Heron Books

I am curious as to what it is about the lack of daylight hours, the presence of fairy lights, a glass of mulled wine and a warm mince pie that makes one reach for a murder story but it seems to make a winning combination.

A few weeks ago, I wrote to you with apples on the brain since they were seemingly everywhere on the page. (And I am still obsessing over North Woods by Daniel Mason…) Today, however, is peak apple day: Lennie Goodings, Chair of Virago Press, is speaking at the Clifton LitFest and I am very excited to see her. Her book A Bite of The Apple, named after that famous Virago logo, is a wide-ranging account of working at the outstanding feminist publisher and a celebration of its authors and readers. I am rather excited, grateful to the Friends of the Clifton Library for organising such a wonderful festival and armed with apple puns just in case I…

Last night – Dylan Thomas Night to those who celebrate – we herons raised a glass of whisky to him. It has become a tradition to break bara brith and be merry on this important occasion and to invite Richard Burton into the room for his magnificent reading of Under Milk Wood.

As the evenings arrive a little earlier and the wind daily sweeps my favourite hat from my head and the stands of the greengrocer fill with knobbled gourds and the trees develop that heavy scent and one hopes that every pub is considering its mulled cider offering, oh, it is a delicious time for reading.

The wrath of Achilles, the fury of the goddesses, the raging of the emperors, vengeance, war, lust, beauty: I’ve consulted with the muse of literature and let me say that she has been working tirelessly. It’s been quite a time.

A new heron has flown through to grace our shop window. Ophelia, another stunning creation by artist Emily Stevens, is flying South, book in claw. So one can only appreciate that Baskerville chose this same week to release the new Mick Her(r)on, The Secret Hours.

There are many pleasures to be had from one’s own bookshop, and prime among them is being able to survey the orderly shelves with each carefully chosen title in its place, ready to hand. I have never savoured this more than now when my own books are in boxes. We are preparing to move house and let’s just say we’ve been packing for a week and we haven’t made it past the fiction section.

On this day last year, I found myself ringing a phone number unsure of who would pick up. Perhaps, I thought, a man running such a good scam that he did not even have to cold call people; they rang him. Perhaps someone whose phone number had been left on a website some years ago and who would be annoyed at an unexpected interruption from an overenthusiastic booklover. Or perhaps it was someone with the literal key to something I had long wanted.

The Booker’s Dozen was announced this week and my tip for the winner is North Woods by Daniel Mason. Unfortunately, the judges don’t feel the same way; it’s not on the longlist. Fortunately, you can preorder it from us.

The non-fiction book group this month is reading Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit. It is a book I find myself carrying around with me: a talisman. I want to read it in every spare moment. But I do not want to finish it. I place myself wholly in Rebecca Solnit’s hands, with little idea of how every branch of the roses connects to a root yet firmly in the belief that it does.