Hire Space at Bookbarn for Meetings, Workshops and More

Looking for a venue for a meeting? Somewhere to host a workshop or a club?

Our brilliant Darwin room is the perfect location for both professional and private functions, with a wide open space, tables and seating.

An inspiring backdrop to arts & crafts classes, workshops and book clubs, or a warm, comfortable room for business meetings, team building sessions and more.

We have plenty of free parking and other onsite facilities, and our team are happy to make any preparations for your event.

To book or enquire after using our space, please give us a call on 01761451777, or email bookbarn@bookbarninternational.com.

You can also use the contact page on our new and improved website.

---

 

Recycle Your Books With Us!

At its heart, Bookbarn is all about recycling.

Last year, we launched our Reuse, Read, Recycle initiative to help our business be as green as possible – whether it’s performing an environmental audit on all areas, reducing the use of plastics in our shop and cafe, or working harder to reduce our waste across the board.

At the head of this initiative is our Book Recycling Service.

What We’re Reading This Month

Each new year begins for many of us book lovers with the same promise – I will read more books this year. Then real life, dull, irritating, real life gets in the way, and we put the books aside for housework and homework, and end up not quite keeping the promise.

Nonetheless, we try our very best, and hope each year that this will be the one in which we achieve the goal. We write up reading lists, we venture into new genres, we google book clubs and bookshops and bookmark those ‘100 books to read before you die’ lists.

We’re Having A January Sale!

After all of the unrelenting joy and excitement of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, January can often feel like a miserable time by comparison. It’s almost always raining, no one has any money, we’re beginning to reach the end of our Christmas chocolate selection and we’ve all got to go back to our regular lives where it’s no longer acceptable to eat cheese all day.

Happy New Year From All of Us!

We’ve had a truly wonderful year in our not-so little bookshop, filled with so much positivity, and while we’re excited so move in to 2020 and see what it has in store for us, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our favourite memories and moments of the last twelve months, from appointing a new CEO to enjoying our fifth seasonal fayre.

All that we’ve achieved this year would not be possible without the kindness and ongoing support of all of you – our customers who visit our shop or buy from us online, even those who follow us on our social media – you keep us going and remind us why we’re here, why we keep working hard to be not only a good bookshop, but a haven for book lovers.

So happy new year to each and every one of you, and we look forward to seeing you in 2020.

Letters to the Barn

-by Lauren Bilsborough, Shop Team

---

Whether you are new visitors, old friends or far-off admirers of Bookbarn, you will likely know that our humble barn is home to thousands upon thousands of books in all shapes, sizes and languages, spanning a range of centuries and covering a multitude of subjects. We pride ourselves on the variety we are able to offer our wonderful customers – even we staff members fall prey to the alluring shelves we work beside, and come out at closing time with piles of books in our arms. We’re only human, after all…

The Bookbarn Last Minute Gift Guide!

-by Emma Bilsborough

---

We’ve all done it, reached the weekend before Christmas and realised that despite our very best efforts, we’ve forgotten someone. A gift for a distant uncle or a secret Santa present, a top-up gift for your mum or something small for your grandchildren; last minute gift shopping is as much a part of Christmas as The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York.

We thought we’d help you out and put together a little guide of last minute gifts that you can pop in to store and grab from us this weekend. We’ve even got cards and wrapping paper, if you’re on your way to see family and need it all wrapped up and ready.

And just for your information, our opening hours up until Christmas are as follows:

Saturday 21st: 9am – 5pm

Sunday 22nd: 11am – 5pm

Monday 23rd: 9am – 5pm

Tuesday 24th (Christmas Eve): CLOSED

Wednesday 25th (Christmas Day): CLOSED

The Best Books to Get You in the Festive Spirit

-by Emma Bilsborough, Sales & Marketing Coordinator

---

It can be really difficult to get into the Christmas spirit as an adult; it’s an expensive time of year, most of us have to keep going to work everyday and miss out on some of the fun festive traditions, and then there’s the added stress of secret Santa or choosing an outfit for the Christmas party.

But it’s really important that we still find time to embrace the wonderful magic of Christmas, and not get lost in being grumpy about spending lots of money. Christmas is not about the presents that you buy for people, or who’s got the most expensive looking Christmas tree, it’s about the love that you have for the people in your life, it’s about generosity and kindness and forgiveness, and what better way is there to remind yourself of these things than to dive into a literary classic like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or a heart-warming newcomer like Abi Elphinstone’s The Snow Dragon.

The Voyage of the Darwin Room

See what we did there? This voyage may not have lasted five years like the Beagle, but it certainly felt like it.

If you paid us a visit last week, you may have found us all in a bit of a dither. We were making a very big and exciting change to our shop, which ended up being quite the job. We decided a while ago that we wanted to expand our Darwin room and make it a more important feature of our shop, and plans were set in motion to take the leap.

Brand New Books at Bookbarn!

We had an exciting delivery this week of brand new books, just in time for Christmas and our annual Christmas Fayre! We thought we’d give those of you who might not get a chance to pop in and see us a look at the stock, and the opportunity to buy them from us online.

We ship internationally and would be happy to make like Speedy Gonzalez and get the books to you as soon as possible. If you’re interested in any of the following titles, please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 01761 451333 or send an email to bookbarn@bookbarninternational.com.

We will also be providing an order-in service this year, so if you have a title in mind and don’t spot it amongst the following, we can get it for you. Just ask!