Edinburgh Book Festival: Day 3
My final day at the book festival was spent on my own (which was actually really nice since I don’t get out much). The plan for this day was have another look around the bookshop and see Patrick Ness talk about his new book The Rest of Us Just Live Here.
BOOK HAUL
I only planned on buying one book this day but I did spend a good hour looking around the shop for books I might find interesting. I ended up adding another 30 books to my TBR (I’m pretty sure you can hear my TBR list cry if you listen closely). Since one bookshop was not enough I also had a look around the sci-fi/ fantasy section of the Waterstones that was right around the corner from the festival.
This was one problem I had with the festival. I realise that sci-fi/ fantasy books only make up a small percentage of book sales. But I was still surprised by the measly collection of sci-fi/ fantasy books they had on offer. I’m not even joking out of the entire store they had 4 shelves for sci-fi/ fantasy, one of which was entirely taken up with Ben Aaronovitch novels. But then some books which are quite obviously sci-fi (The Book of Strange New Things) was in general fiction. I also didn’t see a single copy of Station Eleven even though I know Emily St John Mandel was at the festival.
PATRICK NESS
I admit I was kind of worried going into this talk that it would be full of little kids and I am glad to say it wasn’t. In fact it was full of Tumblr fangirls (I’m not just stereotyping here, I did genuinely hear people talking about their Tumblr blogs).
I was also really surprised by Patrick Ness, he was (and I hate myself for saying this) totally down with the kids. When his talk is uploaded to YouTube I will post it here because it was really great, it made me want to go read all of his books. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to start The Rest of Us Just Live Here yet as I brought it home and my sister immediately announced that she was taking it on holiday with her and that I had no say in the matter whatsoever. But from the small part that Patrick Ness read it sounds like it’s going to be really funny.
10 Comments
creativechaos81
The Ken McLeod Books look interesting. Are they steampunk? It sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun at the festival. It’s always nice when that happens!
bluchickenninja
I think they are space opera type books. I’ve known about the festival for years, I even went once with my school. I’m sort of kicking myself because it took me so long to go properly. Will definitely be going back next year.
Dan Antion
Your TBR list makes my head hurt a little 🙂
bluchickenninja
My TBR list makes my head hurt!
annarobots
I love the Wolf Wilder!
bluchickenninja
I haven’t started that one yet. Bought it because I liked the cover!
annarobots
It’s fantastic…I started a re-read yesterday!
bluchickenninja
Oh good!
tamaralowery
Sounds like you had a fantastic time at the festival. May I suggest you contact the store manager of that bookstore about how they categorize their books and the poor selection in the sci-fi/fantasy section? If they know potential customers want a better selection, they should take that into consideration. They are a business, after all; and a smart business person stocks what sells. They just need to know there IS a market for it there. Keep in mind that if they operate the same way books stores in the USA do, they will special order titles not currently in stock. If enough such orders get made, they will see the wisdom of stocking a greater variety.
bluchickenninja
The problem is this particular store is only open for the 2 weeks of the festival. Anything bought there helps support the festival.
Most of the stock they had was from independent Scottish publishers or stuff from authors that were appearing at the festival.
I don’t know if that just means they didn’t have many sci-fi/ fantasy authors appearing at the festival. Maybe I could email them about it for next year.