by Gudrun Bowers | 15, Jul 2024
We are delighted to announce that popular thriller writer Peter James is returning to Steyning to tell us all about One of Us is Dead, the 20th book in his best-selling Roy Grace series.
The Roy Grace series of gritty police thrillers set in Brighton is a a global phenomenon, with 23 million books sold to date, and has also been adapted into an award-winning ITV series starring John Simm, now on its third series.
Peter James is always an immensely entertaining speaker and will be in conversation with an interviewer, TBC.
The venue is the beautiful historic church of St Andrew & St Cuthman, in Steyning.
EVENT FORMAT
Author talk / Interview followed by audience Q and A.
Book signing/ meet & greet
TICKETS: Single ticket with book £22 / Couples ticket: admits 2 people with 1 book £32
Tickets available via button below or at the Steyning Bookshop or by phone on 012903 812062
by Gudrun Bowers | 15, Jul 2024
Join fantastic children’s author / illustrator ADAM STOWER for an hour of fun, games and DRAWING as he celebrates the release of his latest book MURRAY AND BUN: MURRAY THE KNIGHT... a madcap illustrated chapter book bursting with comic-style illustrations and funny jokes!
Travel through the magical cat flap and prepare for an adventure, packed to the brim with fun, creativity and lots and LOTS of drawing. Hear all about Murray & Bun, and have your pencils at the ready to draw-along with Adam too!
ABOUT THE MURRAY AND BUN BOOKS
Meet MURRAY AND BUN! Murray is a cat. Murray loves snoozing, fluffy blankets, and peace and quiet. Bun is a bun. Bun loves… EVERYTHING! And together they are unstoppable…Perfect for newly independent readers and fans of Bunny vs Monkey, Dog Man, Adventure Mice and Claude.
Adam Stower is an award-winning author/ illustrator who has published LOTS of briliant picture books and who is also the illustrator of books by David Walliams including Spaceboy, Robodog and The World’s Worst Pets.
Child Ticket £7 each includes a book.
Accompanying adults do not need to purchase a ticket.
AGE GUIDE: Adam’s books will be enjoyed by children aged 5-9 years.
START TIME 2.30pm END TIME 3.30pm approx
Tix via link below or direct from the bookshop in person or by phone 01903 812062
by Gudrun Bowers | 2, Jul 2024
CHANGE OF DATE! This event has been postponed due to illness, and the new date is TUESDAY 27th AUGUST at 2.30pm!
Join amazing author & illustrator CLARA VULLIAMY for a DOG-TASTIC event to celebrate her adorable Dog Squad books! There will be stories, a doggy draw-along and fun crafting for ages 5-9.
ABOUT THE DOG SQUAD BOOKS
A delightful new series of chapter books with GORGEOUS illustrations. Meet ‘The Newshounds’: Eva, Simone, and Ash – best friends, budding journalists, and dog-lovers. Their adventures begin when Eva finds a stray whippet puppy and the Newshounds spring into action to try to track down the owner.. Lots more doggy adventures follow, from busting a whippet racing racket to putting on a dog show to help their local animal rescue centre… WOOFTASTIC fun for animal lovers aged 5+.
ABOUT CLARA VULLIAMY
Clara Vulliamy was born in London and studied at Chelsea School of Art, The Ruskin and the Royal Academy. She is the daughter of the celebrated author-illustrator Shirley Hughes and began illustrating picture books when she had her own children. She has since written and illustrated many stories, sometimes collaborating with her mother. She lives in Twickenham, with her husband and their daughters, Leah and Martha. Some of her other brilliant books include the Dotty Detective series, the Marshmallow Pie Cat Superstar series, and the Mango and Bangbang series. Her illustrations have the same warmth and charm as those of her illustrious mother!
EVENT FORMAT: Start time 2.30pm. Stories, a draw-along and a dog related craft activity, with free refreshments for kids, followed by author book-signing. Duration: approx 1 hour.
TICKETS: £5 per child, fully redeemable against a purchase of one of Clara’s lovely books! Accompanying parents do not need to purchase a ticket. Tickets via Ticketsource link below or direct from the bookshop.
AGE GUIDE: Clara’s books are suitable for reading aloud to children from 5 years or for 6+ independent readers.
by Gudrun Bowers | 13, Jun 2024
We are excited to welcome CATHERINE GRAY, author of the best-selling book The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober as she introduces her debut novel, Versions of a Girl, a breath-taking, addictive story about the paths taken - and not taken – in life.
This will be a small, boutique style event at the bookshop, with seats for only 30, and will include a welcome drink.
ABOUT CATHERINE GRAY
Catherine Gray is a Sunday Times bestselling author of five books, including The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. She’s sold over half a million books, her work has been published in Stylist, Marie Claire, The Lancet Psychiatry and the Guardian, and her books have been translated into nine languages. In 2018, Catherine founded charitable campaign Sober Spring, a Three-Month Sabbatical from Alcohol, and she now runs it with Alcohol Change UK, for whom she is an ambassador. She lives in Sussex and when not writing she enjoys falling off a paddleboard, giving her plants names like ‘Cassandra’ and ‘Miguel’, and spamming Instagram with pictures of dogs!
ABOUT VERSIONS OF A GIRL
A truly compulsive read which I tore through in 2 days!
Do we become who we are because of our parents, or in spite of them? Fern’s mother is a social climber and a former ballet dancer who lives a plush life in a London townhouse. Fern’s father only climbs if there’s a bottle at the top, has an IQ of 133 and lives hand-to-mouth in Californian motels. Aged fourteen, Fern has spent equal time with each of her parents. That is, until an unexpected visitor triggers a life-changing dilemma: whether she should get on a plane to London to be with her mother, or stay in California with her father. Here, Fern’s narrative splices in two. Two possible lives, one person. Each Fern will grow in wildly different, but eerily similar directions. Both must determine who they want to be – and how they deal with a thorny problem which threatens to undo them all: a murder. Fern is a marvellous creation, flawed, spontaneous and relatable, and you’ll be rooting for both versions of her every step of the way!
Online Tickets here, Tickets also available from the shop and by phone on 01903 812062
by Gudrun Bowers | 7, May 2024
Join cookery writer, chef and founder of Higgidy Pies CAMILLA STEPHENS as she celebrates the release of Clever with Veg, her latest cookbook, at this summer evening soiree in the atmospheric rural setting of Charlton Court Barn.
The evening will comprise: mingling with wine & delicious nibbles (food kindly provided by Higgidy Pies) followed by a talk / Q and A with Camilla Stephens. Tickets also include a copy of Clever with Veg cookbook.
About Camilla Stephens
Higgidy’s founder and chief pie maker, Camilla Stephens, began making pies in 2003, having trained as a cook at Leiths School of Food and Wine. She worked as head of food development for Starbucks UK before leaving to follow her dreams and start her own business – Higgidy. Since then, Higgidy has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing food companies making glorious everyday food to help people live well. From wholesome pies and quiches to sausage rolls and mini muffins, its products are now stocked in the UK’s major supermarkets. Camilla is married to Higgidy’s co-founder James, and they have two children. Clever with Veg is Camilla’s third book, and once again her mission is to move more veggies from the edge to the centre of the plate and to empower home cooks to have the confidence to experiment.
About Clever with Veg
Camilla’s latest cookbook is packed with eminently cookable recipes; from gloriously easy roasting-tin suppers, faff-free one-pan wonders, to speedy salads and family favourites ready in under one hour. The book also offers crafty shop-bought shortcuts, ingenious ways to pack more veg into your cooking, and strategies for cutting down on food waste. Whether you are vegetarian or just want fresh ideas for your meat-free days, you’ll find veggie inspiration within!
TICKETS
Single Ticket: £25 per person including food & drink, and a hardback copy of Clever with Veg.
Couple Ticket: £35 admits 2 people but only includes 1 copy of Clever with Veg, to share!
There is parking at Charlton Court, however it is just a pleasant 10 minutes stroll up Mouse Lane, so we do recommend the strolling option!
Event Details
Doors Open at 6.50pm Event Starts 7pm
by Gudrun Bowers | 30, Apr 2024
Guardian journalist and nature writer PATRICK BARKHAM will discuss his book The Swimmer, about the life of Roger Deakin.
Roger Deakin wrote the nature writing classics, Waterlog and Wildwood. But he was also a maverick ad-man, a seller of stripped-pine furniture, an inspirational teacher, filmmaker, music promoter and eco-warrior. Today, he lives on as the patron saint of wild swimming.
Patrick brings this great romantic alive in an illustrated talk, and tell stories of Roger and his generation – perhaps the luckiest and most distinctive that ever lived.
About Patrick Barkham
Patrick Barkham is OUR FAVOURITE nature writer and has been to Steyning on a number of occasions – his talks are always highly informative and he is a lovely chap! Patrick is Natural History Writer for The Guardian and the award-winning author of many brilliant non-fiction books including The Butterfly Isles, Badgerlands, Coastlines, Islander and Wild Child. He lives in Norfolk with his family.
The event will be held at Steyning Methodist Church, teas & coffees will be on offer from the church volunteers (small cash donation appreciated). Doors open 7pm, talk starts at 7.30pm.
Tickets from the shop, by phone on 01903 812062 or click below to book online (small booking fee applies)
by Gudrun Bowers | 18, Apr 2024
Join JULIA DONALDSON for a very special book-signing to celebrate the release of her brand new book The Tooth Fairy & The Crocodile, her latest book with superstar illustrator LYDIA MONKS. The Tooth Fairy and the Crocodile tells the tale of Ruth Mary the tooth fairy, who gets more than she bargained for when she collects the teeth of some jungle animals, including a less-than-friendly crocodile!
ABOUT THE BOOK SIGNING
PLEASE BOOK IN ADVANCE – 1 ticket per family group
Your £12.99 ticket includes 1 hardback copy of The Tooth Fairy & The Crocodile, and allows entry of one family group (of up to 5 people) to the book-signing. You’ll be able to purchase more copies of the new book and all Julia’s previous books on the day, from the Steyning Bookshop. Julia will sign AND name-dedicate ALL books either pre-ordered or purchased at The Steyning Bookshop that day! We regret that we will not accept books from home or books purchased elsewhere for signing.
The book-signing begins at 2pm and is split into 40-minute time-slots to reduce queue times, with 25 family groups in each time slot, starting from 2pm. As each time slot fills up, we will start ticket sales for the next time slot. Feel free to call us for more info!
The signing will take place mainly outdoors, under cover in the beautiful back garden of the Steyning Bookshop, Julia’s local bookshop.
There will be activities, music & refreshments for children while you wait to meet Julia.
Book online via our TICKETSOURCE page via the button below, or by phone on 01903 812062.
by Gudrun Bowers | 13, Apr 2024
Join us as we celebrate Independent Bookshop Week and our 40th year in business with a fabulous crime-writers event!
A star-studded evening with best-selling cosy crime writer REVEREND RICHARD COLES and master thriller-writer ELLY GRIFFITHS in conversation, chaired by fellow crime-writer WILLAM SHAW.
The Reverend Richard Coles will be celebrating the release of Murder at the Monastery, the 3rd book in his best-selling Canon Clement Mystery series, published on 6th June. Murder at the Monastery sees Canon Daniel Clement taking respite at the monastery where he was a novice, only for a suspicious death to occur… As dark secrets unfold, can Daniel solve the mystery at the monastery without the help of Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo?
Elly Griffiths will be celebrating the release of The Man in Black & Other Stories, a collection of short stories featuring all her best-loved characters including Dr Ruth Galloway, Harry Nelson, Max Mephisto, Detective Harbinder Kaur alongside ghost stories and cosy mysteries; tales of psychological suspense and poignant vignettes of love and loss.
The discussion will be ably chaired by fellow thriller writer William Shaw, whose latest book The Wild Swimmers will be on sale on the night.
All tickets include a copy of either Murder at the Monastery or The Man in Black (please choose which book when booking tickets). Further books and all authors’ previous titles will be available to purchase & to be signed by the authors on the night.
Tickets can be purchased in person from the bookshop, by telephone on 01903 812062, or online here and via the button below (a small booking fee applies to online bookings)
ABOUT REVEREND RICHARD COLES
Richard Coles is a writer, broadcaster and an Anglican priest. He co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for eleven years and appears, from time to time, on QI, Have I Got News For You, and Would I Lie To You? He has won Christmas Masterchef, Celebrity Mastermind twice, and captained Leeds to victory in Christmas University Challenge in 2019. A contestant on Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, he scored a lamentably low mark for a Paso Doble. He writes regularly for the Sunday Times, and is the author of half a dozen books, including a bestselling autobiography, Fathomless Riches, and the bereavement bestseller The Madness of Grief, after the death of his partner, Rev David Coles. Murder Before Evensong and A Death in the Parish, the first two books in the Canon Clement Mystery series, were both instant number 1 Sunday Times bestsellers.
ABOUT ELLY GRIFFITHS
Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.
ABOUT OUR CHAIR WILLIAM SHAW
William Shaw has been shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, longlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and nominated for a Barry Award. A regular at festivals, he organises panel talks and CWA events across the south east. His books include the acclaimed Breen & Tozer crime series set in sixties London, the newest series featuring DS Alexandra Cupidi, and the standalone bestseller The Birdwatcher. He worked as a journalist for over twenty years and lived in Brighton until a recent move to Ireland!
by Gudrun Bowers | 4, Apr 2024
THURSDAY 2nd MAY at 7.30pm
Join award-winning journalist Rafael Behr as he discusses his book ‘Politics, A Survivor’s Guide: How to Stay Engaged without Getting Enraged‘.
We live in an age of fury and confusion. A new crisis erupts before the last one has finished: financial crises, Brexit, pandemic, war in Ukraine, inflation, strikes. Prime Ministers come and go but politics becomes ever more divided and toxic. It is tempting to switch off the news, tune out and hope things will get back to normal. Except, this is the new normal, and our democracy can only work if enough people stay engaged without getting enraged.
But how? To answer that question, award-winning journalist Rafael Behr takes the reader on a personal journey from despair at the state of politics to hope that there is a better way of doing things, with insights drawn from three decades as a political commentator and foreign correspondent.
Rafael will be in conversation with our very own local political poet, Simon Zec.
ABOUT RAFAEL BEHR
Rafael Behr is a political columnist for the Guardian. He is a former Political Editor for the New Statesman, Chief Leader Writer and Online Editor for The Observer, a business news reporter for BBC online and a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times, based in the Baltic region and Russia. Rafael is a regular contributor to Prospect Magazine, a guest on BBC and Sky News and a speaker at UK think tanks. His book, Politics, A Survivor’s Guide, is published by Atlantic. He hosts the Politics on the Couch podcast.Before becoming a journalist, Rafael was a political risk analyst covering countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He studied modern languages at Merton College, Oxford and took a Master’s degree in Russian Studies at the School for Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. He lives in Brighton with his family.
TICKETS
£10 Ticket Price includes a drink upon entry.
£15 Ticket Price includes a copy of Politics, A Survivor’s Guide and a drink upon entry.
Tickets avaiable from the bookshop or online via link below (booking fee applied to online bookings)
by Gudrun Bowers | 28, Feb 2024
This is going to be a really special evening!
We are delighted to welcome writer, literary critic and cultural historian ALEXANDRA HARRIS to Steyning to discuss her new book The Rising Down.
Alexandra grew up in Sussex and was educated at schools in Storrington and Horsham, so the Arun valley, the Wealden mud and the chalky sweep of the South Downs are in her blood, and The Rising Down sees her returning to West Sussex to consider the layers of buried lives beneath this familiar landscape…Who has stood here, she asks; what did they see?
As Alexandra excavates archival records and everyday objects, hundreds of unexpected stories and hypnotic voices emerge from the area’s past, from the painter John Constable and the modernist writer Ford Madox Ford, to the lost local women who left little trace. She uncovers the unexpected stories behind hidden places: an ancient church sheltering a medieval anchorite who chose to be buried alive, the country estate parading a menagerie of exotic animals, the cottage where William Blake received the poetic spirit of Milton, and a safe house harbouring secret agents from wartime French resistance networks.
Alexandra will be ‘in conversation’ with an interviewer (TBC) and will also answer audience questions and sign books at the end of the evening.
ABOUT ALEXANDRA HARRIS
Alexandra Harris is a British writer and academic. She was born in Sussex and spent her childhood in the Arun Valley area. She is the author of Romantic Moderns, on modernism in inter-war Britain, and Weatherland on weather in English art and literature. She has also written a short biography of Virginia Woolf. Her radio work includes a series following Virginia Woolf’s walks, a ten-part ‘British History in Weather’, as well as programmes on candlelight, fireworks, coldness, and an excursion to ask shepherds about pastoral literature. She is a Professor of English at the University of Birmingham.
Tickets £8 ticket only or £20 including a signed copy of The Rising Down (RRP £25!!)
Book online via the button below, alternatively pop into the bookshop or call us on 01903 812062.
Page 3 of 35«12345...102030...»Last »
