Author: GRB

We hope you are enjoying December’s offerings so far. Last night was the Gloucester Road central late shopping evening, which was good fun. We stuffed ourselves silly with samosas, hotdogs, and mince pies, then we drank some prosecco and chatted about books. Thanks to everyone who came out.

We thought this might be a good moment to go into a little bit of detail about our book subscription gift offer, as we think it makes, for the right person, a very lovely gift indeed.

Each month we select a brilliant book – one we love, can’t stop thinking about, and believe deserves to be widely read. It will be wrapped and delivered to the lucky recipient’s door so they can have the joy of unwrapping a book each month for the duration of their subscription (either 3, 6 or 12 months).

A book subscription is a wonderful way to push the boundaries of reading habits and discover books that you would not otherwise have come across. It works particularly well for someone who might enjoy being a little adventurous with their reading. There are some FAQs on the website and pricing for the different subscription lengths, you can find all of that here.

If you purchase a subscription as a gift we’ll email you a copy of this certificate so you have something to present to the lucky recipient.

These are some of the books we’ve chosen since we launched the subscription offer earlier this year. You can click on any of the covers to read the blurb on our website, to give you a sense of the kinds of books we might be choosing in the future.

Please feel free to drop us an email or pop into the shop if you have any questions about book subscriptions. We’re really enjoying choosing the books & hearing people’s feedback so far. It’s no accident that many of the books chosen for our subscription also feature on our favourite books of the year lists – these are books we really love & hope you will too.

Happy reading all,

Tom, Leah & Joe

It is the first of December, and there is no longer any lingering shame in having the decorations up or mince pie crumbs on the plate. The shop is looking festive (thanks to Hannah from Rambling Rose) and full of gifts for humans of all shapes and sizes.

This year we booksellers have put together some (hopefully) helpful Christmas book lists on our website. We’ve each chosen our favourite 10 books that we’ve read this year, we’ve also listed the shop bestsellers, big new releases, and gift suggestons for adults and for children.

The favourite reads of 2023 from these questionable characters can be found here. There’s a good mix of different kinds of books, but all have in common our official stamp of loving approval. We read a lot over the course of the year, and there are plenty of books that we agonised about including, many we loved that didn’t quite make the cut, so the ones that did are those that left a real mark.

Want to know what the good people of Gloucester Road have been buying this year? Our shop bestsellers are here.

From cabbages to bums, cabins, walking, owls and curious words; we’ve covered all the major thematic groups with our Christmas Gift Suggestions. We specifically thought of the awkward sods with this list – those people who just don’t seem to want anything that you might conceivably be able to find for them.

Our shop selection of gift ideas for children has some really wonderful books. We’re particularly enamoured at the moment with The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish – a beautiful picturebook with a slightly Wes Anderson feel to the illustrations, but there are gems here for all ages.

We’ve also provided a list of lots of the year’s biggest new relases (in hardback) so you scoop up the blockbusters in one easy go.

We’ve had an amazing time bringing a wide variety of writers to Bristol for our events programme this year. We have one more talk to announce, and we think it’s the perfect way to sign off for the year in good seasonal style.

Join us for a shot of the supernatural with an evening of dramatic readings and discussion on the stories from the British Library’s recently published collection, Dead Drunk: Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drink edited by Bristol University lecturer, Pam Lock.

Pam will talk about the new collection of intoxicatingly strange short stories on drinking and drunkenness from the long 19th Century and her wider research on arguably the most drunken period of British history.

She will also share some traditional Victorian drinks and you’ll go away with a card of genuine Victorian recipes gathered from her research to try out on your family and guests this Christmas.

The event will be taking place on Thursday 30th November, at 7pm, at Gloucester Road Books
More information and tickets are available here.

With a stiff measure of the supernatural, a dram of melodrama and a chaser of the cautionary kind, tales of drink and drunkenness can be found in a well- stocked cabinet of Victorian and early twentieth-century fiction, reflecting an anxiety about the impact of alcohol and intoxicants in society, as well as an acknowledgment of their influence on humans’ perception of reality.

Featuring drink-fuelled classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Body Snatcher alongside obscurities from periodicals such as Blackwood’s Magazine, this new collection offers a (somewhat poisoned) chalice of dark and stormy short fiction, brimming with the weird, the grotesque, the entertaining and the outlandish.

We are positively salivating at the prospect of the latest event added to our schedule. We’ll be teaming up with our lovely neighbours at Boston Tea Party to bring you a very special event with 2021 Masterchef finalist, Alexina Anatole, and her dynamic new cookbook, Bitter.

The first in a series of five titles which are set to become cookery classics, Bitter is a collection of 80 accessible recipes that reveal how bitter flavours can add depth and complexity to our cooking, making food incredibly moreish. It also introduces the fascinating histories of some everyday foods and ingredients.

Alexina will be in conversation with Bristol’s very own culinary superstar, Elly Pear (Curshen), in what will be an exciting celebration of flavour and irresistible cuisine.

Alexina will also be bringing along samples of a recipe from the book. An evening not to be missed!

Date & time for the event are below and tickets & more info can be found here.

7pm Tuesday 21st November
Boston Tea Party, 293 Gloucester Road, Bristol BS7 8PE

It’s time to embrace the beauty of bitter flavours.

How well do you really understand bitterness? Often thought of as an acquired taste, bitter flavours add complexity and depth to a dish – making food incredibly moreish – if, you know how to work with them.

Fearlessly bringing together the best flavours and culinary strategies from around the world, Alexina will help you befriend bitterness – one flavour-balancing technique at a time. Using ten ingredients to walk you through every type of bitterness and how to tame it – from grapefruit and bitter oranges, bitter greens, tahini, beer, walnuts, cranberries, tea, coffee, cocoa and liquorice – each recipe will expand your repertoire and open the door to new worlds of deliciousness, using bitterness in both savoury and sweet dishes to elevate the taste of everything you make.

These 80 recipes include something to suit every taste and occasion. Start with bold breakfasts recipes, like Banoffee Breakfast Bread, Malted Crepes with Lime & Sugar, and Winter Citrus Fruit Salad, then fill your day with light lunches and weeknight dinners like Roasted Aubergines with Whipped Feta, Grapefruit & Hot Honey, Seared Salmon Tacos with Grapefruit & Avocado and Allspice Lamb Chops with Pickled Walnut Ketchup. Then, impress your guests with Ancho Coffee Beef Short Ribs, Duck Confit with Bitter Orange Salsa Verde and Jerk Pork Belly with Grapefruit Hot Sauce, plus decadent desserts such as Negroni Pavlova, Bitter Chocolate Torte with Passionfruit Sauce and Tiramisu Tres Leches cake.

Praise for Bitter

‘Bitter by Alexina Anatole is a gem of a cookbook – not only are the recipes fresh, fun and innovative, but her well-researched writing on the nature of bitter food is a pleasure to read – knowledgeable and generous… A delightful read.’ Rukmini Iyer, author of the Roasting Tin series and India Express

‘My ‘bitter tooth’ is pronounced… I gravitated greedily towards Alexina’s book.’ Nigella Lawson

‘A really gorgeous topic and lovely recipes.’ Georgina Hayden on Channel 4 Sunday Brunch

‘A detailed deep dive into the wondrous world of one of the trickiest flavour profiles. Stunning and inventive recipes inspired by cuisines from around the world to make you fall in love with bitter!’ Ixta Belfrage, author of Mezcla

‘A revelation… exciting, unexpected combinations’ Dominique Woolf, winner of Channel 4’s Great Cookbook Challenge and bestselling author of Dominique’s Kitchen

We are very pleased to announce an event with another of the Granta Best Young British Novelists. Our event with Thomas Morris, also on this list, last month was fantastic and now we are delighted to be able to welcome Camilla Grudova to the shop to discuss her new short story collection The Coiled Serpent.

This is a brilliant opportunity to hear from the writer whom award-winning author, Nicola Barker, describes as “Angela Carter’s natural inheritor.” I read both of Grudova’s previous books, a novel and a short story collection, and enjoyed them immensely, so I am particularly looking forward to this one.

The talk will take place at 7pm on Monday 13th November
Tickets and more info are available here.

A little girl throws up Gloria-Jean’s teeth after an explosion at the custard factory; Pax, Alexander, and Angelo are hypnotically enthralled by a book that promises them enlightenment if they keep their semen inside their bodies; Victoria is sent to a cursed hotel for ailing girls when her period mysteriously stops. In a damp, putrid spa, the exploitative drudgery of work sparks revolt; in a Margate museum, the new Director curates a venomous garden for public consumption.In Grudova’s unforgettably surreal style, these stories conjure a singular, startling strangeness that proves the deft skill of a writer at the top of her game.

“Camilla Grudova is Angela Carter’s natural inheritor. Her style is effortlessly spare and wonderfully seductive. Read her! Love her! She is sincerely strange – a glittering literary gem in a landscape awash with paste and glue and artificial settings.” Nicola Barker

“Grudova understands that the best writing has to pull off the hardest aesthetic trick – it has to be both memorable and fleeting.” Deborah Levy

“It’s easy to write what everybody else writes and that’s not what Camilla Grudova is doing. … We need work like this in the world.” Sinead Gleeson