Category Archives: Latest News

Christmas at Urmston Bookshop

Christmas is around the corner – and so are we!  Pop down to your local bookshop and browse our beautiful, original gifts.  Leave your Christmas reading list with us and we will order in anything not on the shelf.  Choose quality, individual presents this year from the bookshop right on your doorstep.

Take a peek at some of the special gifts you will find on the shelves 

Stunning collector’s edition titles with gold-edged pages and sumptuous covers

 

After dinner games, gorgeous notebooks, gifts with a local twist, eco-friendly gifts

 

Fuel for the imagination – and those with a creative side

                                                           Puzzles, toys, and fun!

 

Gift books for the curious, the poetry lover, the animal fanatic, the art appreciator… 

Furry friends 

And don’t forget – we sell books! Beautiful hardback gift books, limited edition signed copies, books for everyone from the tiny and new to the older and wiser…and if you really can’t decide, why not give them one of our book tokens for the ultimate gift experience.

Urmston Bookshop would like to wish all our customers a very merry Christmas and a happy and inspirational New Year!

Sarah Ward – world renowned crime author and book reviewer

Sarah Ward, writer of deadly Derbyshire Noir, will be appearing at Urmston Bookshop on

Wednesday 24th October at 7pm

Sarah’s last book, A Patient Fury, was the Observer’s Book of the Month for October and her writing has been described as ‘deliciously twisty and full of intrigue’ by Melanie McGrath.  Marian Keyes says ‘brilliant! Great writing, excellent characters, what a plot!’

Hear Sarah talk about her fourth book in the Peak District-based DC Childs series, The Shrouded Path.

November, 1957: Six teenage girls walk in the churning Derbyshire mists, the first chills of winter in the air. Their voices carrying across the fields, they follow the old train tracks into the dark tunnel of the Cutting.

Only five appear on the other side. 

Tickets cost just £3 and include a glass of wine.  Ticket price redeemable against the cost of a book on the evening

To book tickets call in to Urmston Bookshop, 72 Flixton Road M41 5AB, phone on 0161 747 7442, or email books@urmston-bookshop.co.uk

 

 

Urmston Bookshop presents: Michael Billington at St. Clement’s Church Urmston

In this, the first substantial book on the area since 1898, local historian Michael Billington, himself an Urmstonian, draws on a variety of sources to tell the history of the area.

This event will be held in St. Clement’s Church, Stretford Road, Urmston, Manchester M41 9JZ

Thursday 26th July 2018 at 7pm

Tickets are £3 and include glass of wine and is redeemable against the cost of a book on the night.

To book tickets: call into the shop, phone 0161 747 7442, or

email:  books@urmston-bookshop.co.uk

 

 

Meet Me At The Museum

Meet Me At The Museum

by Anne Youngson

 

Please be aware I am writing to you to make sense of myself …

When the curator of a Danish museum responds to a query about ancient exhibits, he doesn’t expect a reply.
When Tina Hopgood first wrote it, nor did she …

 

Tina Hopgood is dissatisfied with her life.

As a school child her class had corresponded with Professor Glob at the Silkeborg museum in Denmark about the discovery of the Tollund Man, an Iron Age man found perfectly preserved in a Danish bog. She is now the wrong side of 60 years old and writes once again to Professor Glob. Unfortunately he has passed away, but Tina receives a reply from the present curator of the museum, Anders Larson. What starts out as a quite formal exchange of letters about the Tollund Man and his effect on modern life, soon turns into a more personal correspondence.

Two very different characters; Tina, a disillusioned hard-working farmer’s wife from East Anglia and Anders, a widower and the curator of the Silkeborg museum in Denmark. They both find they have common ground in feeling somewhat surplus to their own lives.  Tina is a cog in the efficinet working of the farm, but feels her family wouldn’t notice her otherwise. Anders, a widower, lives alone. Always looking back to the life he lived with his wife and wondering if he had done enough to help her.

This book is gentle, thoughtful and tender. The relationship grows slowly, like the opening of a fern frond. As they discuss their lives they develop a closeness with each other that neither seems able to find with their own families.

When there is upheaval in Tina’s life she has to re-evaluate their relationship. Whether that means ending it or setting it on a new pathway only she can decide.

A beautiful debut with gorgeous prose. I totally loved both characters and the slow, thoughtful response to each other’s letters. I was quite ridiculously peeved at the thought of them using email rather than real letters, I loved the idea of their handwritten letters dropping through the letter box and the feel and touch of the paper and envelopes.

I did guess quite early on what was going to happen, but it in no way impaired my enjoyment of the book. I felt the author played out the events perfectly…or her characters did.

A book about lost lives, missed opportunities and the fact that it’s never too late to change your life.  A wonderful read and highly recommended.

Anne Youngson will be appearing at urmston bookshop on Wednesday 6th june 2018, to talk about her book and her writing journey. Tickets are £3 inc glass of wine and redeemable aginst the cost of a book.

Tel: 0161 747 7442

emai:  books@urmston-bookshop.co.uk

 

The Smiling Man

the smiling man

 

The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

 

‘I usually experienced the presence of a dead body as an absence, but in this case, it felt like a black hole opening up in front of me’
Disconnected from his history and careless of his future, Detective Aidan Waits has resigned himself to the night shift. An endless cycle of meaningless emergency calls and lonely dead ends. Until he and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter ‘Sutty’ Sutcliffe, are summoned to The Palace, a vast disused hotel in the centre of a restless, simmering city. There they find the body of a man. He is dead. And he is smiling.

I adored Sirens, Joseph Knox first novel which introduced us to Detective Aidan Waits. It was my top crime novel for many a year. The concern was, could he keep up to that level of writing with his next book, The Smiling Man.  Well he hasn’t kept up. What he has done, is surpass it, by a long way.

It is simply brilliant.

We are back in the dark heart of Manchester and Detective Aidan Waits whose prestige has sunk so low, he is consigned to the nightshift. He is investigating random bin fires with his colleague, the morose (but hygenic), Peter ‘Sutty’ Sutcliffe.

When they are called to the Palace, a large recently closed hotel in the city centre they find a dead man in one of the rooms: a smiling dead man. With no means of identifying the man they set off on an investigation that leads to more death, two estranged owners of the hotel and lots of trouble for Aidan waits.

Alongside this investigation another harrowing tale is unfolding. And with a deft brush, Joseph Knox paints the two stories perfectly, allowing them to come together seamlessly.

There is so much to laud about this book. One of the great things is the characterisation. Aidan is a much more rounded character as we find out a lot of his backstory and his motivations.  The rest of the characters are just as good, and a special mention should go to Manchester, a character in itself. Joseph Knox brings to life the tense, seething underbelly of the city masterfully.

The book is driven along at a great pace with scintillating prose,crackling dialogue and a tense plot. my only disappointment was finishing the book: I now have a long wait until the next one.

If you haven’t met Aidan Waits yet, don’t leave it any longer: start at Sirens, you won’t be sorry.

Highly recommended, an incredible read.