Today we are speaking with author and artist Owen Grant Innes about his book Duty: A Love Letter to Queen Elizabeth II, his inspiration for the book, and the techniques used to create the 27 paintings featured in the book. This podcast is released during of Festival of Culture which is taking place from 2nd to 10th July with author talks, workshops, lectures, and a variety of children's activities which you can see on our website. 

About the book~ 

The artist and author, Owen Grant Innes, began life in Nova Scotia, 'the most British of the Canadian provinces.' As a young boy in the 1960s, Innes felt an enormous sense of not belonging and found that through history, culture, and Queen Elizabeth II, he was connected to a wider world and, in that, found a sense of belonging. This book is a product of the unique relationship between sovereign and subject, acting as a 'love letter' to the Queen. Including 27 beautiful artworks dedicated to the Queen's life, from her birth to coronation, to the recent passing of her husband, Prince Philip.

Alongside each painting is a quotation from Her Majesty or a reflection from the author. This book is a wonderful ode to the monarch and a tribute to the impact of her long reign.

For independent Bookshop week, we have twinned with our local publisher Old Castle Books. During this week we will be celebrating in store with author talks, and online with our podcast and blog spaces. 

During this podcast we will be speaking to author Carolyn Kirby about her book When We Fall. 

About the book~ 
England, 1943 Lost in fog, pilot Vee Katchatourian is forced to make an emergency landing where she meets enigmatic RAF airman Stefan Bergel, and then can't get him out of her mind. In occupied Poland, Ewa Hartman hosts German officers in her father's guest house, while secretly gathering intelligence for the Polish resistance. Mourning her lover, Stefan, who was captured by the Soviets at the start of the war, Ewa is shocked to see him on the street one day.

Haunted by a terrible choice he made in captivity, Stefan asks Vee and Ewa to help him expose one of the darkest secrets of the war. But it is not clear where everyone's loyalties lie until they are tested. Based on WWII atrocity the Katyn Massacre, When We Fall is a moving story of three lives forever altered by one fatal choice.

In this episode we will be talking to author Lucy Holland about her new book 'Sistersong'. 

About the book~ 
King Cador's children inherit a land abandoned by the Romans, torn by warring tribes. Riva can cure others, but can't heal her own scars. Keyne battles to be seen as the king's son, although born a daughter.

And Sinne dreams of love, longing for adventure. All three fear a life of confinement within the walls of the hold, their people's last bastion of strength against the invading Saxons. However, change comes on the day ash falls from the sky - bringing Myrdhin, meddler and magician.

The siblings discover the power that lies within them and the land. But fate also brings Tristan, a warrior whose secrets will tear them apart. Riva, Keyne and Sinne become entangled in a web of treachery and heartbreak, and must fight to forge their own paths.

It's a story that will shape the destiny of Britain. 

To celebrate our brand new Festival Of Culture happening in St Albans on the 14th~ 15th August 2021 we have spoken with author FJ Campbell about her novel No Number Nine. 

For more information about our festival please visit our website: www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk/festival 

To celebrate our brand new Festival Of Culture happening in St Albans on the 14th~ 15th August 2021 we have spoken with author Naomi Ishiguro about her debut novel Common Ground. 

For more information about our festival please visit our website: www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk/festival 

To celebrate Independent Bookshop Week in the UK we are delighted to be talking to Katherine Langrish about her new book 'From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my nine-year-old self'. 

About this book: 
Back in the 1960s a little girl of nine who was deeply in love with Narnia wrote a book of short stories. Written in spiky blue ink with various crossings-out and spelling mistakes, Katherine Langrish's Tales of Narnia filled an old hard-cover notebook from front to back. Some of the stories were illustrated with dramatic, poster-painted scenes, and Katherine drew a map of Narnia on the inside back cover. 

Now a celebrated adult writer of children's and young adult's literature, Langrish has revisited C. S. Lewis's Seven Chronicles of Narnia to explore what they mean to her today.

In From Spare Oom to War Drobe she analyses what once enchanted her and asks whether it still has the power to do so. Hand in hand with her nine year-old self, she traces many paths through Lewis's thick forest of allusions not only to Christianity, but to Plato, fairy tales, myths, legends, medieval romances, renaissance poetry and indeed to other children's books. Here are two very different ways of reading the Narnia stories: the adult, informed, rational way and the passionate childish way.

For whenever children fall in love with a book they love it fiercely, loyally, completely; and as anyone it's ever happened to will know, it can be a transformative experience. The Foreword has been written by award-winning writer and broadcaster Brian Sibley, who dramatised the BBC radio adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia, and wrote Shadowlands, a biography of C. S.Lewis.

In this episode, we will be talking to Di Lebowitz about her new book 'The Marks Left On Her'. 

* Trigger Warning* 
Mental health, sexual assault and trauma are discussed in this episode.

About the book:
"DAUGHTER is navigating her otherness as the only mixed-race child in her Hong Kongese family with a bipolar mother, absentee father and staunchly catholic grandmother. GIRL is trying to navigate a world in which she is ignored and mistreated until a sexual assault sets her on a self-destructive spiral. SURVIVOR is battling monsters both real and imagined and coming out victorious as she pieces together her history, her traumas and her strength.

A remarkable story written with a courage inspired by the #MeToo movement."

To celebrate the recent publication of the new feminist translation of the epic poem Beowulf by Maria Headley;  our bookseller Jess discusses the poem and its various translation with her mum Julie who reads us a short snippet of the original Old English text. 

All the books mentioned here will be listed on our podcast page on our website- https://www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk/podcast

We are releasing a new podcast series entitled 'Staff Book Club' where our team sits down to talk about the books they have been enjoying or are currently reading.  All the books discussed in this series are listed on our podcast page which can be found on our website- www.books-on-the-hill.co.uk 

In this episode, Antonia, Jane, Hayley, and Clare engage in discussions around the books they have picked up in February 2021. 

In this episode, our bookseller Jenny discusses Dante's 700th Anniversary year, looking at his most famous work Divine Comedy, which has been the source of inspiration for many works of literature since its completion in 1320 (a year before his death in 1321).