Heron Books

Through the balloon arch to see the magic: a puppet show, clowns, a haunted house, a tunnel of love, a hot chocolate stand, egg hunts, confetti cannons, an actual cannon, book launches, stand-up shows, karaoke and even a tour of the toilets. No, it’s not The Heronry. It’s Jen Calleja’s Fair. Welcome. A book fair, an art fair, a fabulously fun fair. Your tour guide, ensuring that you don’t miss a thing though she does everything at the speed of a spinning, stormy teacup, is Calleja herself, poet, novelist, essayist and translator. Also, punk drummer, singer and maker of tiny salt dough models of pretzels. Just go with it. Fair…

Last week we enjoyed a late-night party here in the shop. By late, I mean past 8pm. By a party, I mean a stock take. By enjoyed, I mean enjoyed. Here is what I learnt. There are 6144 books for sale in the shop. We know that because we scanned each one. The scanners are not designed for left-handers. Harry and I are both left-handed. We feel personally and dextrously attacked.* Making separate piles as one goes of ‘things I intend to read next’ is not helpful. It is hazardous. Add twisted ankles to the list of already-known stock take injuries: tennis elbow and Funny Bones.   Someone does not…

I wrote last week with recommendations for entertainment over the summer holiday. But it is back to school and lacrosse sticks at dawn in Rebecca Wait’s new novel, set in a boarding school comparable to St Trinian’s in disorder, derangement and exam results ranking. Welcome to St Anne’s. Avoid the fish pie, if you can. Don’t take any advice from the English teachers. Do break a leg in the school play – it’s the safest way out. It is mayhem. It is chaos. It is Havoc. The History teacher has died doing what she loved, preparing for a lesson on the Diet of Worms, and her replacement is dubious. The…

The summer holidays are here and, in case you find yourself with a greater-than-average number of hours in which to entertain smaller-than-average people, we are here to help. If you are reading this and packing to go away, I suspect you are going to need a heftier-than-average suitcase for all those books. If you are staying at home, don’t forget to carry a stronger-than-average tote bag crammed with reading material. (And a spare to fill with more.) Those of you who know how much we loved Torla and Smorla and The Lower than Average Cloud may already have surmised that a new episode in the life of these giraffes has…

Earlier this week I demonstrated my originality by taking Wuthering Heights with me on a trip to Yorkshire. It seemed the appropriate setting. Admittedly I was not exactly traipsing across moors, beset by storms or gales or ghosts or even Gothic antiheroes but pottering about Malham Cove in the sunshine between cream teas and cocktails. I bore these hardships as best I could. It’s what Emily would have wanted, I thought, each time I reached for another scone. Alongside Wuthering Heights, I had of course packed so many books that I hardly knew where to turn. Fortunately a cup of Yorkshire tea aids all difficult decisions and I picked up…

In Wild Persistence, Katrina Naomi imagines what she might do if she could divide herself in two. The poem ‘Dualism: A Manifesto’ is itself split across the page. One side of the whole can write, paint, wear stilettoes, belt out Shirley Bassey, while the other reads Iris Murdoch in cream and brown brogue. The two halves complement and oppose one another, a conflict explored throughout the collection. ‘One side of me could be utterly lovable,’ part of the page declares, ‘The other who I really am.’ The part of me that wants to be alone in a cave with a book and the part that wants to be discussing that…

Whatever your almanac may tell you, it is not summer until the strawberries have swollen to indecent size, cucumbers are filling both sandwiches and jugs of Pimm’s and this music is playing. Happy Wimbledon fortnight to you all. Between matches there is just time to stretch out on a lawn with a good read: a novel plucked from the shelves or a book bursting with suggestions for delicious things to nibble whilst watching other people exercise in thirty-degree heat. Ripeness by Sarah Moss is a stunning novel following Edith, aged seventeen in the 60s, and Edith in 2023. Poised for university, her French-Israeli mother declares that Edith must spend the…

“You know what it’s like. The usual desire to kill…” Miranda writes to her sister, reporting on another exasperating visit to their parents who live somewhere inaccessible in France with two cats, Juno and Hodge, permitted in the house, the Bad Cats who are not and the llamas, Lorenzo and Leonora, who sleep in the kitchen when it’s cold and gather by the tennis court when it isn’t to watch the family’s attempts on the dangerously uneven surface. Lack of glasses or functioning hips notwithstanding. Prized possession at La Forgerie was once Boswell, the chest freezer which moved from England to France with them, along with its full contents. Leaving…

Independent Bookshop Week is flying by far too rapidly, fortunately leaving us with a mountain of books which will stand the test of time. Our partnership with Foundry Editions has taken us from Paris to Nicosia to Palestine, from Benidorm to the Villa Borghese and into the dark underbelly of Heron Books, that Narnia of the lower ground floor where we gathered on Wednesday to hear from Chiara Valerio, author of The Little I Knew, a brilliant depiction of a small community in which everyone knows each other’s behaviour and routines though not their motivations. We were joined also by Ailsa Wood, who translated The Little I Knew, and Richard…

What has a book ever inspired you to do?To plant a Sara van Fleet rose? Climb the Cairngorms? Run away to sea?Perhaps to bake peach cobbler? To make the perfect martini? To drink fewer martinis?*To go gently, look closely, sit quietly, write a diary, send letters?To howl at the moon? Protest? Rage?Set up a bookshop?**Film a video tribute?Chase after an author to tell them that you love them and gush about their Thomas Hardy-esque writing?*** In Steve Page’s case, the answer is: to write songs. Join us at 5pm in the shop tomorrow, Saturday, to enjoy the result. We are very excited to kick off Independent Bookshop Week with our…