13th March Newsletter
What’s On At Veranda
Shop News
London Book Fair 2026
Literacy is the only map that leads to an open mind – Joanna Prior, CEO PanMacmillan
- Alison heard Joanna Prior give a galvanising keynote speech addressing the reading crisis in the UK – she argued that the decline in reading is a bigger threat to the publishing industry than AI
- Leo enjoyed listening to Sylvia Whitman, owner of the iconic Shakespeare & Co bookshop in Paris. She spoke about how taking over the business in her early 20s had reignited her relationship with her formerly estranged father, George, who founded the shop in 1951. A fascinating talk.
- At an English PEN panel discussion about the removal of books from libraries and schools (a US-led trend which we must resist here in the UK), the team were shocked to learn that there is no statutory requirement in the UK for schools to have libraries. Reminder: the government have declared 2026 the National Year of Reading. (Write to your MP now!)
- An intimate dinner to launch Two Lines Press in the UK, an initiative from the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco, and coming to the UK this year – a fantastic addition to the literary translation landscape
- A drinks reception to celebrate Anglo-French literary endeavours held Chez L’Ambassadrice. We were invited by the Institut Français, a beacon of French culture here in London.
- A very chatty get-together hosted by the Booksellers Association, who support independent bookshops in the UK & Ireland. An invaluable resource for us, and some of the nicest people we could hope to work with!
Asia Month at Veranda
- Making a Whore by Vũ Trong Phung (tr. Ðinh Ngoc Mai) Published in Vietnamese in 1936, this is a surprisingly transgressive look at sexual standards and the stigma around promiscuity
- Parallels by Vũ Ðinh Giang (tr. Khai Q. Nguyen) Widely considered to be the best piece of Vietnamese gay fiction – and the first to reach us in an English translation. Two young men find themselves caught up in a relationship replete with betrayal . If you love the work of Édouard Louis, this is for you.
Now Booking
Evenings with Erin Somers and Anna Pazos
Back-to-back events in an already busy week seemed like madness – and yet, it all fell into place, as we hosted Erin Somers on Wednesday and Anna Pazos on Thursday.
Erin’s stellar second novel, The Ten Year Affair spoke of marital malaise among a millennial crowd, relocated to the suburbs from Brooklyn, and feeling disappointed with where life had brought them. In a really excellent conversation with psychoanalyst Juliet Rosenfeld, topics included our ‘sacred inner world’, the perils of writing about sex, and the universal pressures of staying together. Juliet is herself a published author – our admiration for last year’s much-discussed book Affairs: True stories of love, life, hope and despair, meant she was our first choice to interview Erin.
Killing The Nerve has been a Veranda bestseller since its publication in September last year (and a Recommended Read in our first newsletter), so imagine our delight when Anna Pazos, in town for the Book Fair, stayed an extra night just for us! Anna’s humour and honesty as a writer came shining through in her conversation with journalist Susie Mesure, and a highly excitable crowd, which included Anna’s publishers Foundry Editions and her translators Laura McGloughlin and Charlotte Coombe, enjoyed the wine and the chat until way past closing time.
If you haven’t been to a Veranda Event yet, you’ve been missing out! Check the website or the events board at the shop – we’ll be taking a break for most of April, but May promises to be very busy, and we don’t want you to miss out!
Our Recommended Reads
Laws of Love and Logic by Debra Curtis
Celia says: A beautifully written story addressing the ‘What if?’ questions of life. It’s a love story about whether you can have two great loves. Tragedy strikes when Lily turns 18 which then alters the course of what she expected for her life. From young girlhood in the 1970s up until the present day, it flows through Lily’s heartaches and the joys of family life. Debra Curtis weaves interesting details about ornithology, Catholicism and quantum physics through the book. A thoroughly engrossing read right to the last page!
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (tr. Ralph Parker)
Yasmin says: I raced through this portrayal of the brutal reality of life in Stalin’s Russia (an era I’d enjoyed studying at school). The book captures the life of an average prisoner in a prison camp. What I enjoyed most was the fact that everything written happened in the course of just one day, which reminded me of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark, which takes place between midnight and dawn. Both of these novellas had me gripped due to their fast-paced storylines – quick reads, but deceptively rich.
What we’re loving this week…
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