There is a good mix of different genres and subjects, a couple that I’ve read and loved myself, and plenty of books that would be well worth taking a chance on even at the cover price.

These will all be sold at 40% off, strictly while stocks last. If last year is anything to judge by, they will go quickly. They can be browsed in store or online, and can be ordered for collection or delivery. Follow the link below to peruse.

In the words of the novel’s publisher, Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton: “It (Tarantula) is a novel about individual and collective inheritance, individual and collective violence; about memory, trauma, connection and estrangement… and how the past lives on in the present.”

We are very fortunate and honoured to be hosting Eduardo and Daniel for what will be an unforgettable occasion.

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‘Among [Halfon’s] preoccupations are the legacy of violence and mass murder in Europe and Latin America; the frequency and facility with which the past intrudes upon the present; the quixotic effort to separate family myth from historical fact; and the ways in which pleasure consoles us’ New York Review of Books

‘This novel about a violent and traumatic childhood episode is eerily current – the questions it raises about identity, resistance and history are both deeply personal and universal.’ Mariana Enriquez

‘This taut, magisterial novel explores the possibility of disentangling one’s trauma and one’s roots’ Le Monde Des Livres (France)

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Eduardo Halfon is the author of fifteen novels examining questions of identity, memory and history as a Jewish man, as a Guatemalan, as a descendant of European and Middle Eastern refugees, including The Polish Boxer, Mourning and Canción. He has received numerous awards around the world including the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Prix Roger Caillois and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France, the Premio de la Crítica and the Premio José María de Pereda in Spain, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and the International Latino Book Award in the US, and the National Prize in Literature of Guatemala, his country’s highest literary honour. Eduardo Halfon was named one of the thirty-nine most promising young Latin American writers by the Hay Festival in Bogotá and is a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation. His work has been translated into sixteen languages.

Daniel Hahn is a translator, writer, and editor with almost ninety books to his name. His work has won the International Dublin Literary Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the Blue Peter Book Award, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among others.

Photo credit: Eduardo Halfon by David Herranz

like many of you, we eagerly await each new Fitzcarraldo Editions publication with what can only be described as the eagerest of all known anticipations. So we’re more than delighted to say that we will be welcoming Fitzcarraldo author, Matthew Rice, and hisbrilliant book-length poem, Plastic, to the shop next month. Matthew will be reading from the book and will be in conversation with acclaimed fellow-poet and author, Ralf Webb.

But don’t just take our word for it, join us to hear all about it. We anticipate tickets selling swiftly so please don’t wait too long before nabbing one for yourself!
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‘Matthew Rice’s Plastic goes where poetry seldom does: the factory floor, the canteen, the night shift, and it does so astutely and with insight and grace. This is real and vital work.’ – Nick Laird, author of Up Late

‘Plastic confronts the daily realities of work and labour, revealing how the body endures the relentless grind. Yet within these poems are flashes of light, moments of grace and a quiet, fond sensibility. This continuous narrative offers a hopeful, heartfelt reorientation, reminding us of the vitality found in the overlooked lives of many. Surprising, tender and true.’ – Hatty Nestor, co-author of The Aching Poem

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Matthew Rice’s poetry has been widely published including in The Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review and The Tangerine, and in the anthologies The Best New British and Irish Poets 2017 (Eyewear) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2022 (Faber). He holds an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University, Belfast, and a PhD from The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. His debut collection, The Last Weather Observer (Summer Palace Press) was published in 2021 and was included on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s top ten books of the year.

Ralf Webb is the author of the poetry collections Rotten Days in Late Summer and Highway Cottage, and the non-fiction book Strange Relations, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. His poems, essays, and fiction have appeared widely, including in the London Review of Books, Fantastic Man, Granta and the Guardian.

a very happy 2026 to you all. We hope you’re festive season was a really enjoyable experience and that you didn’t miss us too much!

One of the many joyous things we get to do is collaborate with some of our favourite publishers when putting together our events programme. Very much at the forefront of this are fellow Bristol buddies, Lurid Editions, who seek out and publish largely unknown queer 20th century gems that might otherwise have languished in distant archives.

So we’re delighted to be opening this year’s events line up with Lurid’s latest publication: Mariana Villa-Gilbert’s radical, significant and surprising novel, A Jingle Jangle Song, first published in 1968 andset in the heady days of the ’60s London folk scene.

Lurid Editions director, D-M Withers, will be in conversation with the acclaimed writer of A Flat Place, Noreen Masud, to discuss A Jingle Jangle Song and Villa-Gilbert’s little known life and work.

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to hear lots more about this singular, trailblazing writer.

“Late 60s London, folk singer Sarah Kumar arrives to give a concert. She is hot stuff and a hot mess – androgynous, awkward and alluring. Kumar attends hip parties, sings to her fans and passes out wasted. She is a picture of consummate coolness, hid nervously behind huge sunglasses – a subversive imagining of a strong queer female lead amid the commercial folk boom.

“Inside the countercultural throng, Kumar’s life is soon derailed by an encounter with an older woman, the intoxicating Mrs Stankovich.

“Buried in the archives for far too long, A Jingle Jangle Song is the lost queer novel of the late 1960s. Eccentric and atmospheric, sweet and satirical, the novel celebrates how queer desire erupts in unexpected – and unignorable – ways.”

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Mariana Villa-Gilbert (1937-2023) published six novels with Chatto & Windus in the 1960s and ’70s. The short story collection, The Sun in Hours, the final published work in her lifetime, came out in 1986. In the 1990s Villa-Gilbert moved to Cornwall and retreated from public view.

Lurid Editions are a Bristol-based indie publisher who publish rediscovered LGBTQIA+ books from the twentieth century archive.

D-M Withers is Director of Lurid Editions and Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter where they are also Co-Director of the MA in Publishing programme.

Dr Noreen Masud is a lecturer in twentieth century literature at the University of Bristol and an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker, making programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her memoir, A Flat Place, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, the Jhalak Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. It was also selected for numerous Books of the Year lists, including by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The News On Sunday (Pakistan) and The Sunday Times.

Our Wonderful Book Subscription

As one of our monthly fiction subscribers you’ll receive a book every month which you can either collect in the shop or have delivered to your door. We aim to choose something that you may not have already read, not only for your sake but also so that we can highlight a book we feel deserves more love! Above all else, it is always, always, something one of us has adored!

Subscriptions can be 3, 6 or 12 months in length, and can be bought for yourself or as a gift for someone else. Each month the book will be wrapped and will include an introduction from the bookseller who made the selection.

Below is a sample of the titles we’ve chosen over the last few months, along with excerpts from the introductions written for them. More information about our subscription options is available from our website.

July

Highway Thirteen

by Fiona McFarlane

August

The Course of the Heart

by M. John Harrison

September

Big Kiss, Bye-Bye

by Claire-Louise Bennett

October

Art on Fire

by Yun Ko-eun

November

The Dance and the Fire

by Daniel Saldaña París