One of the best middle-grade fiction novels I have read this year! An exciting science fiction thriller for ages 9+.
In a bleak future world, torn apart by a civil war between humans and advanced A.I robots, some scavenging children come across a cute little robot, locked in a basement. Adam 2 has been locked away for 200 years, and knows nothing of the war between robots and humankind. He has been programmed to faithfully serve humans, and quickly bonds with the children. Soon, by virtue of his human-style loyalty, he is accepted into the human camp.
Adam’s unique position – trusted by the humans, yet essentially an A.I, earns him friends & enemies in both camps, and it becomes clear that he holds the key to the war, and the power to end it – to destroy one side and save the other. But which side is right? Adam must decide who – and what – he really is.
A really thrilling story, full of thought-provoking issues, and Adam 2 is a truly unforgettable and adorable character. Will appeal to fans of Philip Reeve.
It has been a strange old year, beginning with the third lockdown, from January to April, which saw all of our bookshop staff continuing to beaver away, behind closed doors. It is amazing, in hindsight, how busy we remained while the shop was ostensibly ‘shut’ – first and foremost with website orders for signed & name-dedicated Julia Donaldson books – with our heartfelt thanks to Julia Donaldson, who spent every evening (apart from Sundays. We gave her a break on Sundays) inscribing names on books! Then there were phone and email orders from our dear, loyal customers, which were, as ever, a fun challenge, not to mention trying to make World Book Day a thing, while shut – we eventually put the World Book Day books out on our porch for children to help themselves! We are very grateful, too, to the local schools who kept us busy with orders and topic lists – Gudrun enjoyed the challenge of selecting a huge order of books based on their ‘Accelerated Reader’ level!
March saw us experimenting with more ‘Virtual Events’ – a lively discussion on Zoom with local thriller writers Elly Griffiths and William Shaw was well-attended, and then our book group welcomed historical thriller writer Lucy Jago to talk about her powerful and fascinating historical novel ‘A Net for Small Fishes’. Julia Donaldson’s name dedication offer drew to a close in early March, with a crazy flurry of orders from, it seemed, hundreds of physician mums, who had shared our website link in their Facebook group, and then we had just a couple of weeks to try to get the shop looking its best in time for the grand reopening in April!
With typical bad timing, the shop refitting of lighting and carpets – which necessitated removing ALL the books and most of the shelving – coincided with Gudrun’s house move, so we were a woman down for the big refit – Sara, Rob, Gill, Sarah & Alice worked like trojans to get everything back in place for April 12th, the re-opening date. They managed it with their sanity just about intact, and the shop, with sparkling new lighting, smooth new grey carpet, and rearranged shelving, has never looked better!
It was truly wonderful to be open again and get back to face-to-face bookselling! As schools re-opened we had quite a rush of publisher ‘virtual event’ offers for schools, so began to dip our toes into these strange new waters – we figured out a way to offer the virtual event books to parents via our website, and it all worked quite well! We’ve had virtual school events with Vashti Hardy, Jenny Pearson, Sophy Henn, Thiago de Moraes, and A.M Howell during May, June & July.
April saw more virtual events – Steyning Bookshop favourite Claire Fuller joined us on Zoom for a book-group style event, talking about her Women’s Prize-nominated novel ‘Unsettled Ground’, this was a really interesting evening, and Claire was, as ever, a really friendly and thoughtful interviewee. The bookshop staff definitely think there is something to be said for these virtual events – feels like a holiday NOT having to hulk boxes of books, wine & glasses down to our studio venue! And sitting on your own sofa in your PJ’s while interviewing an author is quite a strange sensation!
June drew to an end here in a burst of exciting activity as we celebrated Independent Bookshop Week and had our first live signings for over a year, in the bookshop garden which is looking a bit better than usual this year thanks to ministrations by author and illustrator Emily Gravett’s good gardener chum Sophie – love that we even have a book connection with our gardener! In the preceding week we had the excitement of hosting an online interview by Gudrun with wonderful Esther Freud, and then the first day of Indie Bookshop Week was super exciting too as we took part in a very special multi bookshop online launch of Julia Donaldson’s gorgeous new book The Woolly Bear Caterpillar, with Julia and Malcolm broadcasting from the bookshop. And there were surprise roles for Rob and for me reading the lines of two of the caterpillars! Fame at last! Despite weather warnings, our three garden events that week were fine. Absolutely lovely families came to the Woolly Bear Caterpillar signing by Julia, with jolly caterpillar-y activities and delicious caterpillar shaped biscuits to keep everyone going, as starstruck children chatted to Julia and heard Malcolm singing their favourite songs. On the last Saturday of IBW young science enthusiasts were treated in the morning to a fun fact-filled event by Dr Liam Drew introducing his new book The Brain published by Dorling Kindersley and in the afternoon we had more lovely families arriving with starstruck children when Liz Pichon of Tom Gates fame paid her first visit here for many a year. Her new in paperback book Shoe Wars had given her free rein to wear and bring some amazing fantasy shoes, and Gudrun, her son Otto and amazing young helper Ellie Aungier laid on some great shoe related craft activities including customising kids’ own trainers. An action-packed week was rounded off by the bookshop opening on the Sunday to sell the ticket/brochures for our Steyning in Bloom Garden Tour and finding the day more dramatic than expected with road blocks, sirens and helicopters galore after the illegal Steyning Rave on the Saturday night. Tour visitors peering at their gardens maps found themselves alongside bedraggled ravers searching for their cars – one raver was heard to say – “I left it in a road with trees in it”. Thanks to Jo Gordon and Steyning for Trees their search was probably quite a challenge! Hard to find a road without trees now.
To celebrate the lovely honour of being the Crime Writer Association’s Bookshop of the Month for July 2021, we wanted to celebrate crime writing! So we are delighted that thriller writer & journalist Lucy Atkins will be Zooming in to discuss her fourth novel, the critically-acclaimed thriller ‘Magpie Lane’. Lucy will be joined by wonderful writer William Shaw, with his interviewing hat on.
This will be a kind of ‘Open Book Group’ style event – 2 of our book groups will be reading ‘Magpie Lane’, we are very happy to invite non book-group members to join the event but we strongly recommend that you read the book first, as there may be SPOILERS and we can’t have that with a thriller!
Lucy Atkins is an award winning British author and journalist. She has written four novels, most recently the critically acclaimed MAGPIE LANE. Many of her books are published internationally and THE NIGHT VISITOR (2017) has been optioned for television. Lucy teaches on the Creative Writing Masters degree at the University of Oxford. She was a judge for the 2017 Costa Book Awards , and is a book critic for The Sunday Times. She has lived in Boston, Seattle and Philadelphia, and is now based in Oxford, with her family and her dog.
About Magpie Lane
When the eight-year-old daughter of an Oxford College Master vanishes in the middle of the night, police turn to the Scottish nanny, Dee, for answers.
As Dee looks back over her time in the Master’s Lodging – an eerie and ancient house – a picture of a high achieving but dysfunctional family emerges: Nick, the fiercely intelligent and powerful father; his beautiful Danish wife Mariah, pregnant with their child; and the lost little girl, Felicity, almost mute, seeing ghosts, grieving her dead mother.
But is Dee telling the whole story? Is her growing friendship with the eccentric house historian, Linklater, any cause for concern? And most of all, why was Felicity silent?
Roaming Oxford’s secret passages and hidden graveyards, Magpie Lane explores the true meaning of family – and what it is to be denied one.
Our kids author event this summer on FRIDAY 20th AUGUST at 11 am in our lovely bookshop garden will be lots of ROARING good fun! We are thrilled to welcome illustrator / author VICKY WOODGATE back for a dino-tastic event celebrating her new book ‘A World of Dinosaurs’. Expect lots of Cool Facts, LIVE Drawing and a Roaring Quiz with amazing competition giveaway signed prints!
Tickets are just £4 per child – and ticket-bearers get £4 OFF Vicky’s book. Free refreshments for children.
Book in store, call 01903 812062, or online via Ticketsource (incurs a small booking fee)
Celebrate Independent Bookshop Week with Julia Donaldson, in the comfort of your own home!
Saturday 19th June, 10.30am to 11.30am.
Join Julia Donaldson for this special one-off live, online event. Julia will read her latest stories, including ‘The Woolly Bear Caterpillar’, perform songs accompanied by her husband, Malcolm, and answer questions from the audience. The event will stream live via Zoom, in a collaboration with Wee Three Indies, At Home with 4 Indies, and The Steyning Bookshop.
Tickets £5 Or FREE when you order one of the following books from the Steyning Bookshop:
The Woolly Bear Caterpillar by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Yuval Zommer – £12.99** The Hospital Dog by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie – £6.99 The Scarecrow’s Wedding by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler – £6.99
Please book your event access ticket here or by calling us on 01903 812062. If you would like to purchase one of the 3 books, you will get £5 off the book price if you state that you are an event ticket-holder. You can purchase the books + postage via our website store, in person at the shop, or by telephone. If purchasing via our website we will manually adjust the price so do mention in the ORDER NOTES that you are a ticket-holder.
Meet Julia Donaldson at her first ‘in-person’ book-signing for more than a year, as she celebrates the launch of her new picture book, The Woolly Bear Caterpillar, wonderfully illustrated by Yuval Zommer. This charming ‘Ugly Duckling’ style story is full of facinating nature facts and even includes a mini-book of bug facts by Michael Blencowe, from Sussex Wildlife Trust. The signing will take place under shelter in the garden of the Steyning Bookshop, in timed 30-minute slots from 3.30pm onwards on Thursday 24th June 2021. Tickets are £12.99 which includes 1 copy of The Woolly Bear Caterpillar for signing. 1 ticket booking admits 1 family group of up to 5 (1 adult / 4 kids or 2 adults, up to 3 kids). There will be no more than 25 bookings per 30 minute slot to avoid long queues.
To book online (booking fee applies): 3.30pm slot click here
A fun, fact-filled interactive event for families with children aged 7-11. Neurobiologist turned writer Liam Drew will introduce curious kids and budding scientists to the amazing & mysterious world of the brain. Starting with the weird and wonderful brains of different animals, we’ll look at how information gets into the brain, then how our brains learn, make memories, and think. We’ll look, too, at emotions, sleep, and how we are all unique – with lots of time for questions and conversation!
To take place in the Steyning Bookshop back garden marquee, at 11am on Saturday 26th June.
Family tickets £10 per family. Includes a copy of The Brain Book by Dr Liam Drew.
Exclusive – this is Liz Pichon’s first live ‘real-life’ event for a year!
Meetbest-selling ‘Tom Gates’ author LIZ PICHON for a special book-signing to celebrate the paperback release of ‘Shoe Wars‘, her hilarious new book – chockful of crazy cartoons, bursting with invention and packed with mad gadgets! On Saturday 26th June, from 3pm.
Book-signing will take place under shelter in the beautiful back garden at the Steyning Bookshop, with appropriate social-distancing measures. Signing will be in 30 minute slots with no more than 25 bookings per slot. 1 booking costs £7.99 and includes a paperback copy of ‘Shoe Wars’ for signing. 1 small family group of 1-5 people constitutes 1 booking. The Steyning Bookshop will have copies of all Liz Pichon’s books on sale for signing. Customers may not bring their own books from home for signing.
We are so excited that renowned, award-winning novelist Esther Freud is to join us LIVE for a VIRTUAL EVENT on Zoom, to discuss her new novel I Couldn’t Love You More – an unforgettable novel about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal.
This will be a kind of ‘Open Book Group’ style event – we invite you to read the book first and then join our 3 book groups online, where after a short interview, Esther will be happy to take questions from audience members. The event price of £15 INCLUDES a hardback copy of I Couldn’t Love You More, so when you pre-order the book with us, do mention that you are a ticket-holder! You can book here or call us on 01903 812062.
Esther Freud’s cult first novel Hideous Kinky was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. After publishing her second novel, Peerless Flats, she was chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British novelists along with Kazuo Ishiguro and Jeanette Winterson. Her last novel, Mr Mac and Me, won Best Novel in the East Anglian Book Awards. I Couldn’t Love You More is her ninth novel.
We are thrilled that award-winning novelist Claire Fuller is going to join us for a virtual event on Wednesday April 21st, to discuss her latest amazing novel ‘Unsettled Ground’. This will be a kind of ‘Open Book Group’ style event – we invite you to read the book first and then join our 3 book groups online, where after a short interview, Claire will be happy to take questions and respond to your observations.
Claire Fuller is a firm favourite of all our staff and book group members here at the Steyning Bookshop. She came to Steyning to discuss her gripping, unsettling debut novel ‘Our Endless Numbered Days’ with our book group, and then returned to tell us about ‘Swimming Lessons’, her beautifully written second novel. We sadly missed a visit for ‘Bitter Orange’ her darkly simmering third novel (which I adored!) so we are really looking forward to welcoming Claire back, albeit virtually, to talk about her new novel ‘Unsettled Ground’, published on March 25th.
‘Unsettled Ground’ is a beautifully-observed portrait of lives lived at the fringe of society, and what happens when those edges fray. The central characters, 51 year-old twins, Julius and Jeanie, have lived a sheltered rural existence with their mother, Dot, surviving hand-to-mouth on what they can earn from their garden produce and odd farming jobs. When Dot dies suddenly, the twins are forced to confront the outside world, and long-kept secrets begin to surface, casting doubt on family truths and shattering their precarious existence.
Claire Fuller was born in Oxfordshire, England, in 1967. She gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn’t start writing until she was forty. She has written three previous novels: Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award, and Bitter Orange. She has an MA in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of Winchester and lives in Hampshire with her librarian husband. You can visit Claire’s website here!
Call us on 01903 812062 to purchase your copy of ‘Unsettled Ground’ and register to join the event, OR buy online via our website here!
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