May 2021 update

Dear friends of Barter Books –

I’m writing this update in response to the interest paid by so many of you vis-à-vis the Barter Books Talks Series – an interest I can only tell you is very much appreciated.

Before I reply properly, can I just say that all of us here hope that all of you have been able to weather the Covid storm without too great hardship. And that includes its residual effects, physical and non-physical: Your relationships. Your business. Your career. School. Plans. Dreams.

One thing about it: no-one has totally escaped. And that includes us. The only difference is a matter of degree. And about that, we all have our stories. Here is ours.

We first became aware of this new virus when we read about it somewhere in the back pages of a newspaper in the last days of December 2019. We paid no real attention; it was too far away to affect us. In fact, we actually opened our new ice cream parlour, Paradise, the very next month, January 2020. (Pause for quick word of advice: Covid or no covid, don’t open an ice cream parlour in January.)

But how rapidly things changed. Viruses can travel fast. So that by 23rd March 2020, all non-essential businesses, of which ours was but one of millions, were required by law to close. Now. And we did. We sent our staff home. Made sure all the lights were turned off. And then walked out of our shop’s front door, locking it behind us. And with the exception of a few months grace here and there, it stayed locked. All that was left to wave our banner was the odd online sale and the little ice cream parlour doing its surprised best to do double duty as a modest Takeaway. In short, like so many others, we went overnight from having a healthy number of customers to having virtually none at all. And for a year. (This has been particularly interesting, Stuart would add, from the point of view of cash flow.)

But things have changed yet again. From 12th April 2021, we have been allowed once more to reopen our shop, as long as we maintain self-distancing restrictions. And come May 17th, our Buffet and our ice cream parlour will also be allowed in-house trade, as well as Takeaway. Even better, we are thinking that this time - dare I say it? - the reopening will be for good.

Why? First, thanks to the wonderful furlough system. Were it not for that and how well it worked for us and our staff, we quite simply couldn’t have made it. And second, thanks to the near miracle of the vaccine and the vaccination programme, without which, even now, furlough system or no, we would feel that the lockdowns weren’t over. As it is, however, we sense the beginning of our lives at last returning to normal. Which will include, we hope, seeing you again, and maybe even exchanging if not our stories at least maybe the odd High Five! (I’d love that.)

Even more to the point (sorry, I did get a bit sidetracked) it would also include, as soon as the need to self-distance ends and definite dates can be agreed on with potential speakers, the return at last of our Talks Series. And as soon as that happens, we’ll let you know and hope you can make it. Personally, I can’t wait.

Best to you all and from all of us here at Barter Books.

Mary

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One of the perks I value most about having a bookshop is that our talks series, such as it is (roughly a speaker a month between September – June) enables me to meet professionals in every field (the arts, sciences, even sports) who I would otherwise never have had the opportunity to meet. Some few are well-known to the public – hey! It´s a long way up here, the fee is risible, and the Old Waiting Room wherein the talks take place only holds 50 people tops (60 if they´re skinny).

Still, some serious names (serious names with big hearts) have been willing to make the perilous journey above Watford, eg, Joanna Trollope, David Aaronovitch, Richard Ingrams, Anne Stevenson, James Fleming, Tony Harrison, and the late (loved) (missed!) Miles Kington.

But forget famous; all our speakers are well-known within their field and have given some of the most spell-binding talks of all, enough to have created their very own fan club. (Just try dropping the name ‘Richard Lomas’ around these parts ­ Dick´s the Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Durham ­ and wait for the absolutely slavering response.) Anyway, all the talks begin at 7.30 and cost £5 (and that includes a glass of plonk no less.)

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In normal times, the AVRS met once a month at the bookshop in the winter season.

Due to the Covid restrictions, the meetings have had to be suspended, to be resumed when it is safe to do so.

However, the Aln Valley Railway is still very much active – click here for the latest information.

The Barter Books Book Group meet once a month at the bookshop from September to May each year. Two groups meet on the Monday and Tuesday, 7-9pm. Both follow a theme and material, suggested by the leader.

During Covid, the group met on Zoom. But face-to-face meetings have now resumed. If you are interested in joining either the Monday or Tuesday night groups, please contact Rosemary Hartill.

The Book Club is led by Rosemary Hartill, a former BBC correspondent, who has reported from some thirty countries (including BBC World Service broadcasts). Among the radio series Rosemary has presented for the BBC are: Meridian Books (World Service books programme), Writers Revealed (fourteen interviews on Radio 4 with authors ranging from Iris Murdoch to Anthony Burgess), and Immortal Diamonds (a Radio 4 series about poets). The recipient of two honorary doctorates in literature, Rosemary has also written for the Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement and is the author of several books.

For a list of books previously read, see Book Group Archive ... here

Barter Book Group – books read

We began Sept 03.

 

2022

January - May 2022

Theme: Other Worlds: Chilling (and Thrilling) Tales.

New Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins

Home going by Yaa Gyasi

The Comedians by Graham Green

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

The Black Jacobins by C. R. James

2021

September – December 2021 (Zoom)

Theme: CLI-FI

The High House by Jessie Greengrass;

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward;

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe;

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue;

The Shepherd's Life and Pastoral by James Rebanks;

January - May 2021 (on Zoom)

Theme: EMPIRE – How We Got To Where We Are (Zoom)

Essays: George Orwell;

Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor;

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe;

The Good Immigrant, ed Nikesh Shukla;

Part of Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad;

2020

September - December 2020 (Zoom)

Theme: Green and Black - Part 2

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge;

Climate Justice by Mary Robinson;

The Case for the New Green Deal by Anne Pettifor;

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo;

January - May 2020 (partly on Zoom)

On Kindness by Barbara Taylor (2009);

Theme: Green and Black - the Natural World ...

The Wild Places by Robert McFarlane (2008);

Harvest by Jim Crace

Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009) (Zoom);

(lockdown special):

The Code of the Woosters by P.G.Wodehouse (Zoom);

2019

September to December 2019

Theme: Molly's Sisters...

Longbourne by Jo Baker; Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris; Silence of Girls by Pat Barker; Orlando by Virginia Woolf

May 2019

Theme: Reaching Port.

Episode 17 (Ithaca) and 18 (Penelope) (150 pages in total)

April 2019

Theme: Mid-Ocean.

Episodes 10 (Wandering Rock) and 11 (Sirens) (100 pages in total) and, if you are up for more, 13 (Nausicaa) (50 pages)

March 2019

Theme: Setting sail.

Ulysses, Episode 1 (Telemachus) 2 (Nestor) 3 (Proteus) 4 (Calypso) 5 (Lotus Eaters) 6 (Hades) (150 pages in total)

February 2019

Theme: Ulysses, Planning our Voyage

January 2019

Theme: the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

2018

September – December 2018

Theme: the Long and the Short of it...

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; Raymond Queneau, 2013 and A World of Difference

January – May 2018

Theme: Beginnings and Endings

Muriel Spark, The Comforters; George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo; Ngugi wa Thiong'o, A Grain of Wheat, Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March; Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

2017

September - December 2017

Theme: Great Ideas

Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; Edward Gibbon, The Christians and the Fall of Rome; Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince; William Hazlitt, On the Pleasures of Hating

January - May 2017

Theme: Blue

Penelope Fitzgerald,The Blue Flower; Georges Simenon, The Blue Room; William Boyd, The Blue Afternoon; Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind:A memoir of moods and madness; Danielle Steele, Blue

January 2017 – Party Twelth Night Party (at Barter Books)

2016

January - May 2016

Theme: Comings and Goings / Between Two Places

Shaun Tan,The Arrival; Rose Tremaine, The Road Home; Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin; Sunjeer Sahota, The Year of the Runaways; Col Tóibín, Brooklyn

 

2015

September - December 2015

Theme: Rage against the Machine (Rebels with a Cause)

Plato, The Last Days of Socrates: Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida: Franz Kafka, The Castle: Loretta Napoleoni, The Islamist Phoenix

June 2015 – Party at The Hoolies, Alnmouth

January - May 2015

Theme: Old and New World Gold

Laurie Lee, As I walked out on a Midsummer Morning;Introduction to Spanish Poetry: A Dual-language Book editor: Eugenio Florit; Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 years of Solitude; Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist; Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

January 2015 – Party - Howick Village hall Circle Dancing; reading that made an early impression on our lives

2014

September - December 2014

Theme: Russia

Forty Stories by Anton Chekhov; Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita; Victor Pelevin, Babylon; Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine Diaries

June 2014 - Party Chinese takeaway and film Yellow Earth

January - June 2014

Theme: China

Peter Hessler, River Town -  Two Years on the Yangtze; Dai Sijie,Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress; Jung Chang,Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China; 170 Chinese poems translated by Arthur Waley; Leslie Chang, Factory girls

January 2014 -Party - Dinner at Barter Books

 

2013

September-December 2013

Theme: Heroes and Tricksters

The Mahabharata, a shortened  version by R.K. Narayan; and The Bhagavad Gita; Martin Bennett, West African Trickster Tales; Tennyson’s Morte  d’Arthur (part); Anthony Price, Other Paths to Glory.

June 2013 – Party - Ship Inn, Low Newton-by-the-Sea

January-May 2013

Theme: INDEPENDENCE: Who We Are … and What We Can Be?

Fitzroy Maclean (with Magnus Linklater), Scotland: a revised history; Kate Fox, Watching the English - the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; Alan Watts, The book on the taboo against knowing who you are; Anne Tyler, Digging to America

January 2013 - Party - Howick Village Hall Dancing with Alistair Sinton

2012

September - December 2012

Theme: REVOLUTIONS and what it's like to live through them

George Eliot, Middlemarch; Mikhail Bulgakov,The White Guard; Ryszard Kapuscinski,Shah of Shahs; Sahar Khalifeh, Wild Thorns

June 2012 – Party - Howick Village Hall Music. Singing with Sarah Gray

January - May 2012

Theme: COMING-OF-AGE (Bildungsroman) novels

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus; Bapsie Sidhwa, Ice-Candy Man; Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South; Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea; Selma Lagerlof, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

January 2012 - Party

 

2011

September - December 2011

Theme: Ways of Seeing

Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah; Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle; John Berger, Ways of Seeing; Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything 

June 11 – Party

January – May 2011

Theme: Life and Work

Charles Dickens, Hard Times; John Lanchester, Whoops!:Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay; Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara; Polly Toynbee, Hard Work; The Gospel according to St Matthew.

January 2011 – Party - Barter Books – Seven Ages of Man(at Barter Books)

2010

September – December 2010

Theme: Journeys of Discovery

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance; Salley Vickers, The Other Side of You; R.K Narayan, The English Teacher; Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence

June 2010 – Party at Poppy's house in Newcastle

January – May 2010

Theme: The Italians

Tim Parks, An Italian Education (1996, Guardian Books2001); March 1, 2: Dante, The Divine Comedy: Hell; Carlo Levi, Christ did not stop at Eboli; Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an author; Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (1972)

January 2010 – Party - Barter Books – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (at Barter Books)

2009

September - December 2009

Theme: Mystery, or Deception

Claire Tomalin, The Invisible Woman; Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent; John Banville, The Untouchables; Ian Rankin, The Naming of the Dead

June 2009 – Party - Barter Books – exploration/discovery (at Barter Books)

January - May 2009

Theme: Food

Nigel Slater, Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table; Julia Child, My Life in France; Bill Buford, Heat; John Lanchester, My Debt to Pleasure; Joanna Blythman, Bad Food Britain

January 2009 – Party - Barter Books – trains (at Barter Books)

2008

September - December 2008

Theme: Contemporary world writing

Andrey Kurkov, Death and the Penguin; Uwem Akpan, Say You're One of Them; Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers; Marina Lewycka,Two Caravans

January - May 2008

Theme: French literature

Marguerite Duras, The Lover; Proust Swann's Way (vol 1 of 'In Search of Lost Time'); St Exupery Le Vol de Nuit (Night Flight)  and Southern Mail;  Albert Camus, The Stranger; Irene Nemirovksy, Suite Francaise (French Suite)

2007

September - December 2007

Theme: Diaries/ memoirs

Simon Garfield, Our Hidden Lives; James Boswell, Boswell's life of Johnson; Isabella Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains; Simon Wiesenthal, The Sunflower

January - May 07

Theme: Lucky Dip

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time; Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland; David Malouf, The Great World; Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard; Khalid Hosseini, The Kite Runner

2006

September - December 2006

Theme: The Arab World

Rory Stewart, Occupational Hazard – My Time governing in Iraq ; Amin Ma’alouf, the Crusades through Arab Eyes; 1001 Nights; Karen Armstrong, A short history of Islam

January - May 2006

Theme: American literature

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage; Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Henry James, Selected short stories; Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev

2005

September - December 2005

Theme: Travel books

H.V. Morton, Travels through Bible Lands; Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar; Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium; Homer, Odyssey

January - May 2005

Theme: Five women’s books linked to experiences of childhood or adolescence

Julia Darling, The Taxi-Driver’s daughter; Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye; Sally Morgan, My Place; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Chimamanda Ngoze Adichie, Purple Hibiscus

 

2004

September - December 2004

Theme: Light and Dark

Nick Hornby, How to Be Good; Tolstoy, Resurrection; Philip Pulman, His Dark Materials; Gawain and the Green Knight

January - May 2004

Theme: War

Evelyn Waugh, Officers and Gentlemen; Ivo Andric, The Bridge over the Drina; Jaroslav Hasek, The Good Soldier Svejk; Homer, The Iliad; Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost

 

2003

September - December 2003

Theme: Colliding Cultures

Graham Greene, The Quiet American; Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing; Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia; Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

 

Barter Books

invites you to a very special book launch

Herterton House and a New Country Garden

(The collaborative creation of Frank and Marjorie Lawley)

With a talk by the author:  Frank Lawley

and

A slideshow of Herterton photographs by the well-known garden photographer

Val Corbett

For all those who love gardens, Herterton Garden, created by Frank and Marjorie Lawley over a forty-year period on the Wallington estate near Cambo, is one of the truly outstanding gardens in England. Among many brilliant reviews, Robin Lane Fox, writing in the FT, called Herterton Garden quite simply “one of the most influential gardens to be created since the end of World War II”.

This book launch celebrates the new book, Herterton House and a New Country Garden, written by Frank Lawley and beautifully illustrated by Val Corbett. It recounts the story of two young artists who, virtually alone, slowly and meticulously restored over forty years what was basically a 16th century ruin of a house and embellished it with a garden worthy of it. The book is also a fascinating social history of a whole era on the Wallington estate (of which Marjorie Lawley’s father was the head gardener) along with fascinating asides on art and architecture. As important, maybe even more so, Frank and Marjorie did all this on no assurance, beyond the odd empty promise, that their garden would even survive.

For all this and more, the well-known garden writer, Susie White, counts the book as unique among garden books as the life it describes – and a modern classic.

Can you come to the book launch?

We can’t promise you that there will still be seats left in the old Waiting Room, but we can promise you that we will do our best to make up for it with seating outside the Waiting Room, speakers so you can hear all the proceedings, plenty of wine and nibbles, compare garden notes with half the audience (including Frank Lawley, himself!),  see a little exhibition of Frank’s artwork as a young art teacher, and even meet the author, photographer, book designer, as well as two representatives from the book’s publisher, the much-esteemed Pimpernel Press.

Most of all, and the whole point of the evening really, is just to have this chance to cheer on the lives of two people who have contributed so much to our own.

Place: Barter Books
Date & Time:  Monday, July 13th, 7:30pm
Entrance: No charge but any donations appreciated! Advance booking, however, is essential. If you’d like to be there on the night, please let us know so we can arrange the right amount of seating, wine and nibbles! (To book telephone 01665 604888 or call into the shop)