National Bookshop Day 2017

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Get excited! In a little over a month we’ll be celebrating how amazing and magical bookstores are and would love to see all you book lovers here at Paperchain for Love Your Bookshop Day on Saturday the 12th of August.
We’ll have a few cheeky extras for you to enjoy in addition to our regular fabulous range and legendary staff so don’t miss out!

Come for a cup of tea and try some toothsome* literary treats that we’ll be whipping up and if you are looking for literary love you’re in luck!

We’ll be hosting ‘Blind dates with a book’ for you to have a shot at finding that perfect read, and we’re also breaking out our favourite vinyls for a variable soundtrack throughout the day, so bring along a favourite album, we’d love to hear what you’ve got!

And to further enable all our book-loving tragics, we’ll be posting a code on social media for you to use at the time of purchase for a cheeky little discount on the day.

See you all on August 12th, come and show us some love!

 

*It sounds made up however ‘toothsome’ is in fact real.

 

Stories for Winter

“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.”

-J RR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

As the nights turn cooler and the day’s light fades quicker than before, we turn inward to the worlds that lie between the covers of our books.

There is something wonderfully atmospheric at this time of year, as the leaves yellow and fall away from their branches and the skeletal arms of the tree become stark.

As nature changes we often search for books that compliment transformation of season, and while there are many to choose from, today we are going to share a few of our favourite cosy reads with you.

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Children’s Corner: Not Quite Narwhal

Unicorns, narwhals, rainbows and ice cream, Jessie Sima’s new book ‘Not quite Narwhal’ is the best Friday afternoon find we’ve had in awhile!
Check out the trailer below!

 

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Jessie Sima grew up unaware that she was an author-illustrator. Once she figured it out, she told her family and friends. They took it quite well. Not Quite Narwhal is her very first book.

Curiosity House and other stories

It is a beautiful moment indeed when, browsing along the bookshelves, I come across an unfamiliar novel, when an intriguing cover draws me in and I find within a story that matches it perfectly. Though we are all aware of the proverb ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, it is an inevitably unconscious act for many people and often as good a basis as any for selecting which book, out of millions, is going to be the next world that we enter.

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Literary love: The Happy Reader

When I’m not reading books, or selling them, I’m most likely talking about books, to everyone and anyone who will listen. One of the many joys of working at Paperchain is being surrounded by book lovers who will happily share their latest reading adventures with me. So I was thrilled to discover The Happy Reader, a new voice in this lively literary discussion.

The Happy Reader is a quarterly publication brought out by Penguin UK in conjunction with the British magazine Fantastic Man. Each issue is divided into two sections: the first part features a rambling, conversational interview with an interesting subject about their reading life; the second part is a dossier of articles based around a Penguin Classic.

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The first issue came out in 2014, with Dan Stevens (of Downton Abbey fame) appearing on the cover. In the interview, Stevens talks about reading books that were published between 1912 and 1918 — the period in which Downton Abbey is set — to gain a deeper knowledge of the times, as well as his experience of judging the Booker Prize in 2012. Subsequent issues have featured actor Alan Cumming, musicians Kim Gordon and Grimes, and comedian Aziz Ansari. Continue reading

Book Review: Gotham by Nick Earls

Gotham_FCGotham is the brief but compelling story of Jeff Foster, an Australian freelance Rolling Stone music reporter, and his all-nighter gambit with up-and-coming rap icon Na$ti Boi in the streets of New York. Beginning with the meet-cute at an after-hours Bloomingdales, Jeff witnesses the many layers of the rapper, whose outward self-confidence, displayed in his profound lyrical profanity, belies his fear and insecurity, glimpsed as he rifles through four pairs of Alexander Wang cargo pants. Standing stoically alongside Na$ty Boi is Smokey, his golden-grilled manager whose wife is in labour with their second child. Between controlled and placating exchanges with his charge Na$ti Boi, Smokey and Jeff bond over their experiences of the joys and trials of parenthood — a sharp contrast to the crack-sniffing Na$ti Boi who demands a visit to his semi-regular lady, an Ivy League pornstar, followed by a beef Wellington for dinner.

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Children’s Corner

Picture books are the first leap into the world of reading for most children, so we’re always on the look out for good quality, quirky stories that will be loved by children and adults alike. The best picture books transport us to different worlds through their richly imagined stories and evocative illustrations, and teach us about others and ourselves with wisdom and humour. Here are a few new stories that have enthralled and delighted us.

A Beginners Guide to Bear Spotting

by Michelle Robinson

There are many different types of bears, and if you want to look for some you need to be prepared. This amusing story is told in the form of a tongue-in-cheek guide to finding bears, and then getting away from them. This book is sure to inspire children to explore the world around them with curiosity and an adventurous spirit.

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