Great news: Mostly Books in Abingdon has won the title for Booksellers Association New Bookshop of the Year. I'm so pleased for the Thortons, the young couple who run it. See their website http://www.mostly-books.co.uk/ and the link on the right of this page among the book blogs.
They have hosted all kinds of imaginative events including some for local Transita authors. A year or so ago I spoke on Love and War, as part of an RNA series. My chosen books were Chronicle of Youth by Vera Brittain (the actual war-time diaries), The Balkan and Levant Trilogies by Olivia Manning, Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres and The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. I was also going to mention The Quiet American by Graham Greene, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong and Charlotte Grey, and the biography of Emma Hamilton by Kate Williams, but I nattered on too long. The audience was charming and well-informed, though one man remembered me from days of yore and wanted to share his memories - a disconcerting beginning to my serious talk! (added later) I was fascinated to learn that one woman had actually met Vera Brittain - a frightening and well-groomed grande dame, apparently.
