OUR NEW CAFE!

You may have a noticed a little change at our bookshop this week.

Our brand-spanking new cafe will open on Monday morning, May 14 at 8.30am. We've spent a long time in the planning process, so it's hugely exciting to be able to be serving coffee with our books again.

There were other options for the cafe space, of course:

- a ball pit.

- one massive aquarium. With real whales.

- an evil laboratory in which we built a lazer to destroy the moon.

- one of those hedge mazes you get at fancy stately homes.

- bouncy castle.

- a McSweeney's bookshop.

Thanks for your patience as we waited for our new coffee shop. As the saying goes, better latte than never*.

Do come and say hello to our new Starbuck's colleagues, and learn the fancy lingo for all the coffees. We sell books to help you speak Italian: all the words are probably in there.

* sorry

MANCHESTER LAUNCH FOR LEILA KHALED BIOGRAPHY: CANCELLED

Our launch of the Leila Khaled biography on May 24th has been cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.

Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation by Sarah Irving is a compelling account of Khaled's turbulent life. At the book launch, Sarah will explore Leila Khaled's involvement with a radical element of the PLO, the rise of Hamas, the role of women in a largely male movement and Khaled's activism today.

BOOK LAUNCHES: FOR ALL YOUR LOCAL NEEDS...

I surprised myself with a little comment at our Gregory Norminton book launch last week. I told a friendly, wine-supping crowd that you don't get book launches like ours on Amazon.

A month on from Tim Waterstone's broadside against the online bookseller, it seems that the ever-expanding Amazon are becoming the new Tesco. Easy to use, but also easy to kick.

And why not? Every time you shop on Amazon, it means fewer and smaller bookshops. A quarter of independent bookshops have closed in the past five years.

Many of my friends believe in shopping locally and buying ethically-sourced produce and yet think nothing of spending their book money with Amazon.

But there's also a challenge for us bricks and mortar people because, actually, Amazon can be quite useful. They can do the clicky thing well, and so we need to be much better at other things. There's a need for us bookshops to be personal and professional in a way that web 2.0 can never achieve.

That's one of the reasons why we've bought chairs. And PA equipment. And booze. Because we can do book launches in a way that Amazon can't.

One of our event regulars (I won't embarrass the person by naming them!) described our events as "intimate, bright, well organised and hilarious". You may have missed some of our recent events with the likes of Socrates Adams, Chris Emery (pictured) and Gregory Norminton, but you can get an idea of what we do from our book launches Pinterest page.

Blackwell's intend to be in Manchester for many years to come. However, we need to keep changing, tweaking and, if necessary, having outrageously fun book launches.

GREGORY NORMINTON BOOK LAUNCH, 26 APRIL

Author and activist Gregory Norminton will launch his new book at Blackwell's on Thursday 26th April at 6pm.

The Lost Art Of Losing is a collection of thoughts and rants, and is described by Costa Book of the Year winner Andrew Miller as "witty, provocative, self-revelatory and touching to read." It's not officially published until May, but we will have plenty of copies on the night.

The book launch is free to attend and there will be refreshments. It's our second book launch in two weeks: you can see photographs from our previous event on our Pinterest page.

Gregory teaches creative writing at MMU's Manchester Writing School alongside the likes of Sherry Ashworth, Andrew Biswell, Carol Ann Duffy, Michael Symmons Roberts and Jean Sprackland. We also run the bookstalls for their Duffy & Friends and Manchester Children's Book Festival events, among others.

Do come on down - it should be quite a crowd!

Event: Lost Art Of Losing Manchester book launch
Venue: Blackwell's Manchester
Date: 26th April 2012
Time: 6pm (should be no more than an hour or two)
Admission: free

TURING'S SUNFLOWERS

Manchester Science Festival are planning to brighten up Manchester in the name of Alan Turing.

Turing's Sunflowers is a challenge in which you grow a sunflower throughout the next couple of months. When the flowers are fully grown, the science festival will help you count the number of spirals in the seed patterns on the sunflower heads, with the results being announced in October.

The project will help mathematicians explore Alan Turing’s theories about plant growth (Fibonacci number series and all that). And because we're not one to miss a trick, we are now selling sunflower seeds at every counter in our shop.

There are now even Turing sunflowers in the Blue Peter garden. so get growing. And remember: plenty of water, a nice sunny spot and don't forget to re-pot!

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH AT BLACKWELL'S

Blackwell's are proud host Salt Publishing on 12th April 2012 for a reading to celebrate National Poetry Month.

The featured poets will be Michael Symmons Roberts, a Whitbread Poetry Award winner and professor of poetry at MMU, the Forward Prize-scooping Ian Duhig and Salt Publishing's own Chris Emery.

As well as readings and books by our guests, the event will also feature the Manchester launch of Chris Emery's The Departure. This will be Chris' third collection, and has narrative poems that boast everything from cowboys to checkout girls, and from composers to killers.

The National Poetry Month Reading will take place at Blackwell's Manchester on April 12th at 7pm. It is free, no booking is required, and there will be drinks. For a poster of the event, email ian.carrington (at) blackwell.co.uk. Otherwise, see the event on Facebook here.

UNIVERSITY OF WOMANCHESTER! (nsfw)