Our Children's Book of the Month: Darkmouth

Shane Hegarty's new gripping tale for readers from 9-12 is setting the bar high for adventure tales - which is why we've chosen it as our Book of the Month.
Fans of Artemis Fowl, The House of Secrets series and even Percy Jackson will utterly adore this.

Twelve year old Finn doesn't really have much get up and go, and just wants to do what every young boy wants to do. That would be fine, except Finn is about to be the latest in a long line of "Legend Hunters". The town of Darkmouth is the last town in Ireland where portals open and let through human-eating monsters (including Hogboons and Wolpertingers) which he needs to destroy. The big problem is, he isn't really very good at it. His father, the current Legend Hunter, is desperate to show him how to be the best he can and to follow in family tradition, but Finn can't understand why it is so important. Unbeknownst to Finn a prophecy has been made and it's all about him! Until he realises how important it is, Darkmouth and its residents will never be safe.

The story is full of fun and page-turning excitement, not to mention a few mishaps with a Desiccator and a few of the neighbours cars. Boys and girls alike will have their half term brilliantly filled with this great book. It's also peppered with wonderful illustrations by James de la Rue.

And if you really enjoy it, there's good news - this is only the start of what looks to be an awesome series.

If we got you curious, head on over to the main Waterstones Blog for an excerpt. :)

Love, Nina

Our Fiction Book of the Month: Perfidia

James Ellroy is no stranger to crime fans. His L.A. Quartet novels have, at the latest, been put on the map for even non-crime readers by their popular cinema adaptations The Black Dahlia and L.A. Confidential.

Ellroy, dubbed as the "demon dog of American crime fiction" by director Reinhard Jud back in the nineties, and whose dark past is a strong source for his writing (the unsolved murder of his mother inspired The Black Dahlia), has just started a second L.A. Quartet, this time set in the Second World War, with Perfidia being the first in the series. It's an epic door stop of a book, with the powerful L.A. noir atmosphere fans have come to love so much, in the context of a world-changing event: the attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

Both the Guardian and the Independent have given it smashing reviews, so it might well be that summer read you've been waiting to sink your teeth into.

 

 

But as none of us would want you to just take our word for it, here is a cheeky sample.

 



Think about it!

Earlier, on Facebook...

Timur Vermes' Look Who's Back - an unmissable Waterstones Book Club read



Oh the joy when I heard this gem had finally been translated into English! A bestselling phenomenon in mein Fazerland since its publication in 2012,  for which the film production has already begun, it had tickled my curiosity since I first heard about it, and delighted me when it was gifted to me by the ‘rents last Christmas. A novel about Adolf Hitler waking up in a 2011 Berlin car park, rescued by a newsagent who thinks him a hilarious and scarily convincing impersonator and promptly introduces him to some media fellers who in turn jump on the chance to line their pockets and boost the ratings by giving him some air time.
The bewildered Fuehrer, meanwhile, has to adjust to modern society, its gadgets, people, multiculturalism and social media addiction, and slowly planning, naively, clumsily, but with chilly calculation, his return to power, thus delivering a commentary on modern Germany that is equally frightening and hysterical. Let’s just say, when I read the German original, it was like hearing Adolf speak. I don't know if Vermes studied the speech patterns of Hitler before he started writing, but he did a wonderful job rendering his persona in his book. And the translation, although it inevitably lost the classic Berlin dialect spoken by some of the characters, managed to get incredibly close to the original.

It’s obviously funny seeing Hitler in his 1940s mindset interact with the contemporary age, similar to seeing Socrates and Billy the Kid stumble their way through 1980s mall strip California in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, but at the same time it scathingly satirises an increasingly dumbed-down, historically uninformed or indifferent multi-media generation that is too distracted by Reality TV, sensationalist headlines and Facebook Likes to see the danger the “born again” Fuehrer really poses.

Needless to say, there is a debate whether it is acceptable to make Hitler a subject of comedy. But it’s been done before countless times, with “The Producers”, with “The Dictator”, some more gratuitous, some with enough satire in it to render it more “acceptable”. If anything, “new” about it is only that the Germans are increasingly seen to have a sense of humour about their own history. Not in a belittling or insensitive manner, mind. Hitler and the Holocaust continue to remain a serious subject over there, deeply embedded in the German mentality and Constitution. But the – in my book – ridiculous and unhelpful self-flagellation by people who were barely the glint in daddy’s eye in 1945, undermining any approach of the subject in a grown-up way, is finally starting to cease; Hitler as a subject of comedy becoming less and less restricted to the terrain of risqué Stewart Lee-type German comedians, and is particularly well-balanced in this novel.

Comedy will always remain in the grey areas of acceptability, and perhaps that’s exactly what keeps us on our toes and debating; to speak the truth like a jester, in joke form to escape medieval beheadings or modern censorship. Take from this book what you will. I for one both enjoyed and pondered it. Thoroughly.

- Patty

Little Acts of Kindness

Recently, we have spotted these darling little notes in some of our books. We have no idea who the mystery sweetheart is, but it's just lovely to see, with all the negativity in the world, that someone is trying to put a smile on people's faces in a really simple and creative way. Several comments on this picture, when it appeared on the Facebook page Spotted Witney, prove that it's not just us who love this - but our customers as well.

It doesn't take much to make the world a little brighter, people! :)

Award-winning author Catherine Chanter at Witney Library!

Don't make plans for 23 March! At 7:30, at Witney Library, Catherine Chanter, an Oxfordshire author who won the Lucy Cavendish Prize 2013 for her debut "The Well", which is now being published by Simon & Schuster, will talk and answer questions about her new novel.

To take it from the experts, Jessie Burton, author of the glorious "The Miniaturist", is raving about "The Well":

"There was so much that impressed me… The boldness with which Catherine depicts her characters in their bravery and emotional squalor was incredible... whilst she showed how we manipulate each other, she also focused on the harder, hidden truths about how in turn we want, or need, to be manipulated ourselves.... Set against the natural beauty of the Well, Catherine also paints an exquisitely painful portrait of a marriage under threat - not just from an unnerving meteorology, but the tempests of the mind.... The Well asks us where do we seek refuge, and why? And perhaps it shows us that what is left after all is suffered, is love. Battered, weathered, at the end of the novel it comes cresting over the hill, a herald of relief. Bravo, that woman. I loved this book!"

Good, evocative writing is enough to get this here bookseller totally engrossed in a book. Just listen to this!

'One summer was all it took before our dream started to curl at the edges and

stain like picked primroses. One night is enough to swallow a lifetime of lives.'

But what is it about?

 

When Ruth Ardingly and her family first drive up from London in their grime-encrusted car and view The Well, they are enchanted by a jewel of a place, a farm that appears to offer everything the family are searching for. An opportunity for Ruth. An escape for Mark. A home for their grandson Lucien.

But The Well's unique glory comes at a terrible price, and quickly Ruth's paradise becomes a prison, Mark's dream a recurring nightmare, and Lucien's playground a grave.
With the pace of a thriller and the heart of a literary smash hit, The Well is a dark and devastating tale of obsession, motherhood and the complexity of female relationships, wrapped inside a gripping whodunit.

TICKETS ARE FREE, INCLUDE REFRESHMENTS AND CAN BE COLLECTED FROM WITNEY LIBRARY, WELCH WAY FROM THE COUNTER.

TICKETS ARE LIMITED AND WILL BE OFFERED ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS

Bookseller Vacancy

Bookseller Vacancy: Come and join the team at Waterstones

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To be a great bookseller, you will provide excellent customer service, friendly and professional at all times. You will also help keep our bookshops vibrant and enticing; from creating inspiring displays to helping out at our special events, there will always be plenty of opportunity to use your initiative.

If all this sounds like you, you’re in luck as we have a vacancy for a Bookseller (part time including weekends). So if you’re friendly, flexible and enthusiastic*, come in for a quick chat and pick up an application form.

* and love books…