When is it?
Saturday the 15th-Saturday the 22nd of June!
What’s going on?
- Free £5 National Book Token Voucher! – get one free when you spend £15 or more!
- Free exclusive Oi Frog & Friends tote bag – get one when you spend £10 or more!
- Type on our Public Typewriter! – to celebrate the release of the brilliant book Notes From a Public Typewriter all week we’ll be hosting a Public Typewriter, simply call in and use it type whatever you like (within reason!) and what you type may be used in future publications! Drop in to take part!
- Go on a Bear Hunt around our arcade & the town centre – completely free – you can win posters, stickers & be in with a chance of winning a We’re Going on Bear Hunt Backpack & Big Book! Find the bears hidden in shops & cafes near us to take part & win! Great family friendly fun! (Similar format to our Where’s Wally Hunt last year!)
- Free Goody Bags for Children – all children visiting the shop will recieve a free goody bag with any purchase – goody bags will include stickers, World Book Day books, posters, activity sheets and more! Lucky dip!
Bookshop on Tour – with Summer Reads at Caffe Marconi’s Bubbles & Books Event on the 18th of June 7:30pm-9:30pm tickets are £10 per person and include a glass of prosecco and slice of pizza! Georgia will be showcasing a selection of the best summer reads, perfect for holidays or relaxing at home. Tickets are available from Caffe Marconi – please call in to them to get tickets or contact them for more information https://www.caffemarconi.co.uk/contact-us/ .
Author event on the 22nd of June 3pm-5pm with Liz Flanagan the author of Dragon Daughter! We’re ending Indpendent Bookshop Week with a bang on the 22nd. Dragon Daughter is a fabulous fantasy adventure, aimed at roughly 9-12s+ (but of course it would be suitable for some younger/older children & adults too!). It is set on the imaginary island of Arcosi, where servant girl Milla witnesses a murder and finds herself caring for the last four dragon eggs. As unrest spreads across the island, who can she trust? Find out more here: http://lizflanagan.co.uk/dragon-daughter
Why is it important?
Independent Bookshops are wonderful sanctuaries for books and readers of all kinds. Our individuality and passion mean we’re all very different, with lots of exciting things to discover in each individual indie, but we’re all united by a love of stories and books that runs through everything we do. Sadly Independent Bookshops (along with other Highstreet businesses) have had a tough time in recent times. From the 90s Independent Bookshop numbers had more than halved, suffering a 20 year decline until 2017. Where our numbers increased overall by one (also the year we opened, but so did others!) making our total number only 868 across the whole of the UK & Ireland. In 2018 our numbers rose again to 883, but it is still a far cry from the 1,894 independent bookshops in 1995. There’s a long way to go to increase Independent Bookshop numbers further but it’s amazing that they are increasing! We add diversity, inclusion, community and a lot more to the Highstreet and I believe deserve to be valued and loved. Where else can you live many lives, visit worlds unknown, realise new truths about our own and learn about yourself without ever leaving the chair! (Ok there are other places like the library, but in an indie the books are a lovingly curated selection!) You can take all that home, and you can get personal suggestions from a bookseller who’s passionate about what they do. We can even track down books & order them in the next day. We host author events, back books that aren’t just prize winners and promote reading in children. We do lots more too but I won’t go on. I reckon all Independent Bookshops are great, indispensible and too rare! That’s why a week celebrating all of our awesomeness is amazing! And it would be nothing without all of our wonderful customers coming through the doors and celebrating with us! In fact we would be nothing at all without you guys! We hope you can join us!
You could even go on a Bookshop Crawl and visit more than one indie! We’ll all have different amazing things going on! If you’d like to find a bookshop near you or new ones to visit you can find ALL of them here:
https://www.booksellers.org.uk/bookshopsearch
And if you can’t celebrate Independent Bookshop Week with us we’ll be celebrating our second birthday on the 13th & 14th of July! More details to follow!
*All giveaways – vouchers, tote bags, goody bags etc. are whilst stocks last and will be on a first come first served basis!
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