The Observant Walker: Wild Food, Nature and Hidden Treasures on the Pathways of Britain
John Wright

The bestselling author of The Forager’s Calendar and A Spotter’s Guide to the Countryside, John Wright, joined us to talk about his new book, The Observant Walker; a guide to the food, nature and history to be found all around us when we walk.

John is an expert in the natural world and has been leading forays around Britain for decades. As an expert forager, he shows people how to identify the edible species that abound – but he also reveals the natural history, stories and science behind our surroundings. In The Observant Walker, he takes us with him on eight walks: from verdant forests to wild coastlines, via city pavements, fields and rolling hills, he illuminates what can be found on a walk across any British terrain, and how we might observe and truly understand them, for ourselves.

When we go for a walk, whether in the countryside or city, we pass through landscapes full of natural beauty and curiosities both visible and invisible – but though we might admire the view, or wonder idly about the name of a flower, we rarely have the knowledge to fully engage with what we see. When we do, our sense of place is expanded, our understanding deepened and we can discover richness in even the most everyday stroll.

Warm, wise and endlessly informative, with helpful illustrations and suggested routes, The Observant Walker will help you to see the world around you with new eyes: no walk will be the same again.

“John Wright writes as though he is talking directly to you, a good friend in the same room. His harvest of fascinating information is worn lightly, with funny, whimsical observations.” BBC Countryfile

“This illustrated survey (The Forager’s Calendar) is historically detailed, enriched by the author’s deep knowledge of British landscapes and natural history.”  Guardian

John Wright is a naturalist and one of Great Britain’s leading experts on fungi. His most recent books include A Spotter’s Guide to the Countryside and The Forager’s Calendar. He lives in Dorset, where he regularly leads forays into nature and goes on long walks across all terrains. The Forager’s Calendar won the 2020 Guild of Food Writers Award and the 2020 Woodland Book of the Year

The Way the Day Breaks
David Roberts

An informal event celebrating the launch of his debut novel

Set in Yorkshire in the 1980s, The Way the Day Breaks is a novel about family, love, memory and mental illness. 

We follow one family, mostly in car trips across the dales, as they discuss nature, speculate on the future, dream up get-rich schemes, laugh, quarrel and try to hold together.

But there is a darker current running beneath this family’s shared life. The father, Sinclair, is approaching a manic episode, and life in the family becomes strained. The impact of his breakdown is heartbreaking and felt through the children down the years, especially by the youngest son, Michael.

As formally inventive as it is narratively rich, the story unfolds in two modes, through dialogue and through the poetic reflections of Michael, some years later.

The Way the Day Breaks is one of the most moving, honest accounts of the way mental illness vibrates through the life of a family.

David Roberts is a Sheffield-based writer. The Way the Day Breaks is his first novel.

The Meaning of Geese
Nick Acheson

We were delighted to welcome Nick Acheson to talk about his first book, The Meaning of Geese: A Thousand Miles in Search of Home, in conversation with environmentalist Mary Colwell.

The Meaning of Geese is a beautiful tribute to the wild geese and their great athletic migrations – an expertly detailed account of how their sound and spectacle shape our winter landscape and what it might mean to lose them forever.

During a time when many of us faced the prospect of little work or human contact, renowned naturalist and conservationist Nick Acheson found a sense of peace and purpose in his pursuit of the wild geese that filled his beloved Norfolk skies, on their seasonal visits from Iceland and Siberia.

In The Meaning of Geese Nick recounts these adventures, starting with the dramatic arrival of the pinkfeet and brent geese as they land in the thousands in North Norfolk each autumn.

While following their flocks on his old red bicycle, Nick encounters rarer geese, including Russian white-fronts, barnacle geese and an extremely unusual grey-bellied brant, a bird he had dreamt of seeing since thumbing his mother’s copy of Peter Scott’s field guide as a child.

Over the course of seven months Nick keeps a diary of his sightings as well as the stories he discovered through the community of people, past and present, who loved them too. Over seven months he cycles 1,200 miles – the exact length of the pinkfeet’s migration to Iceland.

Yet, with the impacts of climate change the geese’s future migrations are no longer a given, and as spring arrives and Nick says goodbye to the last of the geese, the question of whether they will return the following seasons hangs in the air. He writes: ‘I meant to bid them fortune on their journey; to thank them for their winter company; to pray their tundra will persist a few years more, despite our ravaging of the climate.’

The Meaning of Geese is a book of thrilling encounters with wildlife, of tired legs, punctured tyres and inhospitable weather. Above all, it is the moving account of Nick Acheson’s love for Norfolk’s ancient landscape – the land the wild geese call home each winter.

Nick Acheson grew up in North Norfolk. Since early childhood he has been fascinated by nature, a fascination which grew through his youth to become a consuming interest and a commitment to wildlife conservation. In adulthood this has developed into advocacy for the environment and for a sustainable future. For the past fifteen years, Nick has worked for conservation NGOs in the UK, most notably Norfolk Wildlife Trust. He is an ambassador for both Norfolk Wildlife Trust and Pensthorpe, a trustee of Felbeck Trust and a recent president of the historic Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society. Nick is a regular guest on BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, ITV Anglia, BBC Radio Norfolk among other outlets. He has written for three of the Seasons anthologies, Red Sixty Seven, Low-Carbon Birding, British Birds, British Wildlife and BBC Wildlife. This is his first book.

Mary Colwell is an award-winning author, producer and campaigner for nature. She won a Sony Radio Academy Gold award, and has been awarded the BTO Dilys Breese Medal, the David Bellamy Award from the Gamekeepers Organisation, the WWT Marsh Award for Conservation and the RSPB Medal. She spearheaded the successful establishment of a GCSE in Natural History. Mary is Chair of the Curlew Recovery Partnership England and set up the charity Curlew Action in 2020.

One Small Voice
Santanu Bhattacharya

We were thrilled to welcome Santanu Bhattacharya and his wonderful debut novel, One Small Voice to the shop on March 10th.

Santanu was in conversation with writer, editor and creative producer at Words of Colour, Heather Marks.

Selected as an Observer Best Debut Novel for 2023, One Small Voice portrays a turbulent modern India as it moves from the 20^th to the 21^st century, through the life of Shubhankar Trivedi.

India, 1992. The country is ablaze with riots. In Lucknow, ten-year-old Shubhankar witnesses a terrible act of mob violence in which his family are complicit: an act that will alter the course of his life.

In the two decades that follow, Shabby must wrestle with the ghosts of his past, the expectations of his family, and the seismic shifts taking place around him as the country enters the new millennium. As an adult in Mumbai, he encounters Syed and Shruti, who, like him, are seeking the freedom to rewrite their stories while navigating the contradictions of modern India. As the rising tide of nationalism sweeps across the country, their friendship becomes a rock they all cling to.

Until one day, Shabby makes a split-second decision that will change everything…

Praise for One Small Voice has been pouring in. Nikesh Shukla calls the novel “Devastating and intimate, and political and radical all at the same time.” And goes on to say that “Bhattacharya’s storytelling talents are limitless.”

Max Porter says it is “A joy to read, a full universe of feeling, an effortless page-turner by a born storyteller.”

Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He is the winner of the 2021 Mo Siewcharran Prize, Life Writing Prize and London Writers’ Awards. His works have been nominated for the 4thWrite Prize, the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award, and the Pontas/JJ Bola Emerging Writers’ Prize, and have appeared in Commonwealth Writers’ adda. He now lives in London. One Small Voice is his first novel.

Heather Marks is a creative producer, editor, and writer. She is part of the immersive change agency Words of Colour, and works with universities, publishers and literature organisations to create meaningful opportunities for writers of colour. From 2019 – 2022, she had the pleasure of working at the ‘tiny but mighty’ independent press and publishing studio No Bindings. She is co-editor of The Book of Bristol (Comma Press) and writes historical fiction for young adults.

Dizz Tate’s Brutes

We were delighted to welcome Dizz Tate for our opening event of 2023.

Dizz discussed her striking coming-of-age new novel, Brutes, one of the most anticipated debuts of the year, launching our brand new series of events which will highlight brilliant debuts and little-known writers we’re very excited about!

Dizz was in conversation with our own Joe Melia – bookseller, literary events organiser and co-ordinator of the Bristol Short Story Prize.

In Falls Landing, Florida—a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers—something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher’s daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they uncover will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the ‘we’ of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.

Brutes has received amazing pre-publication reception. Mariana Enriquez, prizewinning author of Things We Lost in the Fire, says: “The mystery and the danger of being a girl, of feeling crazy and vulnerable and wild, wanting to run away and be someone—anyone—is captured here across a landscape of nail polish and fire and sex, a sinister lake and the pink sky of Florida. Brutes is a beautiful and deeply strange novel, full of dread and longing. I loved it.”

While Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure calls it: “Polyphonically technicolour and lushly textured, Brutes is a defiant elegy to the myth of girlhood innocence. Dizz Tate’s talent is brazen – and brilliant.”

Dizz Tate is a London-based writer who grew up in Orlando, Florida. Her debut novel, Brutes, was sold in a heated five-way auction. Her fiction has been previously published in The Stinging Fly, Five Dials, The Tangerine, Prism International, 3:am magazine, No Tokens Journal, and Corda amongst others. She won the Bristol Short Story Prize in 2018. Her pamphlet of short stories Nowhere To Go But Back Again was published by Goldsmiths Press in 2018.

Lia Leendertz in conversation about The Almanac 2023

Lia Leendertz is an award winning writer and author of The Almanac, her reinvention of the rural almanac, now in its sixth year and an annual bestseller. She has also written several gardening and cookery books and writes for the Guardian, the Telegraph and for gardening magazines. She lives in Bristol with her husband, two teenagers and two dogs.

Reconnect with the seasons in Britain and Ireland with this month-by-month guide to the world around us — including key dates, tide tables and garden tasks; constellations and moon phases; sunrises, folk songs, seasonal recipes plus a ‘bun of the month’; and — because 2023 will be a good year for planet spotting — the solar system and the zodiac. The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2023 gives you the tools and inspiration you need to celebrate, mark and appreciate each month of the year in your own particular way. Divided into the 12 months, a set of tables each month gives it the feel and weight of a traditional almanac, providing practical information that gives access to the outdoors and the seasons, perfect for expeditions, meteor-spotting nights and beach holidays.

There are also features on each month’s unique nature, with this instalment following the swirling micro world of the garden pond through the year. You will find yourself referring to The Almanac all year long, revisiting it again and again, and looking forward to the next edition as the year draws to a close. This year’s edition is illustrated by artist Whooli Chen.

Chris Floyd Not Just Pictures

Photographer Chris Floyd rose to fame during the heights of Britpop and has since become one of the most in-demand celebrity portrait photographers in the world. Not Just Pictures, published by Reel Art Press in October 2022, is the first monograph dedicated to Floyd’s 30-year career. A visual memoir, Floyd’s selected career highlights are accompanied by his incisive, insightful recollections, first hand accounts of, in his words, ‘unique encounters on the confrontation and collaboration line’. Floyd’s subjects include Paul McCartney, Tina Fey, Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Bill Murray, Vivienne Westwood, Iggy Pop, David Attenborough, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Reeve, David Bailey, Paul Weller, Pet Shop Boys, David Cameron, Greta Gerwig and Marcus Rashford.

A highly unusual celebrity photographer, both meticulous and spontaneous, Floyd’s wit and vulnerability is present in every anecdote. Not Just Pictures is all about stories, from getting his first camera to getting mugged to believing one of his heroes would only want to buy the rights because “he disliked them enough to want them removed from the public domain”. As the world seeks to sanitise its visual history, in the age of Google’s Magic Eraser, Chris Floyd’s Not Just Pictures is a permanent reminder of what real photography is all about.

Anna Beer Eve Bites Back

Anna Beer is a cultural historian and biographer. She is author of Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music and Patriot or Traitor: The Life and Death of Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as biographies of Bess Throckmorton, William Shakespeare and John Milton. She is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.

The event was chaired by Helen Taylor, Emeritus Professor of English at University of Exeter. She is an Honorary Fellow of the British Association of American Studies and a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow. She has taught English and American literature at the Universities of Bristol, West of England, Warwick and Exeter, where she was Head of the School of English. She has published and lectured widely on the literature and culture of the American South, as well as women’s writing. Her books include Scarlett’s Women: Gone with the Wind and its Female Fans (1989, repr. 2014), Circling Dixie: Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens (2001), The Daphne du Maurier Companion (2007) and Why Women Read Fiction: The Stories of Our Lives (2019). Curator, Chair and participant in many literature festivals, she was the first Director of the Liverpool Literary Festival, 2016 and 2018.

Joanna Quinn was born in London and grew up in Dorset, in the South West of England, where her debut novel The Whalebone Theatre is set. Joanna has worked in journalism and the charity sector, and spent a number of years working at the Bristol Post. She is also a short story writer, published by The White Review and Comma Press among others, and was shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize in 2017. She teaches creative writing and lives in a village near the sea in Dorset.

The event was chaired by Dr Sanjida O’Connell. She has a PhD in zoology and psychology and is the author of eight novels and four non-fiction books. She’s also contributed to two encyclopaedias and had poetry and short stories published in anthologies. Sanjida previously worked as a wildlife presenter for the BBC and an environmental  features writer and columnist for national newspapers and magazines, including BBC Wildlife Magazine. Sanjida has been shortlisted for the BBC Asia Awards, the Betty Trask Award for Romantic Fiction, the Daily Telegraph Science Writer’s Award, Asian Woman of the Year, and was highly commended in BBC Wildlife Magazine‘s Award for Nature Writing. Currently Sanjida writes psychological thrillers under the pen name of Sanjida Kay, and is working on another thriller and a book about rewilding.

Anil Seth Being You

Anil Seth is a leading British researcher in the field of consciousness science. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness, and a European Research Council Advanced Investigator. His writing has appeared in the Guardian, New Scientist, Scientific American and Granta, and his 2017 TED talk has been viewed nearly 13 million times.

James Ladyman is professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol and editor in chief of Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. He has been assistant, deputy and co-editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and was honorary secretary and is President Elect of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science. He has published many articles in philosophy of science and is the author of Understanding Philosophy of Science, and (with Don Ross) Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalised. He founded the University of Bristol’s Centre for Science and Philosophy. He has spoken to committees of both houses of Parliament about HE policy matters. He is on the executive committee of the Council for the Defence of British Universities.