Claire Fuller at Backstory
This coming Wednesday evening (26th April) at 7pm
We are so lucky to have the Costa award-winning and Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted author Claire Fuller joining us for an evening at Backstory. The author of Unsettled Ground, Swimming Lessons and Bitter Orange will be talking about her latest novel, The Memory of Animals, a zany tale that puts isolation and humanity under the microscope. There are a few last-minute tickets available; do come along and join us for a lovely evening and be sure to get a glass of wine from our bar.
Upcoming events at Backstory
(all at 71 Balham High Road)
Wednesday 3rd May, 7.30pm
In his book The Digital Republic, Jamie Susskind asks how freedom and democracy can survive in an online world of data leaks, racist algorithms and hate-filled social media. A manifesto for navigating, and managing, the increasingly digital world.
Wednesday 10th May, 7.30pm
Georgina Sturge uses skills from her day job as a researcher in the House of Commons library to debunk nefarious numbers and explain the uses and abuses of statistics in her new book, Bad Data. Numbers tell stories, if only you know how to read them. Thankfully, Georgina is the perfect guide.
Wednesday 17th May, 7.30pm
Breathing life into legendary women of Greek myth who have been forgotten, misrepresented, or misunderstood, Jennifer Saint is the bestselling author behind the magical Ariadne and Elektra. Her third novel tells the story of Atalanta, a heroine whose role in the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts is often overlooked, but is bursting with legend.
Wiz Wharton and Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Tuesday 23rd May, 7.30pm
Wiz Wharton is the author of a debut novel exploring British-Chinese identity, opening in Brixton in the run-up to the handover of Hong Kong. In conversation with Costa Prize-shortlisted author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, whose new novel The Sleep Watcher is about how our understanding of who our families are can shift suddenly and irrevocably.
Team pick of the week
Amy recommends: Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
The world of Treacle Walker is one of wordplay and folklore, where comics come to life and myth and reality are blurred. When a rag-and-bone man comes to trade, Joe picks an item that changes the way he sees the world and takes him on magical adventures. The blend of fairy tale elements and made-up nonsense language gives the impression of this story being both familiar and unknown. A story which is about time and ageing and change. A story about friendship and loneliness. A story of seeing things as they truly are.
Our bestsellers this week
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Premonitions Bureau by Sam Knight - April’s Backstory non-fiction book club pick
Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Send Nudes by Saba Sams
Midnight Chicken (& other recipes worth living for) by Ella Risbridger
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka - new in paperback
Bad Actors by Mick Herron - new in paperback
Join our fiction book club
What if the author came to your book club?
Thanks to everyone who has already registered their interest in our new fiction book club. We’ll have more details to share in the next week or two. Please click the button to be the first to hear about our exciting line-up of authors. Each session will be on Zoom, so you can join from anywhere in the world!
ACCORDING TO BEER-STAINED LEGEND, hacks in the glory days of The Sun were always on the hunt for an “FMD” story. Or, as ex-editor Kelvin Mackenzie is supposed to have insisted on, a story with a salacious fact so tantalising, so juicy, so irresistibly shareable, it would have a reader exclaiming over the fence to the next door neighbour: “F--- me, Doris!”
Revelations of this kind are known elsewhere on Fleet Street, with equally British but more upmarket idiom, as marmalade droppers. But somehow when I hear a new and completely startling fact I usually think first of the apocryphal Doris and her by now presumably rather put-upon heart.
Just such a moment came on Tuesday at London Book Fair, where the Booksellers Association, our excellent trade body, put me on a panel with two other newbie bookshop owners to discuss each of our first years. I really enjoyed the discussion: all three of us had quite different backgrounds and approaches to our shops. But my abiding memory of the day will be one single startling fact: one of the other shops does 50% of their business online. FIFTY PERCENT!
Fortunately, I just about avoided letting out an FMD. But I ought to take this opportunity to apologise to the Backstory team, who had to put up with me muttering this one fact for the rest of the day.
By comparison, excluding online sales of events tickets, subscriptions and the like, Backstory’s website accounts for a rather more modest 2% of its turnover.
Coincidentally, later that same day Rory and I had a meeting scheduled with one of the main distributors, with whom we’ve been working on a plan to significantly expand the range of books on our website - from about 700 or 800 at the moment to more like 50,000. So this FMD moment was just the push I needed.
I’m not sure we’ll ever get to 50%. Nor do I think our website should ever be our primary aim: that in-person buzz will always be my first love. But it’s good to know what’s possible, and that devoting some time, energy and sweat to the website could pay dividends.
My hunch is that there is a large pool of people out there who want to support independent bookshops and maybe already do some of the time, but who also sometimes want the ease of buying a book quickly online. The more the indie online buying experience is as seamless as, ahem, the major alternative, the more they are likely to do that.
But, as ever, I’d love to know your thoughts. Are you one of those customers? Is this something we should bother with? What are the biggest hurdles to supporting indies online?
If you have a couple of minutes, please indulge me by taking this very quick, anonymous poll.
I’ll share what we learn from it in the coming weeks.
Thanks so much,
Tom
Are you listed on Bookshop.org so that if someone buys on there a little bit of money comes your way?