Reeve & McIntyre Big Up Bookshops 6: Book-ish, Crickhowell

Kevin’s next stop was in Wales, the Land of Song, so he hummed a happy tune to himself as he flew over the Black Mountains.

Unfortunately he got a bit lost - what was the name of the town he was supposed to be landing at? Crickhollow? Crockhole? Cricklehill? None of those sounded quite right. He sat down on top of a handy mountain for a Think and a Restorative Biscuit, and while he was sitting there a small red dragon came by.

“Hello Kevin!” said the dragon. “Do you need me to show around? This is the Land of my Fathers!”

“Belling!” said Kevin. “I didn’t know you were Welsh.”

“All dragons are Welsh, Kevin-bach,” said Belling. And when Kevin explained that he was looking for a bookshop called Book-ish, he said, “Oh, I know it well; it’s in Crickhowell, a pretty little town, not far from here.”

“I knew it was called Crickle-something,” said Kevin. He flew after Belling, and pretty soon they landed outside Book-ish.

“There you go, boyo,” said Belling, who was really getting into the whole Welsh thing. Kevin fancied another Restorative Biscuit, and he sniffed the air hopefully as he went inside to ask bookseller Emma Corfield-Waters some Important Questions…

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

Emma: Sharing the excitement of new stories with our customers.

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

Emma: We took all our events and all our books online and built up an amazing book loving community with readers worldwide.

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

Emma: Malamander by Thomas Taylor, The Lost Spells by Jackie Morris and Robert McFarlane, and Barbara Throws a Wobbler by Nadia Shireen.

Kevin: Who is your favourite children’s book illustrator? (Other than Reeve & McIntyre…)

Emma: Chris Riddell.

Kevin: What is your favourite biscuit?

Emma: Custard Cream!

Kevin: (Nodding wisely and eating a custard cream) This is the Correct Answer. Do you have a shop pet?

Emma: Yes, meet Ziggy, our new puppy!

Ziggy: Wuff!

Emma: Have another Custard Cream.

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

Emma: Our website, www.book-ish.co.uk

Kevin: Thank you for your answers, and all the custard creams!

Explore the Book-ish website and follow the team on Twitter - @Bookishcrick - Instagram - bookishcrickhowell - and Facebook!
#ReeveAndMcIntyreBigUpBookshops

Comments

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...

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...

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...

Station Zero

Search This Blog