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It will surprise no one that the most expensive signed copy of a first edition was The Tales of Beedle the Bard, hand written by J.K. Rowling in 2007. One of only seven copies, it sold for £1.95 million at auction. Some other all-time signature greats are an F. Scott...
Almost as long as humans have been writing, they have been writing about war. Factual or fictional, it was a reality for almost everyone. Storytelling bridged the gap for those who had experienced it, and those who hadn’t, allowing recognition, reflection and...
It’s November already! A great time of the year for reading, with plenty of new exciting reads to keep you going. As always, we have some fantastic events lined up for you and your family as we all move towards the end of 2019. In this week’s blog, we look at our...
Yes, it is nearly the end of the month, but what a fantastic October it’s been at Booka! On the 5th of October (which also just happened to be UK Bookshop Day) we celebrated our 10th Birthday, followed with a day of bookshop jazz on Sunday the 6th of October. It was a...
This is a milestone weekend for us. Booka is celebrating its 10th birthday on the 5th and 6th October with special events, activities, discounts and surprises. We would not be where we are today without you, our wonderful, loyal customers. So, if you are able, come...
Want to know about the future trends in bookselling? ‘The Bookseller’ is where the people in the know will look. Their website proudly declares them ‘at the heart of publishing since 1858’. Their regular conferences for editors, publishers, authors and booksellers are...
“If your car is stopped by the police in the US,” explained Louis to the Booka audience, “the best approach for a British person, is a sort of bumbling incompetence with a good measure of flattery. ‘Oh dear, I’m awfully sorry officer, I wasn’t speeding, was I? I was...
In the 1920’s a large family sat on a beach, getting burnt in the hot Norwegian sun. A mother, no father figure, half-brothers and sisters, and their fiancés, girlfriends and boyfriends, all occupied a slither of beach on one of Norway’s many thousand unoccupied...
There are some mild spoilers for The Handmaid’s Tale in this post. You have been warned! Do the ideas in dystopian novels ever become reality? It certainly seems so. When The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985 it seemed to hark back to 19th-century style female...
How can September be here already? The month that begins in summer and ends in autumn, and usually flies past. Most of us have done our summer holiday and are thinking about a return to routine for the last few months of the year. We hope you will make reading an...
In November 2018, scientists working in pristine Borneo rainforest announced a thrilling discovery. Deep in an uncharted cave system, a crude, reddish outline of a cow-like animal had been drawn on the wall of the cave. Tests revealed it was 40,000 years old. Earlier...
Maybe you’re off to your dream university course, or perhaps you’ve had a slight change of plans, but once you have fixed on your course and destination, it won’t be long before you’re thinking about packing. You may have a set reading list, but whether you are doing...
What a fantastic fortnight of authors! We have enjoyed a flurry of visits over the last couple of weeks at Booka, showcasing the great variety of new publishing this summer. Back in June, we introduced “Three to Read”, asking our visiting authors to give us three...
When August is being kind, it gives us warm weather, long evenings and hopefully a few days off. These are the days of reading outside, taking a book to the park and getting stuck into a summer bestseller. In the second of our monthly posts, we round up the new and...
This week saw the very last of the schools turn out their children for the long summer holiday. As exciting as this may be, with 30 full weekdays to fill (and there will be rain!), some trepidation is quite understandable. It will come as no surprise that at Booka we...
Do you and your children fancy a morning of non-stop fun with Konnie Huq? We are incredibly excited to welcome the record-breaking Blue Peter presenter to Booka on Tuesday 6th of August to introduce us to Cookie, the star from her brand-new children’s book, Cookie and...
In 1915, while war raged in Europe, two poets were walking in the woods. Their names were Robert Frost and Edward Thomas. When their paths through the trees came to forks, Thomas hesitated, not knowing which way to turn. Any decision made was regretted later, and he...
For booklovers, choosing what books to take on holiday can be the most important packing decision. Much more important than clothing, and only a close second to remembering the passports. Get it wrong and you could end up ploughing through something really tedious, or...
July is a great time for reading. Publishers are filling the shelves with great summer reads. Nights are light for evening reading. The summer holiday is hopefully just around the corner. So as July approaches, we take a look at some great reads for the upcoming...
Writers are a diverse group. Some plot meticulously, others redraft freely. Some collaborate with others; some write in complete isolation. But what do many successful writers have in common? They read. And if they don’t have much time to read now, they probably did...