Picture This

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SHOP. More often than not, this is what I hear from newcomers to our bookshop. Lovely, of course, but to begin with I found it a slightly unnerving compliment. Not my department, I would think. You should be talking to the very talented women who designed it for me, Helena Rivera and Kalliopi Bouzounieraki and their team at A Small Studio.

Nearly two years in, I’ve got much better at just taking the compliment, rather than awkwardly trying to distance myself from it. It is a beautiful shop, after all, and I did set out for it to be beautiful — but I recognised that making it so required someone else’s skills.

Lots of people’s, actually. My first permanent hire, Rory, turned out to be a budding illustrator. A few weeks in, he rather sheepishly showed me a sketch he’d done on a train, insisting that we didn’t have to use it. It went straight up on our bar wall (hand-painted by another very talented woman, Alice Kim) and onto our tote bags.

Then there’s Dario Verrengia, an old friend who I met when we both worked on the Telegraph Magazine. His obsessive drive for perfection was evident from our first two days together, during which I wrote several stories while he just put “2016” in different fonts and arrangements, over and over and over again, never quite satisfied. (I eventually learned that he was working on an end-of-year magazine cover.)

Now we have our own magazine and the thing people most often say to me is “what a beautiful magazine”! Well that’s Dario. But also… thanks. That’s why I knew he had to design it.

What hasn’t been beautiful is this newsletter. Sure, I’ve tried to illustrate it, but with an ever-changing cast of slightly odd snaps from the bookshop, weirdly-sized graphics and sometimes even that most beautiful of things: a bar chart. Functional, maybe. Charming, perhaps. Ugly, without doubt.

Well, they say to hire people who are better than you. As you can see from the above, it’s advice I’ve taken to heart when it comes to design. And I’ve done it again. Savannah Sullivan only joined the team in March, and she’s already been responsible for several gorgeous window displays and striking chalkboards. She illustrated the ‘bookshops around the world’ feature in issue 2 of our magazine and is going to contribute much more to the next issue — under Dario’s watchful eye, naturally.

So I’m thrilled that, starting now, she’s going to contribute an illustration to this newsletter each week. Sometimes it’ll be tied to the theme of the week (if I have one!); sometimes — like this week — they will be more general sketches from the shop or slices of bookish life. I hope you enjoy them.

Just don’t tell me it’s a beautiful newsletter.

**

I’ve added a few new regulars to this newsletter. My update will be at the top each week like this, but scroll on to find the latest Backstory Chart, and a weekly book recommendation from the team. But first, our latest event announcement:

Read along with one of my favourite authors

I love Nickolas Butler’s tender depictions of life and relationships in America’s Midwest. So I’m thrilled that he’s joining our fiction book club this August to talk about one of my favourite of his novels, Little Faith. In the novel, a Wisconsin family grapples with the power and the limitations of religion when one of their own falls under the influence of a radical church. It’s beautifully told.

If you’re not already a member of our gang, do consider signing up. It’s £15 a month, including a copy of the book. We meet on Zoom and talk about what we’ve read, just like any book club — but then, unlike any book club, we get to probe the author, too.

Join the club

Upcoming events

Join us from anywhere in the world: Subscribers to our Backstory magazine or our book subscriptions get free access to online livestreams of all author events, including those that are sold out. For more information, check out our subscriptions or email us at books@backstory.london

The Backstory chart

Click on the links to order any of these books from our website with free UK delivery

Hardback

  1. Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna I devoured our book of the month, set over the course of one sweltering weekend in London, as the deeds and desires of several interconnected characters collide.

  2. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors The author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein returns with the tale of three siblings coping with their sister’s death.

  3. Failed State by Sam Freedman The author of another pretty good Substack (!) offers prescriptions for a country in which just about nothing works.

  4. A History of the World in 47 Borders by John Elledge The author of (yet) another pretty good Substack on the arbitrary way the world was carved up and why it matters.

  5. The Racket by Conor Niland I loved this book, a delightful peek behind the scenes of the tennis tour and what it means as a sportsperson to be great but not quite great enough.

Paperback

  1. Kala by Colin Walsh One of my favourite books of last year, new in paperback. A dark, twisty tale of friendship and suspicion set on the Irish coast, perfect for the beach.

  2. Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang This novel about an ambitious novelist who steals her dying frenemy’s manuscript and attempts to pass it off as her own was a lot of fun to read.

  3. Butter by Asako Yuzuki Everyone’s reading it.

  4. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett This is a gorgeous read, about two grown-up daughters who finally have the time to ask their mother about her first love.

  5. Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Kids

  1. There’s a Tiger on the Train by Mariesa Dulak and Rebecca Cobb

  2. The Majorly Awkward BFF Dramas of Lottie Brooks by Katie Kirby

  3. Kay’s Incredible Inventions by Adam Kay

  4. Octopus Shocktopus! by Peter Bently and Steven Lenton

  5. Harriet, The Strongest Girl in the World by Ben Lerwill

This week’s recommendation

Savannah, Megan and Darby all urge you to read The Last Sane Woman by Hannah Regel. Here’s their verdict:

A beautifully observed novel about the pains of making art and the pleasure of destruction. A conversation between women from different generations through a series of letters discovered in an archive dedicated to women’s art.

Buy The Last Sane Woman

An offer on our magazine

Our beautiful new magazine all about books and bookshops is now on sale in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa…and even Clapham! Have you tried it yet? It’s playful and bursts with colour, rather than page after page of reviews. To encourage you to give it a go, we’ll throw in a free copy of issue 1 with every subscription taken out before the end of July. Plus you get a tote bag and free access to livestreamed author events.

Give it a go

See you same time next week. In the meantime — happy reading,

Tom