Bookstores get ready for National Bookshop Day

8 August 2012 Books+Publishing

The second annual National Bookshop Day will be held on Saturday 11 August 2012, with many booksellers around Australia staging events on the day. Details of events are being announced on the National Bookshop Day’s twitter and facebook accounts. The Australian Booksellers Association also has posters and flyers available for download on its website.

Some of the events happening on the day include:

ACT
Electric Shadows in Canberra is celebrating 25 years in business and will give customers 25% off the purchase price of any book sold on National Bookshop Day. There will also be lucky door prizes drawn every hour.

NSW
Kinokuniya in Sydney is giving away Andy Griffiths’ free book (Just Three for Free, Pan) to any child that asks for it at the Information Counter. The bookstore is offering a tote bag, featuring an illustration from Peter Carnavas’ The Children Who Loved Books (New Frontier), to customers who spend over $50. There will also be storybook readings, face-painting, balloon-twisting and a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

Pages & Pages Booksellers in Sydney will have a range of authors working behind the counter, including Peter FitzSimons, Kate Forsyth, Duncan Ball, Anita Heiss, Libby Hathorn, Scott Bevan, R A Spratt and Frances Watts. The bookstore will give $1 to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation for each book by a visiting author that is sold on the day.

Better Read than Dead in Sydney has vintage games for children and a Harry Potter book club for Hogwarts graduates (adults) in the afternoon. Booksellers will again be wearing costumes.

Shearer’s in Sydney is celebrating the day with childhood nostalgia and kids classics read by visiting authors Deb Abela, Michelle Cooper, L A Larkin, Chris Morphew and Frances Watts.

The Children’s Bookshop in Beecroft will have readings with authors and illustrators including Ursula Dubosarsky, Duncan Ball, Deborah Abela, Frances Watts and Belinda Murrell. The bookstore will have a ‘Living Window’ with authors working in the shop window, as well as an artist-in-residence creating illustrations. There will also be book-busking, face-painting, a sausage sizzle and balloons.

Queensland
Avid Reader in Brisbane is running a ‘twitterature’ competition, inviting readers to sum-up a favourite book in a single tweet. Customers can also win prizes by making short films with their smartphones about the importance of bookshops or taking photos wearing an Avid Reader badge, and then uploading these to social media. Live entertainment will include the Ukelele band Halfway, and author Indira Naidoo will be a guest bookseller.

TLC Books in Brisbane is running a ‘read-in’ with cupcakes and other treats for all participants. Authors will visit throughout the day and there will be giveaways.

Mary Who? Bookshop in Townsville is running an ‘urban beach read-in’, with customers invited to bring their own banana lounge or chair and create their own ‘reading nook’ outside the bookstore.

SA
Collins Booksellers Edwardstown in Adelaide is celebrating the day with visits from local authors, including Judy Forbes.

Tasmania
Fullers Bookshop in Hobart will have a sausage sizzle with donations going to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Devonport Bookshop in Tasmania is holding a mini ‘book fest’ where customers and local identities can share a passage from a favourite book, kicking off with a reading from former mayor of Devonport Mary Binks. There will be a celebratory cake and a basket of goodies worth over $200 to give away.

Victoria
Ten independent bookshops in Melbourne are running a passport competition inspired by Shaun Tan’s book The Lost Thing (Lothian), organised by Leesa Lambert at The Little Bookroom and Warren Bonnet at Embiggen Books. ‘The Lost Thing Passport’ can be stamped at participating stores to win a signed suitcase edition of Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (Lothian), as well as gift vouchers from participating stores. The winner will be drawn at the end of Book Week on 24 August. The participating bookstores are: Books for Cooks, The Little Bookroom, Embiggen Books, Fairfield Books, Book Bonding, The Paperback, Foreign Language Bookshop, Hill of Content Bookshop, The Sun Bookshop & The Younger Sun, Jeffreys Books, Reader’s Feast and The Bookshop at Queenscliff.

Dymocks in Melbourne will have a demonstration by the Victorian Quidditch Association, a light-sabre demonstration for Star Wars fans and a Fifty Shades of Romance panel. Authors Andy Griffiths and Tiffiny Hall will visit the store, along with book characters Maisy, Spot, the Mad Hatter, Wally and students from Hogwarts. There will be all-day storytelling and an all-day craft party. Local authors will become guest booksellers. Proceeds of the top 10 bestsellers for the day will go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

Sun Bookshop in Melbourne will have authors Josephine Rowe and Chris Flynn working as booksellers, and customers who buy from the store on the day will go in the draw to ‘win a book a month for a year’. Author appearances will include Cath Crowley, Danny Katz, Clare Saxby, Steven Lochran and Andy Griffiths.

Books for Cooks in Melbourne will be baking up a storm from books new and old. Every customer will receive a booklet listing chefs and authors’ favourite cookbooks, books and bookshops. There will also be a raffle for a ‘grand cookbook library’. The bookstore is accepting donations of classic and new-release cookbooks, which will be sold with proceeds going to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.

Readings Carlton in Melbourne will be joined by authors Andrea Goldsmith, Catherine Deveny and Helen Garner, who will read from their favourite books.

Book’d On Smith in Warragul, Victoria, is offering a 10% discount storewide, and is inviting customers to help decorate the store by writing their favourite book on the wall or leaving handprints. There will also be lollies for the kids.

WA
Beaufort Street Books in Perth will have readings from James Foley, author of the children’s book In the Lion. Kids can decorate gingerbread lions, participate in drawing competitions and have their photo taken inside Foley’s lion.

Publishers
Random House is using social media to spread the word about National Bookshop Day and is giving away $10 ABA gift vouchers for 50 lucky readers to spend in any bookshop around the country.

Category: Local news