Big Green Bookswap at Karamel a great success!

One thing I didn't realise I missed until last night was the opportunity to sit around with book readers and just share our favourite books and reading stories. So I'm mighty glad that I got sufficiently organised to get to The Big Green Bookshop Bookswap at Karamel last night. 

It was a night of firsts. First time I'd made it to a Big Green Books evening event (useless of me, I know), first time I'd been to the delightful and very cool Karamel in Coburg Road, first time I got to meet someone with whom I had had long and interesting Twitter conversations and who turned out to be even better in the flesh, first time I'd come across the two guest authors Cathi Unsworth and Stuart Evers (and the first time I'd spent a summer evening in the very pleasant garden at the Duke of Edinburgh where we retired for after bookswap drinks).

Following a delicious buffet laid on by Karamel and a glass or two of vino, we settled down to talk to the two guest authors who were both engaging and interesting. 

As a fan of crime fiction, Cathi's books sound like an absolute must read. She read an extract from her latest work, Weirdo and then answered questions about random subjects in the main (it was that kind of evening). Cathi also explained the importance of place in setting her novels in Ladbroke Grove where she has lived for 26 years. She has spent time researching the local history of the area which feeds the ideas and settings of her books. This led to her third novel, Bad Penny Blues being set in the early 60s around the unsolved 'Jack the Stripper' murders. 

Stuart Evers author of If This is Home talked about his sense of place, his influences, his excitement at getting his book from the publishers and how he had to open it in a toilet, and his deep and abiding love of Columbo. Stuart is a very entertaining speaker and his enthusiasm for books gave his audience a real treat. Stuart's book of short stories 'Ten Stories of Smoking' was met with great acclaim and his first novel has received great reviews. Going on the short extract he read to us, it is easy to see why.

Finally, time to swap books! After much horse trading, I gave a copy of The Crimson Petal and the White (a truly lovely book, if you've never read it) to a young woman and came home with a copy of John Updike's Rabbit, Run, a book that Stuart had made a compelling case for before swapping it (he assured us he had several copies).

So, a great start for Big Green Books first ever collaboration with Karamel and, I hope, the first of many more. Why not join us for the next one?

Picture by Big Green Books