The North Recommends: Forum Books
Forum Books are up for Best Indie Bookshop in The British Book Awards having won the North round. The awards will be taking place virtually on 29 June – tune in and wish them luck!
Hello readers!
Hope you’re all well and have been able to curl up with a good book or two in the last weeks. And warm greetings from us and our beautiful bookshop we’ve just reopened this week – you know the one … twenty minutes outside Newcastle in the gorgeous village of Corbridge. Lockdown may have been preventing us from going out physically, but thanks to books we’ve been able to journey where the heart wants and the head allows, and we’ve been on quite some journeys! We’ve been seeing the world through new eyes.
Rory has been spending a lot of time outdoors in the company of Jon Day and Patrick Laurie, with pigeons yes, but also with curlews, heritage galloway cattle, the wily fox and the myriad other animals that all live in and around Patrick Laurie’s farm in Galloway. And Dara Mcanulty’s Young Naturalist is a total joy too!
Helen managed to get round to reading the Basque epic Homeland that we wallpapered our popup at The Biscuit Factory with – a job like that needed over 500 pages! The ETA struggle and aftermath told through the prism of friendship and family – immersive and moving.
Already a book of the year – and certainly the book of the moment – Humankind by Rutger Bregman confirms our faith in the boundless capacity for kindness with his timely, heartening and wonderfully readable cynicsm-banishing new book.
We love Jessica Andrews’ brilliant and briny, Portico prizewinning Saltwater now out in portable paperback if you haven’t already read it. And, if like us, you read it and loved it then listen up – sounding a huge coming soon klaxon for Boy Parts by Eliza Clark – available July but taking preorders! – is a fresh, fierce, subversive sexy debut. Hell yeah!
Don’t get us started on Emily St. John Mandel – we’ve got a word count to stick to! – lets just say publication is delayed like for many new books, but The Glass Hotel is more than worth the wait!
Oh, and did we mention that we do some seriously awesome online events on Facebook Live where you can hear and talk to your favourite authors @HomeWith4Indies? We’re so excited to be sharing some of our favourites to you from Sebastian Barry, Tim Peake, Patrick Ness, Marian Keyes, Dara Mcanulty plus children’s authors from Cressida Cowell to Frank Cotterill Boyce, M.G. Leonard and so many more. Catch up with any that you’ve missed and June’s lineup is amazing, honest. Have a look here.
Independent Book Week is still running this year From June 20th to 27th and now more than ever independent bookshops need all the big-ups we can get! @booksaremybag #ChooseBookshops.
Forum Books has
We‘ve missed you! And while its not the same – what is at the moment?! – we’ve popped our bookshop online here if you’d like to browse our shelves, join our mailing list, follow us on the socials or drop us a line if you’ve a book query or any vaguely related book chat – we love to hear from you!
Hold steady, stay well and happy reading,
All your friends at Forum Books