To continue this week’s Becky theme, I’ve edited and uploaded Becky’s appearance on BBC Radio Scotland’s The Book Cafe, where she chats with the host Janice Forsyth about our recent Literary Speed Dating evening.

MP3 file: download

You can find plenty of other interviews and author events over on the Fidracasts page.

… love them, and hold on”.* These were the words projected onto the vast bulk of the castle rock on Valentine’s Day as part of the Carry a Poem project happening in the city this month and they have a power and truth for all of us to remember and abide by.  And here’s the official press photograph with the lines projected onto the backs of Becky and her partner John.

and here’s the poem projected onto the actual rock as it appeared on Valentine’s Day.  Although possibly without the men in high vis vests in front of it…

* Douglas Dunn

I’m sorry there’s been a bit of radio silence on the blog lately, but we have a good excuse: the cold virus appears to have taken up almost permanent residence at Fidra HQ, and none of us have been feeling tip-top. Vanessa and I were coughing in stereo last week – never good when customers recoil in horror when you begin to speak! We’re seriously considering wiping the picture flats with anti-bacterial gel to prevent further infection…

On a more cheerful note: the City of Literature campaign this year is the delightful Carry a Poem. They have produced a free book filled with some much-beloved poems, and they’re inviting people to tell them about how they carry their favourite poem. It’s been really popular initiative: we’ve even had some people come into bookshops to tell us their story, which is lovely (if a little unexpected!). Excitingly, love poetry is going to be projected on Castle Rock this weekend, which is the only time an outside organisation has been allowed to do so.

I’m going to jump on the bandwagon at this point: tell me your favourite poem and why. If we get some good stories, then I will randomly select someone and send them a copy of Carry a Poem plus a few of the Carry a Poem poetry cards. (Granted, not much of an incentive if you live in Edinburgh and can get it for free, but more fun if you aren’t a resident!)

I’ll start…

I find it almost impossible to pick a favourite, but if forced, I would probably go with Hope is the Thing with Feathers, by Emily Dickinson. I love the way her poetry often seems so stream of consciousness - a burst of emotion on the page – and yet fits together in perfectly-tesselating agreement. I enjoy a lot of her darker poems, but Hope is the Thing with Feathers catches (for me) that feeling of the determined something inside that flickers even when you feel low.

So, give me yours!

Alexander McCall Smith is one of our favourite local authors; he’s also a very entertaining speaker. We’re therefore very excited to be hosting the launch of The Double Comfort Safari Club, the newest book in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, on Wednesday 3^rd March. The event is being held in Christ Church, Bruntsfield (a beautiful church opposite The Children’s Bookshop) at 7.30pm. Tickets are £5 which gives £5 off the book and are selling fast so get yours now to avoid disappointment. To book your tickets drop into The Edinburgh Bookshop. If you’re unable to get into the shop, you can phone and book over the phone and we will post your tickets out to you. The number to call is 0131 229 9207.

Single?  Want to meet someone lovely but are fed up with meeting blokes who just want to tell you about their dull job and brag about their New Town flat and BMW?  Or being set up with girls who want you to be interested in handbags or how they nearly sat next to Brad Pitt on a plane?  Wouldn’t it be nice to meet someone and talk about books?  Then you’d really know whether you had anything in common before you went on that first date and on that date, if conversation dried up a little, you’d know that you could talk about books a bit more, wouldn’t you?  If only someone would organise something that meant you could meet that sort of person…

Well, wish no more single people of Edinburgh because The Edinburgh Bookshop is riding to the rescue with the city’s – and quite possibly Scotland’s – first literary speed dating evening.  Instead of trying to chat in nightclubs or resorting to on-line dating agencies, why not come along to the incredibly stylish The One Below at The Rutland Hotel and see what happens? We’ve got the whole bar to ourselves for the evening so there’s room for lots of people.

You’ll meet lots of people and have 2 or 3 minutes to talk to each of them about your favourite book or books and at the end of the evening you can tick the names of the people you’d like to know better.  The following day Becky and I will get the lists together and people who ticked each other will be emailed with each other’s contact details.

Why not come along?  Tickets are £5 including a drink on arrival.  At worst you get to spend an evening talking about books (never a hardship) and you might even find everlasting love?

Email love@edinburghbookshop.com for more info.

Over the Christmas break we did some planning re events for The Edinburgh Bookshop and since we came back to work last Tuesday we’ve been busily finalising details…

Our next event is actually this Monday evening when Ian Rankin will be joining us for the first in an occasional series called The Books That Made Me.  We’re all familiar with standard author gigs where they chat to the chairperson for a bit, read part of their new book and then take questions from the audience before busily signing and those are great, but for authors who don’t have a hot-off-the-press new book out or who are local and therefore familiar faces at those sort of events we wanted to try something new and Ian kindly agreed to be our guinea pig privileged inaugural guest.  We’ll be talking about the books he loved as a child, what he read growing up in Fife, how studying literature at university widened his reading further and the authors who’ve influenced his own writing.  Obviously we’ll also be talking about his work now that Rebus has been pensioned off and his latest book The Complaints and he’ll be signing after the event. 

Having told you all about that, the event is sold out, especially since I was on BBC Radio Scotland on Monday talking about our upcoming programme but at least you know the format for the future and hopefully for those of you who are now wishing you’d booked tickets, it will encourage you to head over to The Edinburgh Bookshop’s website and join our mailing list so that you’re one of the first to know about events. And if you’re an author reading this who’d like to come and talk to us about their inspirations do drop me an email.

There are some great events for which tickets are still available.  On 4th February Ruth Thomas, author Things to Make and Mend will be joining us to talk about Super Girl, her new collection of short stories.  We all love this book and Ruth is a witty and interesting speaker so it’s well worth coming along – tickets are available from the bookshop but do hurry as it’s being held in the shop itself and so space is limited.  Tickets are £5 with £5 off the cost of the book.

And event for which we have masses of space is the launch of Alexander McCall Smith’s new Lady Detectives book The Double Comfort Safari Club on 3rd March.  This is being held in Christ Church, the beautiful church opposite The Children’s Bookshop and so we have space for hundreds – given the popularity of the books I imagine we’ll fill it too!  Sandy is charming and amusing and his events are always great fun so do come if it’s at all possible.  Again, tickets available from The Edinburgh Bookshop.  Tickets are £5 and this is refundable in the form of a discount if you buy the book.  If you can’t get to the shop you can always call and book over the phone and we’ll post them out to you – 0131 229 9207. 

There a couple of other author events still to be finalised which we’ll be telling you about soon.  And, once we’ve checked out the venue, we have a very special event for Valentine’s Day to tell you about.  You’ll have to wait until next week to hear the details but it you pop along to the Fidra podcasts page and listen to BBC Scotland’s Book Cafe programme would be able to hear me talking to Stuart Kelly of Scotland on Sunday and poet and novelist John Burnside about our plans for the next couple of months and you’ll be forewarned as to what we’re planning…

On Boxing Day this piece about two of Andrew’s favourite books of 2009 appeared in the Evening News.  We particularly like being described as “one of the city’s best [bookshops] for promoting Scottish talent” and the two books that Andrew chose are also on the top ten lists of the rest of us.  And, naturally, they’re both available at The Edinburgh Bookshop…

Vanessa and I looked at each other one day last week and were both completely unable to form a coherent sentence: such is the world of working in retail near Christmas. (Don’t misunderstand me, we’re definitely grateful for the rush of customers, but it doesn’t make for chipperness at the end of the day.)

Therefore, have a peek at the following pretty pictures in lieu of deep and meaningful thought. Because frankly, there’s not much of that left right now!

Firstly, on the publishing side, Vanessa mentioned yesterday that Jill’s Gymkhana is finally here. Well, here it is on the shelf. You are allowed to coo in admiration, if you so wish.

On the bookshop front, we have Peter Pan gracing our Christmas window, because it’s currently on at The Lyceum (and we because also love this new pop-up edition of it).

On a completely non-work topic, remember this post? Well, I take back my indictment of winter a little, because even though I felt like I’d had my legs anaethetised by the time I got to work, Edinburgh was looking quite picturesque this morning with its light dusting of snow.

I’ve knitted this scarf (the first thing I’ve done without dropping a single stitch- yay!) for my mum, but I’m now sorely tempted to wear it myself…

As Vanessa and Malcolm are The Best Bosses in the World (TM), today was my last day at work before Christmas. So from me at least, I hope everyone reading has a lovely break, and see you (or interact with you?) in 2010.

Regular readers will remember that we planned to start reissuing the Jill series by Ruby Ferguson this year.  Well, they’ve been delayed (one printer sadly going into administration, pressure of work in other areas of the business and you can imagine how time-consuming setting up the new bookshop has been!) but sneaking in under the wire is the first title – Jill’s Gymkhana – now available from ourselves by visiting the Fidra Books on-line shop and, fairly soon, available from all good bookshops – copies will have arrived at our wholesalers so the rest depends on the speed of their goods-in departments to turn them around.

To be honest, if you want Jill’s Gymkhana in time for Christmas (and why wouldn’t you?), you’d be best to order it from us and we will send it out as fast as humanly possible.  Sadly though, overseas orders won’t be there in time for Christmas but shortly afterwards.

We’re all delighted with how Jill’s Gymkhana is looking with her gorgeous new cover (thanks to Sally, Emma and Melody not to mention the very talented Robbie who risked life and limb to get that close to those galloping hooves) and I hope that she’ll find fans among a whole new generation of readers as well as reminding those of us who loved the books in our childhoods.  Anyone who has yet to discover Jill can read the first chapter here.

You might have been wondering why the blog has been a wee bit quieter than ususal. Well, it’s partly because of the Christmas rush and partly because we’ve set up a new blog, State of Independents. We’re going to keep on posting here, but it’s mainly going to be about what’s going on with us in the bookshops and publishing. State of Independents will encompass our thoughts (or sometimes rants, if we’re being honest) about the booktrade in general.

Vanessa and I have both written a post each already, so pop over and have a read (and a comment!).