What Bristol is reading – June 22-28

Family-run Durdham Down Bookshop, with Kathryn Atkins at the helm for the last 20 years, is one of the few independent bookshops left in Bristol. Situated on North View in Westbury Park, it is well worth a trip.  

Their top 10 books for last week include books on art, Booker Prize nominees and children’s tales. The two constant Bailey’s Prize works How to Be Both and Paying Guests feature for the third week in a row and a particular favourite is Tim Mowl’s Bristol Explored: Twelve Architectural Walks

1. Walking Away by Simon Armitage
In 2010, Armitage walked the Pennine Way funding his trip only through poetry readings and published the best-selling Walking Home: Travels With a Troubadour on the Pennine Way. Now in the sequel, Walking Away, he walks the South West Coast Path from Minehead in Somerset to Land’s End in Cornwall. The hardback was published June 5 but hasn’t received as great a reception as the original. 

2. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Mitchell keeps writing books and keeps getting long- and short-listed for the Booker Prize. He also fails to win. The Bone Clocks was described by Stephen King as one of the smartest books of 2014 but some find its multiple-first person narrators a bit hard to love. Just when you get settled with someone’s story you start reading about someone else’s. Not for the light-hearted but certainly fascinating. 

3. Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes
Barnes is well-acquainted with the Man Booker Prize as he was shortlisted twice before winning in 2011 with his Bristol-set book A Sense of An Ending. In Keeping An Eye Open he presents a fully illustrated work ruminating on mostly French art. Published in May 2015.

4. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Shortlisted for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction is Waters’ sixth novel and her first one set in the 1920s. Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances are forced to take in lodgers. The arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class”, means the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways.

5. How to Be Both by Ali Smith
Haltingly put aside by the Bristol24/7 book club as it felt too much like work, How to Be Both is nevertheless, popular with Bristol readers. The split narrative won Smith this year’s Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction.  Half of the copies are printed with the story of the teenage girl, George, whose mother has recently died, first. The other copies begin with the story of Francesco del Cossa, an artist in 15th-century Ferrara who in Smith’s story is born a girl but raised as a man. 

6. Us by David Nicholls
David Nichols’ Starter for Ten was said to be based around the University of Bristol where the author was an undergraduate. His latest publication is said to be a bittersweet novel about love and family, husbands and wives, parents and children. It’s one last family trip for a family that is disintegrating. Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2014. 

7. Bristol Explored: Twelve Architectural Walks by Tim Mowl
One for Bristol lovers that has been featured by the Festival of Ideas, which explored three of them. With pubs and restaurants as stopping off places in his walk, he has certainly captured the cultural feel of Bristol. 12 urban routes take in the city’s rich architectural heritage and explore Bristol’s unique maritime history. Banksy is in there too. All encourage the walker to discover, reflect critically upon the environment and challenge accepted wisdom about matters of planning and conservation.

8. A Song for Ella Gray by David Almond
A modern retelling of Orpheus and Euridice for a Young Adult audience. Some love it, others don’t find the northern accented dialogue particularly easy. 

9. The Crocodile Under the Bed by Judith Kerr
From current affairs on the Today programme where Michael Rosen discusses her classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea, to the best-seller list in the Bristol book shop, Kerr stands out as a literary treasure. The Crocodile Under the Bed is the latest children’s book from this well-known author where she writes about an unexpected guest who cheers up a poorly boy. The beauty of children’s books is their use of analogy to help little ones deal with problems. Crocodiles and tigers aren’t always crocodiles and tigers. 

10. Bears Don’t Read by Emma Chichester Clark
A bear finds a book in the forest and decides he wants to read it – so he tries to find someone who can help him. Not everyone can see past the very large appearance of our main character though. A beautiful story about friendship and the love of reading from this former Bristol Polytechnic student who won the Mother Goose award in 1988 and has published more than 60 books.

Durdham Down Bookshop, 39 North View, Westbury Park, Bristol, BS6 7PY
0117 9739095

www.durdhamdownbooks.co.uk