Persephone Festival in Bath next week

Talks Available online for the month.

Is it acceptable to post Whipple on other threads, - was reading Random Commentary and thought this was perfect for AIBU to hate house guests.

'our guests went today. Much as I love them, how glad I am to be alone again! I need to be able to walk in the country, to read the paper and sit by myself. I can't live anyone else's life for more than a few days. I feel my own personality pushing violently inside me, making me positively ache. But it is a lovely morning now. The sun is warm on my shoulder as I write. I have had a good letter from St John Ervine about my book, a letter that really shows he really likes the book, and has considered me who wrote it. He is generous, able to consider others. Some people can't.'

I nearly didn't write out the full quote or the italics but the whole thing builds to violently then calms down, tying things up, that's why it works. Very clever and that's just her lovely random jottings...

I would love to know more about how the walking book club works. I'm co-hosting a book club for the first time this year and am intrigued!

I'd love to see a sales graph of the books. Some are clear favourites, some weren't mentioned at all, I feel like hunting down the quieter ones. I thought the question 'what book is memorable but not a comfort read' was interesting.

Plenty more material for another gathering.

Slightly regretting not buying a Persephone mug and a floral tablecloth I saw in your basket @highlandcoo , Every decade has it's mech, once it was Lego, then band t-shirts now I seem to be captured by small publishing houses and exquisite fabric.

The You’re Booked event and the Dorothy Whipple discussion were wonderful. I spent far too much in the shop and the grey strip on my shelf has grown considerably.

I think I mean cut down on my Mumsnet and news story snapshots and use that time to read a book with a beginning, middle & conclusion then Google background and critical pieces.
I enjoyed the academics looking at High Wages, No Surrender on Sunday. Also loved the panel on you're booked, live.

Mumsnet has taught me so much but it's scatty and the little dopamine hits from a good thread are hard won.

(We might have met in that lovely interior shop...we sat and chatted...)

determined to read more books, listen to a greater range of voices and seek out more opinions.

That’s a fantastic outcome, @BookEnginr!

I’m slightly the opposite - absolutely inundated with daily, weekly, monthly and annual reviews, critiques, journals, interviews on new and old literature from every continent - but still find any excuse to loiter on MN rather than actually reading any of the half a million books piled up waiting for me.

So what will you do - start a thread seeking recommendations, or …?

I had a great weekend, drove home with my head full, determined to read more books, listen to a greater range of voices and seek out more opinions.

I appreciated the lack of hard sell both normally in the bookshop and at the festival.
Years ago they sprung into action when I was looking for three books to send a new divorcée, the whole crowd got involved.

Anyway, the festival was great, really positive, speakers were a good range, wish I could have gone to more.

Do not even think of the film until you’ve read the entire novel!

Thank goodness I was cautious about spoilers. I half assumed everyone on this thread would have read it, but decided to be careful. 😅

The book is genius.

(Waiting not waging …)

Lovely little film - though missing the particular post-war Englishness, the passages of French, and the harsh, excoriating bitterness I remember from the book. The characterisation of the protagonist and his wife were inevitably a world away from what’s in my head. And the film somehow fails to nail the ending - the pacing is somehow off - though it might perhaps be more powerful for anyone coming new to the story.

Glad to have discovered it, though.

Good to hear you’re having fun, @highlandcoo! It’s a shame the festival isn’t an annual thing - I would have started making plans for next year. Not sure about waging another quarter of a century …

I’ve just seen this:

https://persephonebooks.co.uk/collections/the-persephone-festival/products/film-screening-little-boy-lost?variant=40830906597443

I had no idea there was a film adaptation! For me reading Little Boy Lost re-shaped my brain - despite decades of avid bookishness beforehand, it set a new bar, and a new idea of what a book could be. I’ve just searched and found the film on YouTube. If possible I’m going to watch along with all of you fortunate festival attendees - only from a hotel at the other end of the country …

I'm going too! Just finished packing and very excited!

I love Persephone books too and have bought loads by post so I was really excited to actually go to the London shop a few years back. My experience was exactly the same. I didn't expect a welcome party but I was completely ignored.

I’m going to the festival. Really looking forward to it. My only experience of visiting the shop was a positive one. Woman in her 40s served me and was really helpful.

I do hope Persephone people see this thread and feel mortified.

It’s a long time since I last visited the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop - too long ago for me to retain any memory of a particular vibe.

Sad to say, avoiding rude or supercilious staff through shopping for everything online has been one of the great joys of the 21st century for me. But I’m still a bit sad I won’t be in Bath next weekend.

DH has been into Persephone a couple of times for me, when he's been in Bath, to get birthday or Christmas presents and he's described it in exactly the same terms.

He said he felt extremely uncomfortable in there, which is not the feeling you want in a bookshop.

It's best to know what you want before going in there, and he was glad that I'd given him title, author and catalogue number so that he could find the books without having to ask for unwilling help.

Victoria Art Gallery. I prefer it to the Holburne, which costs a lot more but seems a bit all fur coat no knickers sometimes. Although the upstairs gallery at the Vic is closed at the mo which is a shame because it has some gems.
https://www.victoriagal.org.uk/

I made beeline for the Persephone shop when I was last in Bath. It’s an imprint I’ve loved for years and I was so looking forward to my visit. The shop was lovely but the service was so dire (3 wholly uninterested sales assistants huddled together discussing sod all) that I gave up and left empty handed. I was the only customer and in half an hour none of acknowledged me let alone offered any help. I can only hop r that your experience isn’t so disappointing @highlandcoo