Day 3 turned out to be even more eventful than anticipated when the flame went out in Great Torrington (I bet that would happen to me if I was carrying it!).
Thankfully, it was quickly relit from the 'mother' flame, which is carried in a modern version of the miner's Davy Lamp as a back-up. The flame has gone out on several occasions on previous relays (I dread to think how it would have fared in all the recent rain we've been having!).
Day 3 saw 113 torchbearers covering 135 miles, including my mother's home town of Barnstaple. I spent many a childhood holiday there so was delighted to speak with Rachel Bagshaw, lead bookseller at the local Waterstone's in Barnstaple, who said they were 'surprised and delighted' to find out that the Torch would be passing through the small market town.
'It came from Bideford, down Sticklepath Hill and into the town, where it passed very close to the shop. There was a huge crowd gathered along the High Street (I had to squeeze in to catch a glimpse) and an even bigger crowd in the town square and along the Strand.
| Barnstaple crowds counting down til the Torch arrives... (www.barnstaplepeople.co.uk) |
'All the local schools were there in an allocated space - many of them had closed. There was lots of cheering and nearly everyone had a flag - there were more flags out than for the royal wedding last year, and lots of bunting everywhere. It was a great event to be a part of.' | Stalls and flags in Taunton |
Paul Hewitt, owner of the Ilfracombe Bookshop, said he 'barely saw the Torch - it was here and it was gone. But the town was very lively with lots of spectators gathered in the High Street and a parade with unicyclists, men on stilts and quad bikes, all drumming up enthusiasm before the Torch arrived. 'Most of the shops, inlcuding ours, closed for the actual passing of the Torch. It would have been nice if it could have stopped for a while, or if it could have passed through the town at the weekend so we could have made more of an event of it.'
0 Comments on Olympic Torch Bookshop Hop, Day Three - Exeter to Taunton as of 5/23/2012 4:01:00 PM
Day Two saw Olympic torch bearers aged from 13 to 87 carry the Torch into Plymouth where Roger Boyns, owner of specialist nautical bookshop, the Sea Chest, was there to tell us all about it.
‘The Torch stayed overnight in Plymouth, and there was a huge celebration on Plymouth Hoe, where Sir Francis Drake played bowls while the Spanish Armada came up the Channel [Sadly, bowls has never caught on as an Olympic sport! - H]. Apparently there were 55,000 people on the Hoe that night - that’s a lot of people! | Sir Francis Drake - potential Olympic bowling champion? | ‘The route didn’t pass the shop, but it did go past my house, and so my son, his wife and my grandson came around to see it. The changeover of the torch runners happened just outside our house. It was 8am on Sunday and there was quite a crowd lining the streets – some of them still in their dressing gowns.’
Onto the historic port town of Teignmouth where Rhona Wyatt, owner of The Quayside Bookshop, noted that, though the torch arrived at ‘the Den’ at 10am on Saturday, ‘The celebrations had begun on Friday evening. The event spanned the whole weekend, with lots of activities, including displays of BMX jumping, Tai Chi and gymnastics. A marquee had been erected and there were bands inside playing from Friday through to Sunday. Finally, Muse turned up and carried the Torch (three members of the band went to school in Teignmouth).’
| http://www.newtonabbotpeople.co.uk | Rhona noted, ‘We had a cracking window display, but the neighbourin
Whilst Saturday saw the first leg of the Olympic Torch relay in the UK, preparations started long before that... Yes, we all know that the Olympic Flame was lit in Olympia on May 10 using the sun’s rays, before traveling by relay across Greece to Athens, where it was given to Princess Anne (accompanied by the ever-present Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson - never one to miss out on a bit of pomp and ceremony). The flame - transferred to a miner’s lamp - was then flown to Cornwall and arrived at Land’s End on Saturday for the start of its 8,000-mile journey around the UK. Yes we all caught that on the news... What I’m talking about are the preparations at places such as Liskeard, which would have the honour of receiving the torch on day one. “From our small independent bookshop on the torch route, we handed out the programme of the town entertainment several days before. One could see preparations taking place, scaffoldings being raised, weeds being removed, the town clerk, organisers, volunteers, all going round the town, smiley, happy, active,” says Michele Laouenan owner of the Book Shop in Liskeard. Michele arrived in the town early on the big day, “I passed the town crier and others in their special outfits. The sun was shining and hopes were raised that it would stay dry the whole day. And it did. The stage in the main street - just a few meters from the shop - was ready. Soon, one heard the local band and we rushed outside to see Liskeard’s brass band marching, head up, music rising high like the spirits of the people watching. We applauded the band, followed by local groups which were going to perform at different venues in the town at one point or another: Cornish wrestlers, harriers, local dance and theatre groups - a wonderful range representing the rich community we all belong to. One thousand Cornish cream teas were given out. Right through the day, the sound of music, of singing, of families, of children, a jungle of people happy to take part and belong to the day, the day of the torch.” | Crowds assemble outside the Book Shop in Liskeard (it must be some window display!) |
The flame was carried from Land’s End by triple Olympic Gold medal winner Ben Ainslie before being handed to other torch bearers on day one. He retired to a bus for the rest of the journey. It wasn’t the only bus on the route. James Howorth, owner of Edge of the World Bookshop in Penzance says: ‘The police wanted to close the road to vehicles, but the local buses insisted on sticking to their schedules, so they all went past first with the bus drivers waving as though they were the stars of the show.’
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I've always detested having to speak on the phone, particularly for work and particularly when I don't know the other person. It's no coincidence that I ended up as an editor, in which communication focuses on the written word. My favourite part of working freelance was the fact that my main client was in Australia so I almost never had to speak with them (and they were really quite nice). Editor/writer is listed as the top job for introverts (second is a surgeon, so I'll make that my fallback career) and I'm very happy with my quiet, self-contained daily routine.
But needs must and when you work for a small company like ours, there's no room to be precious. So I've spent all day on the phone, calling independent bookshops around the country to chat about a new exciting project (of which more later this week). Arghh - pitching an idea to strangers over the phone is my idea of very hard work. But you know what? It was fine - it turns out, as I might have known, independent booksellers are a very nice bunch and very happy to chat to independent publishers. And working my way through the database, I was green with envy after hearing about some of their shops. The lovely people at Mr & Mrs Doak's Bumper Bookshop in Eastborne (how inviting does that sounds? And it has a tea-room!) had me wanting to pack my bags for the seaside pronto. Or Thatcham's Family Bookshop, who are currently offering special deal on hardback children's classics. And next time I'm in East Anglia, I'm definitely making a detour to visit the Norfolk Children's Book Centre, set up in a garden in rural north Norfolk (there's a nice article here in Books for Keeps on how NCBC is a great example of how children's bookshops can encourage children to become keen readers). And the exciting part is that the bookshops I spoke with were really enthusiastic about taking part in our new project, more of which I'll reveal at the end of the week. Sometimes it is worth stepping out of that comfort zone...
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Start your holiday shopping early! Bid on a piece of original art by some of the best illustrators out there!
Details:
“The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller’s voice in the fight against censorship, is conducting an online auction featuring over 70 pieces by leading artists in the children’s book industry, including Peter Brown, Susan Jeffers, Wendell Minor, Adam Rex and Paul O. Zelinsky.
The eBay auction will culminate during Banned Books Week (Sept. 24-Oct. 1), the only national celebration of the freedom to read. One-third of the art will be auctioned each week with new works posted on Fridays. Items can be located on ABFFE’s eBay page.
In addition to sponsoring Banned Books Week, ABFFE co-sponsors the Kids Right to Read Project with the National Coalition Against Censorship. ABFFE has created a flyer for the Banned Books Week auction that it hopes booksellers will download and distribute to their customers.”
I spent Tuesday - Thursday of this week at BEA - the gigunda annual trade show for booksellers in New York City. It was crazy-intense and wonderful. I got to hear smart people talk, saw friends be honored, receive some nice recognition from independent booksellers for some of my work, sign LOTS of books, go to parties, hear the opening pages of Mockingjay (the 3rd Hunger Games book. No, they didn't have any ARCs. It comes out on August 24th. Order your copy from an indie bookseller now.), and have great conversations with booksellers about how we authors can help them do what they do best; get books into the hands of readers. And I brought my new camera so I could make a few videos for you! Here is the first one. Mostly it shows the very patient booksellers who waited in line for hours for me to sign advanced copies of FORGE. Be sure to check the end of the clip to see the special guest appearance by His High Crankiness His High Bookishness, Former Children's Literature Ambassador Jon Whathisname. I'm taking the rest of the long weekend off from the Internet. Happy Memorial Day and see you Tuesday!
I don't have much time this morning, but I wanted to post a quick video from last night. This is for Kate Messner, who couldn't be here at BEA because she is a dedicated teacher and she is teaching this week.
That did not stop her book, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z, from winning a big honking award last night.
It’s time for another round of Stump the Bookseller, in which you show off your sleuthing skills to help find a particular novel of speculative fiction for young readers. You don’t have to be a bookseller to play, but the winner will be bestowed with the title
Super Bookseller Sleuth
Last week’s winner Charlotte has provided the clues for this week. And here they are:
- I think that there is a picture of a girl with her favorite stuffed animal on the cover.?
- And I think it is outside somewhere, because I remember plants.
- I don’t think the book is about food, but for some reason the title makes me think of tasty snacks…
ETA: Allegore is our winner this week. To see the answer…
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
By: Aline Pereira,
on 7/16/2008
Blog: PaperTigers
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JacketFlap tags:
library, Children's Books, Young Adult Books, Tintin, Reading aloud, reluctant readers, The Tiger's Bookshelf, Book Chat, bookseller, bibliovores, bookworms, functional illiterate, Add a tag
I grew up in a remote corner of Alaska, without electricity or a telephone, at a time when the Internet would have been considered a maniac’s wild fantasy. Anyone entering our house at night would have found everyone in our family clustered around a couple of gas-fueled lanterns in dead silence, each of us deeply immersed in a book–except for my little brother.
He loved books, as long as they were read to him, and I loved reading aloud, except when it cut into my own reading time. Often when my parents, my sisters, and I were all silently reading, my brother would be off in a corner alone, taking his tricycle apart and putting it back together or interrupting us with requests that one of us read to him for a while.
Scarred by an unsuccessful introduction to reading in the first grade, my brother had soon became embarrassed by his lack of skill in a family of bibliovores and was a resolute functional illiterate. The rest of us found this appalling as well as inexplicable and discovering a book that would make my brother a passionate reader became an overriding obsession for us all.
Not too far away there was a tiny library that was our family’s idea of paradise. Even my brother loved it, since it contained picture books and illustrated encyclopedias–and as it turned out, a sizable collection of Tintin books.
We were not a family of comic book readers, but when my brother came home with his first volume of Tintin, poring over the pictures and painfully puzzling out the words, it was a big day for us all. It was the moment that my brother became a reader and Tintin became a household saint. Now we all–even my little brother– were to be found clustered around the lanterns, blissfully engrossed in our books without being disturbed by “Won’t you read to me now,” or “Help me find the big crescent wrench, somebody” coming from a distant corner of the room.
As a bookseller, I love to find books for the uneasy reader and Tintin is always high on my list of suggestions. A colleague of mine specializes in turning reluctant readers into bookworms and in an upcoming interview she will tell us how she does it. What about you? What titles do you suggest for the uneasy readers of your acquaintance? Let us know!
My friend Holly who is an ardent and gifted bookseller of children’s literature put The Boy in the Striped Pajamas into my hands when I asked her which recently-read children’s book resonated and lingered with her long after she had put it down. She is a woman whose taste is beyond impeccable so I took her recommendation home with me, read it, and months later am still haunted by it.
Because it is a book that falls outside of the usual geographical boundaries that mark books recommended and reviewed by Papertigers, and because it is a disturbing work of fiction, I didn’t immediately feature it as a Tiger’s Choice for children and adults to read together. Then I talked to my friend and colleague Corinne about it. She immediately read it and gave it to her eleven-year-old son, so they could discuss it, and I begged to be part of their conversation when it took place.
And that clinched it–if this book had this effect on Holly, Corinne and me, all women of different ages and backgrounds, and if Corinne instantly passed it on to her son, it is a book that merits discussion by a wider audience–and here we are.
I think the author would be happy to know that it has been chosen as a book for both adults and children to talk about in a forum where everyone has equal footing. John Boyne remarked in the interview at the end of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, “I’m not entirely sure I know what the difference is between a children’s book and an adults’ book,” and then quotes a friend’s question, “What is Treasure Island?”
There will be no questions posed about this book until we begin to discuss it after June 15th because it is crucial that we all come to our own conclusions in our very own ways. In explaining why it is a book that has world-wide importance, John Boyne says, “Fences such as the one in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas still exist; it is unlikely that they will ever fully disappear.” Perhaps if enough people talk about this book, and other novels that address the same issue, we may someday live in a world without fences.
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I would definitely recommend that people go and see it, too. It was so atmospheric. Really loved it!
Great - it's not passing very close to us but will definitely try to take the children along - it looked like you had a great day.