ARREST MACHIAVELLI!

Why did we miss this one? Stephen Milner, professor of Italian at the University of Manchester, has discovered an arrest warrant for the Prince of Darkness himself, Niccolò Machiavelli.

The Prof found the document by accident while researching town criers of Florence. Macca, as he wasn't known to his friends, was done for conspiring against the the Medici., thrown in prison and tortured.  This (above) is the warrant for that arrest in 1513. After release, Machiavelli legged it to small village outside Florence to write The Prince.

It just shows what you can find if you have a bit of a tidy... More on the Telegraph website.

THE ALMOST LIZARD LAUNCH: JAMES HIGGERSON, SAM MILLS, RODGE GLASS, CHRIS KILLEN

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An exciting new novelist will launch his debut in Blackwell's in March alongside a stellar line-up of authors.

James Higgerson is a cat-owning Manchester PhD student who was runner-up in the Luke Bitmead Bursary Award. The Almost Lizard (Legend Press 2013) is his debut and is a story of modern mental illness in a media-obsessed society. Our event on Friday 15 March will be the book's official launch.

Support will come from three massively exciting authors:

Sam Mills' debut novel The Quiddity of Will Self was longlisted for Not the Booker prize and is an "ingenious, energetic read" (Sunday Times). Sam is a former chess journalist and has contributed to 3am and The Guardian. As one of the founding members of the Will Self Club, Sam rose to the position of Sovereign Grand Quiddity Inspector General. Naturally. At the launch event, we'll have copies of an absolutely brand new paperback edition of Quiddity

Rodge Glass wrote two novels for Faber, Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs (Tindal Street Press 2012), won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2009 and co-authored the award-nominated graphic novel Dougie’s War: A Soldier’s Story (Freight, 2010). He is also Associate Editor at Cargo Publishing. As a special treat for event attendees, we hope to have preview copies of his not-yet-released short story collection LoveSexTravelMusik available on the night.

Chris Killen is an author whose much-vaunted novel The Bird Room showed "exuberant brio" (Guardian) and was "so fresh it practically pings with energy" (Independent). When he's not making podcasts about pizza and working on his new novel In Real Life, Chris is part of Metal Man, whose film Wizard's Way won the London Comedy Festival Discovery Award 2013.

Join Blackwell's, James, Sam, Rodge and Chris for a fantastic evening of fiction.

Date: Friday 15 March 2013
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Blackwell's bookshop, The Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9RN
Admission: free

A SPOT OF PAINT

We're not averse to a bit of elbow grease at Blackwell's.

Our Business Centre - that often-unseen office area where we offer tailored services for books, mapping and specialist publications to organisations - was in need of a repaint. Our booksellers got to work with what we think is the perfect shade of light blue. Here they are just starting off.

We even put the colour to a public vote! And by that, we mean buy the paint then hope Twitter doesn't suggest anything different... click this image to make it bigger.

It went brilliantly! (Thanks to FictionStroker for making us chuckle.)

Independent bookshops are all about graft and we love every minute of it. If you want to buy publications via your organisation, then you should pay a visit to the Blackwell's Business Centre soon. Give Customer Accounts a call.

FRIDAY THANKS

Thank you to everyone who came down for Friday's book launch.

Jenn Ashworth read from her brand new book The Friday Gospels, a tragicomic tale of Lancastrian Mormons described by the Telegraph as "Ashworth’s most confident work yet". Our Q&A afterwards focused on the different voices of the novel, the uniqueness of British Mormonism and the warmth weaved throughout the narrative.

Russ Litten chose to read from his forthcoming crime novel Swear Down - which prompted the best comment from the evening when an audience member said in the Q&A: "I'm only here for the free drink... but I like you."

Your host for the evening was Fat Roland, who has been known to moonlight as Blackwell's assistant manager. Thanks to everyone for putting up with his insistent plugging on Facebook! Massive thanks too to Sceptre Books for supporting the evening. The launch even had a hashtag.

The Friday Gospels is a great book (we love that cover too) and we were proud to launch it in Blackwell's. We'll add photos to this blog post as and when they appear online.

THE FRIDAY GOSPELS: JENN ASHWORTH BOOK LAUNCH

It's Friday in Blackwell's, but this is no ordinary Friday... it's the launch of Jenn Ashworth's new novel The Friday Gospels.

Our event features a reading and a Q&A with Jenn, and support from Russ Litten, author of Scream If You Want To Go Faster and the forthcoming Swear Down. As well as the amazing company and laughs that were the trademark of our events in 2012. Your compere as ever will be the indefatigable Fat Roland.

It starts 7.30pm on Friday 18 January 2013 and admission is free! Do download the poster above (click for bigger) and share it on your networks.

Praise for The Friday Gospels

"A set of brilliantly realized voices in a narrative of great energy and skill... A serious novel seriously engaged with big themes. It is also very funny"' - Andrew Miller, author of Pure

"There’s an addictive, claustrophobic, intimate feel to this novel that reminded me of Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. Engagingly funny and sad." - Red Online

"The Friday Gospels is possibly the first work of fiction to deal with the Mormon faith in the context of Modern Britain, but to focus on this aspect would be a violation of its specialness. It is rare to find a novel that is so complex, so damn clever and yet at once readable... - a truly exceptional novel." - Helen Walsh, author of Brass and Go To Sleep

AN OPEN LETTER TO REALTY ESTATES, BBC SITE DEVELOPER

Dear Realty Estates,

As a busy bookshop on Oxford Road, we couldn't have been more excited at the prospect of offices, a hotel and student accommodation on the former site of BBC Manchester.

Sure, we miss the Beeb being here, but your development will bring a whole new buzz to a thriving and creative corridor of Manchester.

That is, until our customers spoke.

We ran a poll on this massively popular* blog asking "what should the BBC Oxford Road site be turned into" - and it seems you may need to reconsider your plans. After all, this is the voice of the public. The results were as follows:

1st - A ball pit (22 votes, 26%)
2nd - A huge bookshop (20 votes, 24%)
3rd - A bouncy castle (19 votes, 22%)
4th - A kind of parallel universe vortex or something, I dunno, something Doctor Who-y and that (16 votes, 19%)
Joint 5th - A Tesco Metro / A sculpture of EL James (3 votes each)

There is nothing that sends a shiver down our paperback spines than the thought of a massive bookshop on the old BBC site, with rows and rows of Murakami, Plath and Where's Wally. However, the public want a ball pit.

A massive ball pit.

Decent quality ball pit balls would set you back around £15-£20 for 100. You'd need to scale up that quantity considering the size of the site. Maybe a million balls, which, with bulk discount, would set you back £100,000. Even with the appropriately gaudy plastic walls and slides, it would be way cheaper than your existing plans.

And a ball pit is, as we have shown, what the public wants.

Do it, Realty Estates. Do it for the office workers who wear stripey socks to work because they think they're wacky. Do it for the geography undergrads who wear court jester hats to indie club nights. Do it for the shoppers desperately looking for a distraction from their secret-Santa hell.

To do any different would be an insult to the multi-coloured future we all deserve.

* artistic licence

HABIT: STEPHEN McGEAGH BOOK LAUNCH

On Thursday December 13, we launch an amazing debut on Salt Publishing by Manchester-based writer Stephen McGeagh.

Habit takes us from a chance meeting in Manchester to blood-drenched flashbacks and the goings-on in a room below 7th Heaven... this powerful first novel is an essential read, and we're dead excited because we get to offer you the Manchester launch in our bookshop for FREE!

The evening starts at 7.30pm and as well as a reading from Stephen, it also features readings from an amazing trio: Nicholas Royle, Claire Massey and Socrates Adams.

Habit review: 

“A raw slice of urban menace as immediate as a dangerous night out on the town. In the vivid language of the streets it invokes the paranoid spirit of the city. It's as harsh and clear as neon, and it rings alarmingly true. Be warned – this is not comfortable fiction. Perhaps there's no escape.”

Ramsey Campbell

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