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Tuesday 10am - 6pm Wednesday 10am - 6pm Thursday 10am - 6pm Friday 10am - 6pm Saturday 10am - 6pm Sunday 11am - 4pm

Storysmith Books

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Storysmith Books

Independent bookshop for Bristol. We do new books, coffee, events, subscription gifts and more.

08/09/2026

🌞WHAT IF WE NEVER COME DOWN?!

A very special End Of The Road this year to mark the festival’s 20th anniversary - and what a celebration it was!

The Talking Heads stage is still the most beautiful (and beautifully curated by Julian Mash) place to hang out and gab about books, and we were so happy to host signings with Babak Ganjei Tom O'Neill Lori Inglis Hall Janine Warren Elizabeth Alker Alice Vincent and Ian Leslie

Highlights: Pulp Powerpoint, Beverly Glenn-Copeland literally making audience members cry, the now-customary Joe Peden storytime session, honking sax guy in Anna Von Hausswolf’s band, bhajis, sunshine, our new gazebo, a visit from Mr Stewart Lee, AND an unsubstantiated but variously reported rumour that CMAT popped in for a browse?!

Thanks to everyone at EOTR, to our amazing festival booksellers Callum, Eloise, Joe and Myla, to Holly and Tasha for their monster shift keeping the shop ticking over back in Bristol, and to everyone who popped in to buy books!

11/08/2026

🌞SUMMER HOURS🌞

We are going to be closed on Tuesday 18th August and Sunday 23rd August due to staff having some swell time off!

Otherwise we’re open as usual - we’ve put this info in as many places as we can think of, but you know how it is, someone’s gonna be rattling the shutters in consternation because they didn’t get the memo. Don’t let it be you!

10/08/2026

NEW EVENT: Patricia Lockwood on Agate Head / Stone Soup

We’ve been hoping for years that this might happen… and now it is! The wonderful Patricia Lockwood, the original Priestdaughter, will be joining us to discuss her new poetry collection (and perhaps some other stuff too, seeing as the paperback edition of her second novel is also out very soon…)

You may know Patricia from her life-defining memoir Priestdaddy, her devastating yet delirious novels No One Is Talking About This (Storysmith Book of the Year 2021) and Will There Ever Be Another You, her poetry collection Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, or that video where she slowly extrudes a crystal egg from her mouth (look it up). We’re very excited.

The autumn schedule is shaping up PRETTY NICELY we think you’ll agree… couple more bits to announce so tie some string round your pinkie or whatever

Tickets from storysmithbooks.com or bio link 🔗

07/08/2026

The two most important shelves in the whole shop: what our booksellers are currently recommending.

It is a RICH MEAL of stuff. Pop in and ask us what to read!

Feat. Ashton Politanoff Daunt Books Publishing Europa Editions UK Morgan Day Akoya Publishing Babak Ganjei Rough Trade Books Granta Books Fitzcarraldo Editions Rahul Bery Peirene Press Lina Munar Elaine Castillo .sola.saez Honford Star Natasha Brown Faber Books Josh Silver Strange Attractor Press Deb Olin Unferth Scribner UK

06/08/2026

NEW EVENT: Tice Cin in conversation with Ralf Webb about SAFE SPACES!

As megafans of Tice Cin’s award-winning debut novel Keeping The House, we jumped at the chance to host Tice for a conversation in the shop about her follow-up which, as you can see, is already getting a little worn out from being passed between booksellers (and Roy).

Tice will be chatting to poet and author Ralf Webb about this hugely anticipated and inimitably styled second novel, ‘a songbook, a found poem of place, a therapy transcript and a community journal.’

Tickets on sale now via storysmithbooks.com or bio link!

Tice Cin 🧞‍♀️ Granta Books

28/07/2026

🦛NEW WINDOW!🦛

So delighted to have Dan and Finn Ojari with us over the weekend to put a massive PLUM/BUM in our window! Is It A Plum? has been one of the hits of the year in our shop - people (us included, we are people) cannot get enough of the reveals in this wonderful picture book.

Absolutely perfect for anyone just getting used to the world and the objects around them, we love that this book is - as stated in the back - dedicated to the TRUTH. Could be a goose, could be a moose, you never know until you look closely.

Come and see our big plum/bum in person and pick up your copy!

Dan Ojari Puffin Books

18/07/2026

We had an incredibly special evening in the shop last night, listening to longtime pals Deb Olin Unferth and Elizabeth McCracken in conversation about their new books, and then taking (smart, incisive, well-delivered) questions from our audience.

Topics covered, among others not listed: families of sand dunes, the identity of the unnamed narrator of Earth 7 (you will not guess the answer), fiction’s ability to capture the ineffable, each writer’s quest to find the ‘greater thing’ that guides them creatively, and assorted tales from the long road of writing. The warmest evening, in every sense.

Huge and perpetual thanks to Deb and Elizabeth for sharing their wisdom and humour, and for signing countless books with inexhaustible zeal (and elaborate intergalactic postage stamps - next-level swag), to for helping us make this happen, and to everyone who came along to soak it all up.

Signed copies of Earth 7 and A Long Game are both in (limited) stock now, and you should already know that they are both bangers! Also a few special signed/postage stamped copies of Barn 8, swipe to behold! In-store and online!

Deb Olin Unferth Elizabeth McCracken

07/07/2026

📚👕🍦

18/06/2026

A perfect night at the Cube last night, as we welcomed Olivia Laing back to Bristol to discuss their novel The Silver Book (Storysmith Book of the Year 2025™️) with Aneet Nijjar of Other Parties.

This was truly a Cinecittà nerd’s dream: we went deep and hard on Donati, Visconti, Fellini, Donald Sutherland’s teeth, Pasolini’s revolutionary outlook and the weaponisation of his murder, the potent undercurrent of toxic masculinity explored in The Silver Book, the opposing atmospheres of sets for Sàlo (jovial!) and Casanova (terrible!) and how they fed into Nicholas and Danilo’s story.

We were so happy to be able to show Fellini’s Casanova after the event too, the only way to finish off such a wonderful evening (apart from showing Sàlo lol). Also got some new book gossip about which we should probably say zilch in case someone at PRH comes after us, but let’s just say we’re excited to return to a different aspect of this story in future works…

Massive and prolonged thanks to Olivia for their time and insight and the magnificent book which we love forever, to Aneet for indulging our shared need for The Minutiae That Matters in her questions, to the always-amazing crew at the Cube, and to everyone who came along and made it such a smashing sell-out.

We have some signed copies of contemporary and classic Laing works, grab yours from the shop or the website!

ℂ𝕌𝔹𝔼 ℂ𝕀ℕ𝔼𝕄𝔸 Penguin Hamish Hamilton

16/06/2026

🐻😎 NEW WINDOW

We had a blast with Duncan Beedie on Sunday - a packed out storytime and draw-along to celebrate the return of everyone’s favourite stare-y bear! A Holiday for Bear is classic Beedie: funny, beautifully designed and full of instantly iconic images (it’s the frame of Bear applying sun cream that did it for us).

And then Duncan climbed into our window to install the biggest Bear we’ve ever seen - it’s come out amazingly, and we hope he brings a little holiday vibes-boost to North Street…

We also have a little stack of signed copies ready for anyone who might be in need of a holiday - get yours while you can!

Duncan Beedie

Address

236 North Street
Bristol
BS31JD

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 6pm
Wednesday	10am - 6pm
Thursday	10am - 6pm
Friday	10am - 6pm
Saturday	10am - 6pm
Sunday	11am - 4pm

Website

http://storysmithbooks.com/

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