As you may have noticed at Beatons we enjoy books and something that is very important to us is engaging with and supporting the many wonderful local authors we have around our tearooms. Each month we’re going to introduce you to some of the authors that may be a lot closer to home than you’d think and who’s books we’re proud to stock!
Graham Jones - Hampshire Graham should be in the Guinness World Records for visiting more record shops than any other person. Following hundreds of record shop closures, he toured the UK to interview the owners and staff of 50 record shops and document their tales for his book Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? For the last five years he has been writing The Vinyl Revival and the Shops That Made it Happen, a guide to independent record shops in the UK that sell new vinyl. We’re delighted he’s a ‘Book of the Month’ Author (October 2018) and to have been part of his launch activities with a highly successful evening Book Event at Beatons Petersfield.
Marion Molteno - Wiltshire
Marion Molteno is a prize-winning novelist whose writing draws inspiration from a life lived across cultures. She grew up in South Africa at a time of political conflict, has worked in multi-ethnic communities in Britain, and for Save the Children internationally.
All her novels have won or been short-listed for awards. The latest, Uncertain Light, shortlisted for two international prizes, was described by The Bookseller as ‘A terrifically absorbing, topical and quietly affecting novel.’ Her novel ‘If you can walk, you can dance’ which won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize is earmarked to be our Book of the Month for January 2019.
Marion has a home near Tisbury and has spoken at literary festivals and in libraries across the country. She is a patron of the National Women’s Register and blogs at www.marionmolteno.co.uk