21st August Newsletter
What’s On At Veranda
Welcome, welcome! At the risk of making this newsletter read like the ‘notices’ portion of a school assembly, let us commence with a couple of items of housekeeping.
Firstly, we’ve got a new phone number! Put us on speed dial and give us a call with orders, questions, or any snippets of gossip you think might amuse us. 07379 375503
Secondly, a correction – in last week’s piece on bookshop.org, we included the wrong link. The correct url is bookshop.org
Well worth a visit!
And…breathe! We’ll let you get back to our weekly comings and goings – wishing you all cooler and relaxing weekends and hope to see you soon.
Shop News
This week’s happenings…
Always a pleasure to host writers at Veranda and hear more about their work and lives – but an evening with a debut writer always feels particularly special. So we were delighted to launch Pia Ghosh-Roy’s debut And I Am The Arrow into the world on Thursday evening; a full house and a real buzz, with the rosé in full flow this felt like pure celebration. Ten years in the making, Pia talked about how the characters in the story had evolved and shape shifted over time. When asked in the Q&A if they were based on real people, she answered atypically for a debut novelist and said they were “all totally made up!”
And on Wednesday, we had a visit from American writer Angela Flournoy with her lovely family in tow. Angela’s novels which capture family and friendship drama in big cities from LA to Detroit and New York have garnered serious praise in the US, with fans including Tayari Jones, Brit Bennett and Barack Obama – and deserve a wider audience here. We have signed copies of The Wilderness and The Turner House in stock now!
Veranda Kids - our dedicated children’s section
A haven for junior bookworms, busy parents, and those in need of last-minute birthday presents, our kids’ section at the back of the shop is overflowing with carefully-selected books for all ages from new-born to young adult. Here you’ll find recommendations, guidance on age-appropriateness, and everything from children’s classics to picture books and non-fiction. We curate our selection really carefully and always try to stock books you may not find elsewhere – especially translations and stories from and about other places.
With so many kids books on the market, we rely heavily on specialist publishers we know and trust – here are some of our favourites:
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Usborne – family business, set up in 1973, many of us have grown up with Usborne Books. Founder, the late Peter Usborne, said their books should be “good enough to eat” – and they really do look delicious. We love their reference books (especially atlases), and beautifully illustrated books for younger readers, as well as their sticker and activity books
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Nosy Crow – responsible for most of our brightly coloured board books for younger readers, though we rate Nosy Crow’s books for all ages up to about 12. UK-based, independent, and committed to high-quality, sustainable publishing, and with great partnerships, such as their tie-in with the British Museum.
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Pushkin Children’s Books – this is our go-to publisher for high-quality classic and contemporary writing from around the world. We recommend these books for adventurous readers and those looking for something a bit magical. Dim Sum Palace by X Fang is one of our bestsellers, and José Mauro de Vasconcelos’ Brazilian classic My Sweet Orange Tree inspires nostalgia in parents from all around the world
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Barefoot Books – founded by two young mothers in 1992, is now a serious publisher – but still with a friendly and homemade feel. Their books act as “windows and mirrors to our world” – we particularly like their books about other countries and the lives of children elsewhere, and they produce bilingual books in several languages if this is something you’d like us to source
Now Booking
Evenings with Juan Pablo Villalobos 🇲🇽 and Anne Pauly 🇫🇷
We’re already looking ahead to October, with our first events of the month now booking.
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2nd October 6.30pm – we’re excited to welcome Mexican writer Juan Pablo Villalobos to the shop to hear more about his latest novel, The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves (tr. Daniel Hahn), a fast-paced, funny take on the whodunnit – which also raises questions about home: about what changes, what doesn’t and what should. JP will be in conversation with writer and arts critic Lucy Popescu, and we’d love you to join us for a Friday evening of conversation and informal drinks
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6th October 6.30pm – debut novelist Anne Pauly will be joining us to celebrate the English language translation of her book Before I Forget, a tragicomic portrait of loss, as our narrator reflects on the loss of her father, a man of many faces. Writer and critic Oonagh Devitt Tremblay will be leading the conversation with Anne, and the novel’s translator, Dina Leifer, and the evening is supported by the Institut Français de Royaume-Uni (Merci, IF!)
A reminder that tickets are also on sale for an evening with Phoebe Greenwood and Nosheen Iqbal, and for September’s book clubs with Leo (In Translation) and Alison (Non-Fiction). Click the link below for more details, or come and chat to us at the shop!
Our Recommended Reads
The Old Man By The Sea by Domenico Starnone (tr. Oonagh Stransky)
Leo read The Old Man By The Sea by lauded Italian novelist Domenico Starnone (tr. Oonagh Stransky).
An ageing writer, Nicola (Nico) retreats to an idyllic seaside town south of Rome, hoping to banish his writers block and start work on his long-nascent new novel.
When he befriends a 20-year-old local shop girl, Lu, he is prompted to revisit his mother’s life, and in turn, his wider family. As he reflects on hid past, he starts to unpick a long, and perhaps not so well-lived life, to his mind, at least.
What follows is a reflective take on how to understand one’s personal story, and in the case of Nico, create art from that. Switching between brief, observational ‘writing exercise and unmediated first-person narration, this is a book about family, of course (would we expect less from this celebrated Neapolitan writer?), reckoning with one’s past and making peace with the present moment, irrespective of which point in your life you may find yourself.
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams
This week, Emily has inhaled the Booker Prize-longlisted novel The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams. At its heart, this is an unconventional love story set on a university campus but its experimental, diary-like form makes it unlike anything I’ve read before. The writing is exquisite and unique and the world the author has created feels almost like a glimpse into a possible dystopian future, a crumbling university town that is becoming overrun by vegetation left to rot and grow wild.
Agathe, the narrator, is an extremely cynical young woman who seemingly has no beliefs or hope in life. Living with her uncle and spending each day working as a personal assistant to a professor she has no respect for, Agathe is tasked with befriending Adam (a foreign student who gets into a heated conflict with a young professor) and relaying her conversations with him back to her boss.
The dark strangeness of this novel is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In A Castle, at once feeling like a classic gothic novel, but also something very futuristic. A haunting novel that lingers way beyond the last page.
What we’re loving this week…
Emily has been in a constant state of near-melting due to heatwave number 3,568 and decided to take herself off to Parliament Hill Lido on Monday. It was amazing to feel a sense of being on holiday with sun, swim and book reading being the order of the day. This may become the new norm, watch this space!
Leo has been watching The Shards on Disney+. Another book-to-TV adaptation – what would the streaming industry do without great books?
Adapted in collaboration with the writer Bret Easton Ellis, watch for the scenic LA backdrop and maximal 80s shiny glamour, but be warned. There’s a dark horror side to this tale, so don’t watch immediately before bedtime.
Alison saw Tony, the newly-released film about Anthony Bourdain’s pivotal summer as a potwash in a Provincetown restaurant. He’s there to lick his wounds after failing to clinch a writing scholarship – and in hope of sealing the deal with his school-days crush Nancy. Dominic Sessa is brilliant as Bourdain, lurching from parties to punch-ups before seeing the light, courtesy of Antonio Banderas.
On the small screen, she watched the documentary, 25 Years In Afghanistan which follows the travails of one family – and most notably, their son, Mir – who in 2001 had fled their home village to live in a cave in the Bamiyan Valley. In this outstanding film, Western involvement in Afghanistan waxes and wanes, before withdrawing completely, and through it all, ordinary Afghans continue to face the consequences. An eye-opening, if sobering watch. (On ITVx)
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