The English Bookshop Göteborg

Happy “Intermezzo” Release Day to all who celebrate!

♟️Want to reserve a copy? Send us a dm or email, and let us know which edition you want!

Happy “Intermezzo” Release Day to all who celebrate!
This long-awaited novel, one of our most pre-ordered books of 2024, is now available at all our shops! ✨

♟️Want to reserve a copy? Send us a dm or email, and let us know which edition you want!

♟️ABOUT THE BOOK♟️

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

♟️

They're here! Three brand new titles by three astounding authors! And if we seem extra excited, that's not just us! These have been our by far most requested books in the past weeks. Grab yours before they run out! 🕊

GIVEAWAY! ✨👜📚
Buy a book from Penguin at our shops, get a free mini-tote! Limited supply, so don’t miss out!

A picture from Wednesday's visit from Gerard Taylor presenting his book "Blood on the Axe"! 🪓

He brought his own map to illustrate the Swedish vikings' route from Lake Mälaren along the Dneiper River through Eastern Europe all the way to Baghdad! Thanks for the presentation and Gerard and everyone for coming! We still have a couple more of the book in stock if you missed it!

And just like that the seasons turned and autumn came to Göteborg! ☔ Not that we're complaining, autumn is prime reading season after all! Grab a cuppa and pull up a chair because Petter and Elin are sharing some of their fall reads!

1. A book we just finished

Petter has read "The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi" 🏴‍☠️ by Shannon Chakraborty, which is a sea faring romp through the Indian Ocean filled with pirates and magic.

Elin has read "Blood on the Axe" 🪓 by Gerard Taylor which is (also) a sea faring romp but with Vikings travelling from Sweden all the way to India. Check out our author event on Wednesday!

2. A book we're currently reading

Petter is currently reading "Death of a Bookseller" 🐌 by Alice Slater. It's a murder mystery set in a bookshop. Seriously scary! (At least to us)

Elin is reading Andy Griffith's new book "The Land of Lost Things" 🤖, which is a kid's book about finding things you've lost and you get to be a character in the story. It's really fun so far and is suitable for 6-9 year olds! (and 29 year olds)

3. A book we're looking forward to reading

Petter wants to read "The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love" 🦅 by India Holton which promises to be a wholesome fantasy romance about a bird competition.

Elin wants to read "The Overstory" 🌳 by Richard Powers, which she hopes will fill the hole in her heart left after reading "North Woods" by Daniel Mason earlier this year. It's about trees and she couldn't be more excited!

🇬🇧 For those of you who love Britain in all its forms, check out our shelf British Interest! 🫖💂🥔

Here we stock a little bit of everything British, from political cartoons and walking guides of London to biographies on farm life and the history of Fish and Chips 🍟🐟

It can be found next to our History shelf. 👀

Calling all storytellers! 🧚‍♀️📖🐻

The first Saturday of every month we have storytelling for kids (age range 2-6) in the bookshop and now we're looking for someone who is good with kids and wants to read aloud! (Bonus points if you can do funny voices of course) 🥸

Send us a message if you are interested! 🎈

More New Books!! 🤩

This weekend we're stocking the new Lee Childs, Matt Haig, Jodi Picoult, Kate Atkinson, Robert Harris and many many more highly awaited releases! We also have some very cool special editions come in of "The Three-Body Problem", "Bridgerton" and "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" just to name a few!

Every week we get in dozens of brand new titles and it's always fun and exciting for us! Here are some of the titles we're extra excited for! Can you spot some in the pile that tickle your fancy? 📚📚📚

Hope you haven't missed Casey McQuiston's latest novel "The Pairing" that just arrived at the shop. After the success of "Red, White & Royal Blue" here comes their most steamy novel yet! 😏

Exes Kit and Theo unintentionally reunite on a food tour through Europe. To handle the awkward situation they decide on a sexy hook-up competition! I thought it was a fun read. If you love southern Europe, pastries, wine and romantic entanglements, this is the book for you! 🥐🍷 /Anna

Horror fans!! Look at this new classic series that just came in! 👀

Alvina Chamberland was in the store today and signed her book "Love the World or Get Killed Trying" so hurry to get your copy! (Or send us a little message)

"This novel tackles universal issues through a trans woman’s specific lens – insisting on these experiences speaking to far more than just issues of sexuality and gender. Reaching its climax through an urgent wildfire scream-of-consciousness, cry-of-love-manifesto, Love the World or Get Killed Trying is a raw and vulnerable work of magical brutalist autofiction"

New staff member alert! 🚨
This is Robyn who you'll be able to see on weekends and some weekdays if you're lucky from now on! Here's a little introduction she's written about herself 🥳:

Hello!

I'm Robyn, posed with a couple of my favourite books of all time! I've had quite the varid journey through genres, switching between fantasy, classics and, the current favourite, speculative fiction—the odder the better!

Being a child obsessed with everything horses, I grew up reading a lot of books related to horses, where a favourite series was the Klara-series. Upon becoming a teenager, I discovered more and more fantasy books, and fell in love with escaping into new, magical worlds in works such as Leigh Bardugo's Grisha-trilogy and V. E'. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic-series.

As I've grown older, I have, beyond still reaching for that stunning fantasy from time to time, found myself fascinated by the human mind and the interactions and relationships we have with each other, which is something I tend to look for in the books I read nowadays, preferably q***r and with a strange twist. This results in Mona Awad, Toni Morrison, Emily Austin and Samantha Shannon being some of my favourite authors.

I'm also a big mood reader and I therefore end up reading multiple books at once. which is both a blessing and a curse, because it's a lot of fun and I can switch depending on my mood, but it makes it harder to actually finish every book I pick up... Alas, that's how it is! One of my current reads that I very much enjoy is Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás.

🌻 By the pricking of our thumbs,
exciting changes this way comes...🌻

Today is a little bit of a strange day for us in the shop, because today is my last day working at shop. I'm moving back to Uppsala after two life changing years here in Gothenburg.

I leave knowing three things:
1. I leave the shop in the most capable hands. Elin and Anna will be taking over when I leave, and I simply couldn't ask for better people to do it. I don't even say it just because they are my very close friends, it is objectively true!
2. The English Bookshop has the most wonderful customers in the world. Every day just confirms it more and more! All of you that have talked books with me over the last two years, know that I will miss you dearly!
3. There are more bookish adventures to be had, and I'm so happy that one of the biggest ones of my life was here and now!

I leave you with this Winnie the Pooh quote:
"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard!" ❤️

Lots of love,
Miranda

Tonight at 7pm, the winners of the Hugo Awards 2024 is revealed! ⚔️🪐

Hugo is one of the biggest prizes for fantasy and science fiction and have a few different categories, but here are the nominees for Best Novel and some thoughts from Anna:

📕 The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera
Haven't read this yet, but it is our Fantasy Book of the Month for August and winner of the Nebula 2024, so ask Petter next month what he thinks 😉

📘 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - Shannon Chakraborty
I absolutely loved this one and recommend it all the time! A retired notorious pirate gets dragged into another mission around the Arabian Sea, feeling torn between her adventurous spirit and staying home with her daughter.

📙 Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh
Another favourite of mine that we read in the SF Reading Group autumn 2023. A war-torn space opera about a woman growing up on Gaea Station, being trained to avenge the destruction of Earth.

📗 Translation State - Ann Leckie
A science fiction novel with identity, family and interspecies linguistics as main themes. Haven't read but sounds so fun right??

📕 Starter Villain - John Scalzi
A low-key science fiction about a man inheriting his uncle's supervillain business. We read another of Scalzi's books in the SF Reading Group and he writes hilariously!

📘 Witch King - Martha Wells (not in picture)
Few readers of science fiction have missed Wells' successful series about Murderbot (which is amazing!), but before she wrote that she wrote fantasy, and she does that well too. Now she's back with a new fantasy series!

So who do think will take home the prize this time?
I really can't tell, but if you twist my arm I'm going to guess The Saint of Bright Doors but hope for The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Tell us your predictions! 😍

We love a good themed batch of books, and for the 8/8 Petter thought he'd give some recommendations of books featuring an Octopus on the cover! (I know they're called octopi but it doesn't feel great, does it?)

It's also happens to be international cat day today so here are some of Anna's picks for cat books! Are you team octopus 🐙 or team cat 🐱? Let us know!

A little glimpse from yesterday's show with Lucie Glang who did her first international show ever in our little shop! 🎼 Thanks for coming Lucie and good luck on the rest of your tour!

🎶 Join us in the bookshop tomorrow Tuesday for music in the bookshop with Lucie Glang!

Watch the video:
https://youtu.be/l1HN9ghUuSg?si=QNLwddu3BxQKD1iv

Read more (Like&Share!)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1219649889208765

Everything must come to and end, and today we say so long, goodbye to our Sunday Pundays. This is your last chance to laugh (or not) at our very amusing twists of bookish words.

The longlist for the Booker Prize 2024 has been announced and we happen to have 4/13 in stock at the shop! (More are coming of course!) Hurry to pick up a copy before they run out! 🏃‍♀️📕

(And is it funny that one of the books is Headshot and we cut off Anna's head for the picture? We think so at least 😉)