The Backstory chart
Our bestsellers from the past month. Buy online for free, fast delivery to any UK address or click and collect.
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In Memoriam by Alice Winn
Our Book of the Month, the story of two young men who don’t realise they’re in love with each other. By the time they come to their senses, it is too late: their world has been transformed by the outbreak of the First World War and they are fighting in the horror of the trenches. Bleak, of course, but beautiful too. I urge you to read this book.
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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Now in paperback, this extraordinary novel has won a Pulitzer, the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Indie Book Awards. A retelling of David Copperfield for our times, set in rural Appalachia at the heart of the opioid crisis.
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Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews
Andrews is a Backstory favourite, whose event here a few months ago sold out quickly. She is great on what it means to be young and living life precariously. In this gorgeous summer read, now in paperback, her descriptions of Barcelona are so good, you can taste them.
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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Like a warm bath in novel form, this is the riotous tale of a kick-ass female chemist who bestrides the equally sexist worlds of 1960s science and showbusiness. Oh, and there’s a fiercely clever dog called Six Thirty.
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Breathe by Sadiq Khan - signed copy
Part-memoir, part-manifesto, the mayor of London - who was diagnosed with asthma in mid-life - makes a personal case for why cleaning up our air is such an important part of the climate conundrum.
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Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
This book recently made Gospodinov the first Bulgarian writer to win the International Booker Prize. Time Shelter tells the story of an enigmatic flaneur who opens a “clinic for the past” offering a new treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.
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Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Another Backstory favourite, Azumah Nelson writes with such musicality. This, his second novel, is set across three summers in south London and is a beautifully written exploration of identity and the meaning of home, of the ‘small worlds’ we inherit and those we build for ourselves.
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Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Twenty years after Cleo and Frank first meet, their paths cross again. Frank's life is full of the success and excess that Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art. They run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with.
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The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer
Gary Thorn goes for a pint with a work acquaintance called Brendan. When Brendan leaves early, Gary meets a girl in the pub. He doesn't catch her name, but falls for her anyway. When she suddenly disappears without saying goodbye, all Gary has to remember her by is the book she was reading: The Satsuma Complex. But when Brendan goes missing, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Satsuma to get some answers. So begins Gary's quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London.
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Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris
For thriller buffs like me, a holiday isn't a holiday without a Robert Harris. His latest - now in paperback - relates the tantalising chase for the men who signed Charles I's death warrant.
Get your event tickets
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Alice Vincent - Why Women Grow
Wednesday 28th June, 7.30pm, Backstory
Women have always turned to the earth, as gardeners, growers and custodians. Alice Vincent, a journalist, author, Substacker and publishing staffer, is on a quest to understand why.
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Kenan Malik in conversation with Stephen Bush - Not So Black and White
Wednesday 5th July, 7.30pm, Backstory
Writer and lecturer Kenan Malik talks to Stephen Bush, FT columnist and ex-New Statesman newsletter writer, about today's heated debates on race, culture, whiteness and privilege.
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Sophie Mackintosh - Cursed Bread
Wednesday 11th July, 7.30pm, Backstory
The Booker-longlisted author of The Water Cure joins us to talk about her new novel, Cursed Bread, an intoxicating novel about a baker’s wife poisoned with desire.
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Thursday 20th July, 7.30pm, Backstory
Visiting from across the pond, Booker-shortlisted author Karen Joy Fowler talks about Booth, which tells the story of the ill-fated Booth family and their attachment to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
In this guest edition of the newsletter, senior bookseller Amy Strong reflects on her move to London and how her time at Backstory has confounded stereotypes of the capital
AS I WAS FINALISING MY PLANS to move from my sleepy market town in North East England to the Big City last summer, my dad cautioned me to be careful. He told me to watch out for pickpockets, for estate agents (same thing?), for shadowy people with malicious intentions. But most of all, he warned me to be prepared for unfriendliness.
“Southerners are just rude.” It’s times like these that he conveniently forgets he was born in Wiltshire. “And Londoners are the worst of the lot. You can’t really want to move there.”
So I, with my characteristic, I-really-can’t-call-it-teenage-anymore defiance, packed up my things and made the six-hour journey to south London. I had never lived anywhere bigger than Durham and didn’t have a job yet. But I saw on Twitter that a bookshop (which didn’t quite exist in the traditional sense yet as they hadn’t finished kitting out the premises) was hiring. I googled the owner, one Tom Rowley, and he looked nice enough. And he was from the North East so at least he wasn’t one of those scary, unfriendly southerners.
By the grace of whatever bookish god there may be, I landed the job and less than a month after I moved to London, the shop opened. We were completely unprepared for just how hectic it would be and just how supportive the community could be. We were rushed off our feet in the most delightfully chaotic way for a few months until January, when things understandably quietened down. But what remained was a fiercely loyal clientele made up of the friendliest people imaginable.
Toon Arty On Backstory’s team of six there are three northerners, an Aussie, an American…and a token southerner
My absolute favourite thing is to be behind the bar, perhaps serving a customer at the till or making one of our fancy new peach gin cocktails, and to be able to watch as people turn our little bookshop into not just a shop, but a place of community, a friendly, bookish haven. It is so lovely when the shop is used as a meeting-place by all different people: the old friends catching up over coffee and a nibbly bit; the mum friends that have bumped into each other in the kids’ section as they both search for a last-minute present for the birthday party they are already late for; the book club perched at the bar and spilling across the bookshop floor as they natter away over glasses of wine.
I love listening to people swap book recommendations: “So The Priory of the Orange Tree is queer and it’s got dragons and –” “Okay I’ll buy it.” Even when sometimes they don’t sound like recommendations: “A Little Life actually destroyed me. I don’t think I’ll ever recover. You absolutely have to read it.”
Best of all is when I see people using books as a way to show love. From the man who wanted the perfect book for his friend in Germany that he only sees once every few years, to the grandparent treating their grandchild to a small mountain of new books every few weeks, it is always heart-warming when a book is clearly being bought with the intention of telling someone they are cared for.
After every shift, I ring my mum to regale her with tales from the bookshop. “Today someone came in to buy a book for his friend, but then his friend walked in because he wanted to buy a book for HIM. Is that not the cutest thing ever?” “I saw the absolute sweetest kid reading to his little sister in the children’s section.” “These two regulars made friends while sitting at the bar and now they have plans to go do archery together!” But what I’m really telling her is: “I made the right choice. I’m happy in London.”
I feel so lucky that I get to live in south London and that I get to work at Backstory. So I want to say thank you to everyone for supporting us, for making my job so fun, and for being so friendly. And most importantly, for proving my dad wrong.
Amy