark. My Grandad had an annoying habit of knocking on our door at some shockingly early hour on a Sunday and would remonstrate with us that we had ‘missed half the day’ if he found we were still in bed. ...
Here at Booka, we believe in the power and joy of books. Our aim with Booka Book of the Month is to read eclectically, unconstrained by genre. Our selection is made up of exciting storytelling from writers we want to shout about. It is a mix of dazzling debuts, tales...
As a result of the last couple of years we’ve been reflecting on our ‘purpose’ and re-examining who we are and what we do. Experiential bookselling is embedded in the Booka DNA. We don’t rely on algorithms, we are here and present for you – a physical bookshop...
Books and chocolate are a match made in heaven. I think we are all agreed that you can’t have one without the other and the Easter weekend is the perfect time to indulge (with a capital ‘I’) in both. We don’t sell Easter eggs (although we do stock some delectable...
As a bookseller faced with so many books to read, there are often books which don’t quite make it to the top of your TBR (To Be Read) pile, not because they don’t deserve your attention, but simply the pressure to read other books means they get usurped by the latest...
Reading Outside Your Comfort Zone One of the great delights of getting older is knowing exactly what you enjoy and refining your choices accordingly. But, as we get comfortable, there is always that danger of missing out on something we’ve written off as not for us....
My earliest memories are of books and words. I remember looking at Postman Pat picture books with my mum, hunting for Jess the cat. I remember coming home from reception class on Fridays clutching the little tin filled with paper cut out words, which I would excitedly...
Life as a Bookseller is never dull and no two days are ever the same. The variety and versatility of what we do is part of why we do it, but I don’t know whether the sheer physicality of the role is understood until people experience it. Here is a snapshot of one of...