Got Books? Conversations with Booksellers

Welcome back to Got Books, the podcast about books, booksellers and bookmakers. Today I'll share with you 5 articles I read this week from the world of books, and then we'll chat to my guest Emily Feetham about one of her favourite books this year. Let's get to it.

The Marginalian gives us a wonderful list of best books https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/30/writers-top-ten-favorite-books/

11 New Books to be grateful for this week: https://lithub.com/11-new-books-to-be-grateful-for-this-week/

Samir Mansour is rebuilding his bookstore in Gaza: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/mena/sharjah-palestinian-publisher-to-rebuild-destroyed-library-after-sheikha-bodours-support

Book-Ish, a Welsh indie bookstore, is crowdfunding https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-keep-bookish-on-the-high-street?utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer

And finally, what a year for African Writing: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/20/from-the-booker-to-the-nobel-why-2021-is-a-great-year-for-african-writing

Publishing houses. Big and small, they are the book makers, the ones who work with the authors we love to make their books and dreams come to life. They support writers throughout the exciting and perhaps sometimes terrifying journey of turning their work from a manuscript into a book, to be found on the shelves of our bookshops.

Today we will enter the world of a small, artisan publishing house in Spain - Sabina Editorial, a publishing house passionate about books well made that talk about the things that matter. And that are written by women.

The publishing industry is shifting and adapting, and the role of small independent publishing houses may be changing with it. Many writers are starting to look at small presses first, perhaps preferring the more advantageous contract terms they can offer. Small publishing houses can also be more focused and selective, dedicating themselves entirely to women writers, LGBTQ+ writers, or writers of colour. They can, perhaps more than large publishers, enjoy the freedom to take a risk on experimental writing or on a new form of poetry, bringing us new voices and different approaches from established writers. They are essential in keeping diversity in publishing alive.

My guest today is Carmen Oliart, one of the women in charge of Sabina Editorial. Carmen has kindly agreed to give us an hour of her time to talk about what she does, what is important for her when deciding to publish a book and why feminine freedom is a concept we should care about.

Welcome back to Got Books. Today, I want to share books related news that caught my eye this week that I hope you'll find interesting, and we'll then move on to review one of my favourite books of the past years. Let's get started.

First, an article I read in the BBC talks about Somali women breaking tradition to write novels.

For centuries, Somalia has been known as the "nation of poets" but this tradition has largely been the preserve of men. It is unusual for Somali women to be the primary storytellers, yet they are now the ones taking on that mantle when living abroad. One of these storytellers is Ali Farah, who says this is because they have "more space" outside Somalia to pursue their literary ambitions - unshackled as they are from the cultural expectations placed upon them in a male-dominated society. You can read more about Ali Farah's work and new book in the BBC article https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58845340

Speaking of women in literature, a woman won a million-euro Spanish literary prize. But then It turned out that ‘she’ was actually three men. Maybe it won't surprise you to hear that the work of one woman was, it turned out, the equivalent of the work of three men.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/17/carmen-mola-spain-gender-reveal-female-writer-three-men/

Next up, we go to Israel, where two of the biggest bookstores say they are no longer selling works by Irish author Sally Rooney, after she refused to allow an Israeli publisher to translate her new book into Hebrew. You may have heard about this already, as it was also a big Twitter event, but essentially: Sally Rooney said it was in support of calls to boycott Israel over its policies towards the Palestinians. The move by the bookstores follows a backlash against Rooney's decision.

And finally, before we go to our book review, I thought I'd share with you a list of lists. A few friends asked me recently what to read - autumn and winter and good times to cozy up with a book, but..which book? Lithub has taken a mathematical approach to this conundrum and they compiled The Ultimate Fall 2021 Books - by looking over a total of 36 lists, which together recommended over 400 books being published this autumn. Seventy-seven of those 400 were recommended at least three times, and that's how they made it on this list of list. I'll just tell you the top 5 and link the article so you can check them all out. So top 5 most mentioned books on lists of books are - Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle; the just mentioned Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You (which by the way we reviewed on a previous episode, if you're curious); Lauren Groff, Matrix; Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land; and Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads.

https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-fall-2021-books-preview/

And now, let's chat to Daniela Barani about a great book: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.

Diwan is a story, not just a store. And today's we will hear the story of this Egyptian bookshop from its founder, Nadia Wassef.

Opened in 2002 as the only independent bookstore of its kind in Egypt, Diwan enchants its patrons with its mix of east and west, old and new, serious and playful.  They say ... "Our approach is to enrich our clients’ lives by transforming the act of “buying a book” into a cultural, artistic, and culinary experience, and offering them a visually appealing and relaxing ambiance every time they step into our stores." It is all about intentionality: every detail is thought through, from the name - Diwan, to the aesthetic of the bookshops, and of course to their wide book selection, in Arabic, but also English, French and German.

If you cannot visit Cairo and Diwan at the moment, what you can do is read Nadia Wassef's very recently published book, Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller. The book will take you back in time, to visit the Cairo of long ago, through the eyes of a charming bookseller. It will make you even more aware of the meaning of a bookshop for a community, even in times as troubling as a revolution. Nadia kindly agreed to chat with me today about Diwan, her all time favourite books, and what success means for a bookshop.

To get in touch (and maybe do a book review on a future episode), drop me a voice message at Anchor.fm/GotBooks or on Instagram / Twitter / Facebook - search for GotBooksPodcast

Welcome back to Got Books! On today's episode we'll first look at news from the book world and then go to our book review, with a new guest. We'll talk about famous bookshops from around the world, the impact the Taliban's takeover has on the Future of Kabul Booksellers, the Booker Prize and a couple of much awaited book releases. So let's get to it!

First I'd like to tell you about an article that came out this week in Financial Times, in which journalists nominate awe-inspiring places to get your literary fix, from Mumbai to Buenos Aires. On Got Books, we love bookshops, it is the main reason we started this podcast, to promote and celebrate independent bookshops from all over the world, and we've been so fortunate to have and share with you lots of conversations with booksellers. So let's check this list put together by FT.. to which I would add every single brilliant bookshop we had the pleasure to visit on Got Books. 

https://www.ft.com/content/42bb3a0f-ba18-4dc7-ae8a-570fd989cbfc

While these and many other bookshops are thriving, sadly booksellers in the Afghan capital Kabul are having a difficult time. As I am sure you know, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban movement has seized the city in August and declared Afghanistan an Islamic Emirate. This has consequences at all levels of society, affecting booksellers as well. 

https://www.news18.com/news/world/considered-profane-talibans-takeover-threatens-future-of-kabul-booksellers-4373774.html

In other news, the 2021 Booker Prize ceremony will be broadcast from the BBC’s Radio Theatre on Wednesday 3 November. The prizes celebrate outstanding fiction, whether originally written in English or translated into English, bringing recognition and many new readers to gifted authors from around the globe. So let's have a look at who is on the the 2021 shortlist, I'd love to know if you're rooting for any one of these: https://thebookerprizes.com/

And finally, before we get to today's book review, a quick note on 2 new releases that I'm sure many readers were waiting for.

Amor Towles is going from Russia to... Nebraska. Fun fact, Towles worked in investing for more than 20 years before pivoting to full-time writing, and he became known in 2016 after publishing A Gentleman in Moscow. His new novel, The Lincoln Highway, is quite different. "My new novel, The Lincoln Highway, is about three 18-year-old boys and an 8-year-old boy on a journey from Nebraska to New York City in 1954 — the whole story lasting just 10 days." One more book for my to read pile.

And because I have a bit more time than usual as I've just started my maternity leave, I'll add one more new book to my list - The Island of Missing Trees. By Elif Shafak. This one came out a couple of months ago already, and according to the review in the Guardian - "it charts the moving story of Kostas and Defne Kazantzakis, young lovers in a painfully divided postcolonial Cyprus – one Greek and Christian, the other Turkish and Muslim – and the emotional price they continue to pay after moving to England." If you've read it already, let me know what you thought.

And now, let's go to today's book review, with Victoria Wood @bibliolifestyle

Do you judge a book by its cover? Well.. let's face it, most of us do. And that's probably alright. Today we will go behind the scenes of Book Cover Design. How does one capture the essence of a book in just one beautiful image? Where do you even start? And how does the entire process unfold? These are some of the questions I'll be asking my two guests.

As with most jobs in the book industry, there's a certain romance associated with book cover design. For many, this sounds like a designer's dream job.. although very few people do book cover design full time for a living. Wherever you stand on the future of the book – bound to become a digital object, or on the contrary, a forever physical, tactile part of our cultural life – we can safely say that we are now in a golden age of book design. Step into a bookshop and you'll soon find yourself surrounded by beautiful design, from the very abstract to sharp photography. Trends in book design have ebbed and flowed over the years, with simplistic design principles becoming more pronounced in recent years. That could be because many readers now discover books online, so the book covers are designed with this in mind. There is however still book cover art made the old school way, by painters.. with actual colours and canvases. Some digital magic is then sprinkled on top to bring us the final design.

Today my guests are two quite different artists. My first guests is Terry Miura. Terry began his career in the 90s in NYC as a freelance illustrator, creating imagery for such clients as Time, Newsweek, Rollingstone, and Sports Illustrated. In between illustration assignments he painted and exhibited cityscapes, and continued his transition to becoming a full time painter after returning to the West Coast in 1996. He has recently designed the book cover for The Paris Bookseller, by Kerri Maher, the story of Shakespeare and Company's founder and one of the most famous booksellers of all time, Sylvia Beach. This book cover is also a painting, now owned by the book's author. (Here's Terry's website https://www.terrymiura.com/)

My second guest today is Darya Solomenko, a Dublin based graphic designer & illustrator, who also happens to be an old friend and former colleague of mine. She recently designed two books - Dima Golik's "I just am.", a poetry collection, and Olga Polyakova's "What, Was It Possible?", a book about building a career from the perspective of an immigrant. Darya has kindly agreed to come on Got Books to tell us all about her creative process. (Here's Darya's Portfolio https://www.solomenko.com/)

News in Books

1. The French parliament is protecting booksellers: https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/french-mps-vote-against-free-book-deliveries-targeting-amazon/

2. Rare Birds Books, Scotland’s first female-centric bookshop, opens in the heart of Edinburgh: https://www.scottishfield.co.uk/culture/books/scotlands-first-female-centric-bookshop-is-a-hit/

3. 9 Very Niche Bookstores: https://lithub.com/9-very-niche-bookstores-for-your-very-specific-interests/

Book Review: Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney with Molly Hills of Left on Read (subscribe to her newsletter here) 

Today we step in to Golden Hare, a design-led bookshop taking its cues from design museums. The difference here is that you can touch the art, pick it up and discover what’s inside. Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh is one of the city’s most charming and thoughtfully curated independent bookshops. It boasts a wall of beautifully displayed face-out books, an inviting fireplace (with real fire) for those chilly Scottish winters and one of the prettiest, bluest shopfronts ever.

The self-confessed reading addicts that form the team of booksellers have been advising readers since 2012, when Golden Hare opened its doors. The independent bookshop is in Edinburgh's Stockbridge, and they cover all genres from cookery to travel, kid's picture books to science fiction. They host all sorts of events, keeping the buzz going in one of Europe's most vibrant cultural spots.

We chat today to Julia and David, two of the booksellers looking forward to welcoming you to Golden Hare.

Books recommended by Julia & David:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland by Nan Shepherd

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara

LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL by Ronan Hession 

News in Books

1. Book Sales are up in the US https://www.wbjournal.com/article/revival-the-independent-bookstore-industry-is-growing-with-a-loyal-customer-base-wanting-to and in the UK https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/05/covid-19-book-sales-reading/

2. Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller is coming out soon! 

3. Literati: a bookclub you may want to join

4. Speaking of curating books..

5. The New Futures, an initiative by Bookshop.org & The Booksellers Association 

Book Review: Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller with Phoebe @Pause Books

This is the 2nd season of Got Books, the (now weekly) podcast where we celebrate our love for books and those who make and sell them.

On our first season, we spoke to booksellers from the UK, Canada, Australia, all the way to Senegal, Singapore, Palestine.. On this next season, coming Oct 1 2021, I decided to dive a bit further into the world of books. We'll continue having conversations with booksellers, while inviting other people from the book industry to join us, like book cover designers, book editors, writers... And once every 2 weeks, we'll have short episodes, bringing you the latest news from the book world and a 5 minute book review from a special guest.

So if you're like me and you're curious to know how books are made and sold, tune in starting Oct 1.

Hope you enjoy this season. Don't forget to subscribe to Got Books wherever you get your podcasts. And follow us on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter. You can find all our episodes at anchor.fm/GotBooks