Skip to main content

Reeve&McIntyre Big Up Bookshops: The Portobello Bookshop, Edinburgh


Kevin loved Scotland - the shining lochs, the shortbread, the heather-covered mountains, the kindly people, the shortbread… He made several shortbread stops as he flew east from Islay, and of course he had to make a detour to the Tunnocks factory, but before too long he reached Edinburgh. It was the biggest city Kevin had ever flown over: he got a bit confused by all the streets and towers and turrets, and accidentally knocked the top off something called the Scott Memorial, but he didn’t think anybody noticed.



It turned out Edinburgh had a seaside bit called Portobello, with a wide sandy beach, and that was where he found The Portobello Bookshop. He landed outside, and bookseller Alice invited him for biscuits and questions.



Kevin: What is the best thing about being a bookseller?

Alice: The people I work with! It's always a pleasure going to the bookshop and working alongside such brilliant colleagues. Bookselling is also a very versatile and fulfilling job which allows you (and very much encourages you) to think creatively. And naturally, being able to find the perfect book for a customer is always joyful.

Kevin: What's one way you've tackled a problem that your bookshop has faced during the pandemic?

Alice: I’m not sure I can pinpoint a single problem - obviously the past year and a half has been challenging, especially that the bookshop had only been open for 7 months when we went into lockdown. I think it was more about adapting to the situation, finding ways to run the bookshop online whilst making the best decisions for our staff and community. We also started running online events last summer, which have been a great way to connect authors and readers, and foster the community spirit that was somehow lost whilst the bookshop was closed.

Kevin: What are three books you absolutely love hand-selling to customers?

Alice: The playful picture books of Hervé Tullet, Elle McNicoll's excellent children's novels, and the very funny picture book Choose Llamas.



Kevin: Who’s your favourite children's book illustrator (other than Reeve & McIntyre)?

Alice: It’s difficult to pick just one! In Portobello and Edinburgh, we're lucky to have amazing children's book illustrators who have painted our shop window: Eilidh Muldoon, who also designed the beautiful mural in our kids' room, Anna Doherty and Emily Mackenzie.

Kevin: What is your favourite biscuit?

Alice: Digestive

Kevin: Ooh, good choice. Simple but oddly more-ish. Do you have a shop pet?

Alice: We don't but Portobello is a very dog-friendly place, so we're lucky to have befriended many dogs over the past couple of years!

Kevin: What is the best way for people to buy books from you, if they can't visit the shop in person?

Alice: Just visit our website at theportobellobookshop.com.

Kevin: Thank you! Do you mind if I finish off those digestives?



You can follow The Portobello Bookshop on Twitter - @PortyBooks - and Instagram - portybooks! And follow the tour at #ReeveAndMcIntyreBigUpBookshops

.




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thunder City

This September Scholastic will be publishing my new novel set in the world of Mortal Engines . Here’s the cover, created (like all the others in the series) by Ian McQue . The rule I set for myself when I was writing this one was that it shouldn’t feature any of the people or places from previous Mortal Engines books. So  Thunder Cit y takes place just over a century before the original book, when the town-eat-town world of Traction Cities is slightly less ruthless than it will become later, and none of the characters from the original quartet has even been born yet. (I suppose Mr Shrike must be bimbling about somewhere, but he’s still just yer basic implacable killing machine at this point so there’s not much point in paying him a visit). So hopefully this new take will be accessible to people who’ve never read Mortal Engines , and hopefully people who have read it will enjoy an adventure set in the same world. My pen and ink drawing of the Traction City of Thorbury,  after...
10 comments
Read more

Lord of the Rings 7: Minas Tirith

'This is not a work which many adults will read through more than once,' claimed the historical novelist Alfred Duggan, reviewing The Lord of the Rings when it was published. But I've read it through LOADS of times and now I'm blogging my latest re-read, so what did he know? And so we come to Minas Tirith, Tower of Guard, citadel of Gondor, seven tiers of fancy white fortifications built against a buttress of Mount Mindolluin, with the Tower of Ecthelion rising a thousand feet above the plain. It seems to me the template on which a whole genre of knock-off fantasy cities has been based - I guess Robert E Howard and people wrote about such places before Tolkien, and perhaps there were cities of equal grandeur on Barsoom, but when concept art threads on Instagram throw up unlikely gold and marble castles built on mountaintops and over waterfalls they always look distinctly Minas Tirithy to me. I'm wondering now if London in Mortal Engines was subconsciously echoin...
5 comments
Read more

Merlin (1998)

I remember Merlin being shown on TV as a two-part mini-series over a bank holiday weekend. The version I found on YouTube is a single three hour movie, but I think it might work better in two chunks, as originally broadcast. It still works pretty well, though. Director Steve Barron is completely infatuated with video editing tricks and slightly primitive CGI effects that I’m sure were state-of-the-art when it was made, but he uses them quite inventively, and there are some very enjoyable performances. Since First Knight was such a washout, I guess this is the definitive ‘90s Arthurian film. Like Excalibur , the definitive ‘80s Arthurian film, it tries to tell the entirety of the Arthur story, but since it’s main focus is Merlin it covers a lot more too, and Arthur himself ends up being a bit of a side-character, with the rise and fall of Camelot packed into the second half. At first glance, Merlin seems to be aligning itself with what I’m coming to think of as the Low Arthurian tradi...
Post a Comment
Read more