News

I've broken with routine to bring this week's newsletter a little earlier than usual. I didn't want to miss the opportunity to remind you of this afternoon's online event with printmaker and illustrator Angela Harding. There's still time to join in and purchase your signed copy of her wonderful new book 'A Year Unfolding' - a beautiful Christmas gift!

Whenever I invite an author to speak to us online or in Suffolk, it's because I genuinely enjoy and appreciate their work and am confident that we will all share in a fabulous experience by meeting them. Angela is warm, entertaining, 'down-to-earth' and inspirational, and, I would suggest, just what's needed to lift the spirits on a miserable November afternoon! I do hope you'll join me in - virtually - stepping in to her studio and finding out more about her life and work. Click on the link here if you'd like to find out more.

The last online meeting I organised with Browsers Bookshop was a few months ago now when we met debut novelist Kate Sawyer. If you attended that event, or read her stunning book 'The Stranding' you will be as delighted as I am that she has just won the fiction prize in the East Anglian Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for best first novel in the Costa Book Awards. Though well deserved, it's not a surprise that she has been recognised for this extraordinary book. But the attention she's received is due in no small part to the hard work Kate has put in ensuring her book has reached booksellers, bloggers and readers in what are very crowded bookshelves.

Selecting the next book to read can be bewildering with the choice available to us these days. Our annual recommendations evening then is always a popular event as members of the book group share the titles that have meant most to them in the past twelve months. If you'd like to take part and champion a particular book, please email me this week so that I might include you in our programme for the meeting on Monday 6 December at 8pm.

Before then, though, we have our monthly book group meeting. Tomorrow evening at 8pm we will discuss the novel 'Piranesi'. Scroll down for more details but if you would like to attend you must let me know before noon tomorrow, please, as space is restricted due to the current situation. Reply to this email and I'll let you have more information.

Thank you for reading.

It's felt very autumnal this weekend. The temperature has dropped but we've still enjoyed some beautiful sunshine and the colours of the leaves have been stunning. It's a consolation for the shorter days and dark evenings.

With such a marked change in the seasons, it seems particularly fitting that we should meet with the printmaker and illustrator Angela Harding next Sunday, 28 November at 3pm.

Her beautiful new book - which went out of print before its official publication date such was the demand in pre-orders - celebrates the landscape and wildlife through the seasons of the year.

Angela will show us her garden studio at her home in Rutland, as well as her work in progress, and will tell us something of her love of Suffolk, too. She and her husband moor their beautiful wooden sailing boat on the River Deben in Woodbridge and spend the summer weeks in Suffolk each year. Many of her stunning pictures are inspired by the bird life she sees from the boat.

If you'd like to join in what will be a wonderfully inspiring and uplifting way to pass a Sunday afternoon, please reserve your place here.

Then the following day, we'll be holding our monthly book group meeting, on Monday 29 November at 8pm, to discuss the novel 'Piranesi'. Scroll down for more details but if you would like to attend, you must let me know beforehand as space is limited. So please reply to this email.

And the following week it will be our annual recommendations evening, on Monday 6 December at 8pm. If you have a favourite book or a new title you would like to encourage others to read please let me know as soon as possible and I'll put together a programme for the evening.

One last thing, the author illustrator Astra Taylor-Todd will be exhibiting in the Art Space in Woodbridge this week. You may remember I've mentioned her children's title The Blue Tit Travels Africa, and you can find out more about her work in my article here. The detail in her artwork is extraordinary, so go along to the gallery in the Thoroughfare to take a closer look.

I hope you have a good week and thank you for reading.

The Christmas stamps have gone on sale and I'm looking forward to catching up with distant friends and family through the exchange of cards in the post very soon.

There's something particularly special about getting mail through the letterbox, and to have a row of beautiful pictures and designs on the mantelpiece. We all need things to lift our spirits this year more than ever.

We don't need Christmas or birthdays to send happy mail, of course. I read recently of a couple who decided they were fed up with being swamped by bad news so pre-addressed and stamped 500 postcards and left them in busy London streets asking the finder to write some good news on the back and post it to them. They received more than 300! Their initiative is called Hello Stranger and images of the cards are on their Instagram feed. Possibly material for a book at some point?!

I've been enjoying books with a lighter, more positive theme recently so, in addition to the titles I'm recommending below, I would suggest the authors Clare Chambers and Katherine Heiny for fiction which has a wry, upbeat tone while still having an interesting and entertaining storyline, and good writing of course.

And I hope you're still considering joining me in meeting Angela Harding in her studio in a couple of weeks' time. I can assure you of a really uplifting and enjoyable hour of conversation, finding out about how she works and what inspires her beautiful designs as well as taking a peek into her workroom with its printing presses and projects in progress.

It would be a great help if you are able to reserve your place in good time because it assists me with preparations and book ordering! And I'd be thrilled if you could spread the word, too. I know that Angela has a considerable following and this event is geared at not only supporting her by encouraging sales of her new book, but also Browsers Bookshop of course. Events like these help ensure the future of a beautiful independent bookshop on the high street.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

There's not much to cheer us in the news these days so it's good to remember that we have so many books to choose from to inform and entertain us.

I'm particularly pleased that the BBC 2 programme 'Between the Covers' is returning this week for some light and interesting discussion and recommendations. 

And recently I've been working on a feature article for 'Suffolk' magazine inviting the county's booksellers to share their ideas on the best books to buy this Christmas. Look out for the piece in next month's issue - available in all good newsagents!

I can confirm too that we'll once again hold our annual Browsers Book Group recommendations evening. I've reserved the venue for the evening of Monday 6 December. There'll be more details in next week's newsletter, but save the date if you'd like to come along!

I hope you have already noted the afternoon of Sunday 28 November for our online meeting with the printmaker Angela Harding? 

This will be a lovely occasion finding out all about the creation of her beautiful illustrations (the cover of the children's book 'October, October', recommended below, is another of Angela's designs). I can assure you that Angela is wonderful to listen to being both entertaining and inspiring. You can reserve your place here.

And for another literary diversion this week, why not listen in to author Joanne Harris on Desert Island Discs? Joanne visited us in Woodbridge to launch her novel 'The Strawberry Thief' which continued the story of her bestseller 'Chocolat'. In this programme, she tells presenter Lauren Laverne about how the popularity of that book affected her life, her use of social media, how she is coping with illness, and how she seeks to help other authors.

Have a good week, and thank you for reading.

For many of us the past 18 months have been difficult to measure without the usual landmarks of holidays and celebrations. For others it has been a unique opportunity to take stock and to create something rather special.

Earlier this year, the illustrator and printmaker Angela Harding was invited to compile a record of her extensive portfolio of work and this month a beautiful new book will be published for us all to share in her meticulous, stylised appreciation of the natural world.

You will have seen her work in magazines such as 'Country Living', the covers of bestsellers such as 'The Salt Path' and the children's book 'October, October' and recently on advent calendars, jigsaws, greetings cards and even tea cosies!

Many of these designs are included in the book as well as some new pictures too. They have all taken many hours to complete, studiously carved in lino with colours applied through silkscreen.

Although I had originally invited Angela to visit us in Woodbridge to talk about her work, and how this book came about, the ongoing covid situation made an event seem increasingly unwise.

I realise this will come as something of a disappointment but I think we have a rather wonderful outcome as an alternative.

Angela has invited us to meet her in her studio through Zoom. She will be able to show us the printing presses she uses and her hand tools. There will be examples of work in progress and even the view from her window over the fields beyond.

Angela loves the opportunity to visit Suffolk, having a boat on the Deben and coming here each summer to sail the rivers, but she is also keen to share with us the inspiration she gains from the countryside on her travels in Scotland and the south-west as well as her home in Rutland.

This will be a fascinating, inspiring and entertaining event for a Sunday afternoon, on 28 November.