What are the opening hours?

Monday 10am - 5pm Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 10am - 5pm Thursday 10am - 5pm Friday 10am - 5pm Saturday 10am - 5pm Sunday 11am - 3am

Bookbag

Bookbag is an independent bookshop in Exeter. We celebrate books with a local/global feel
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02/09/2026

Road Song Books is an independent publisher of literary fiction, poetry & narrative non fiction in Devon. Amongst others Ed (pictured) has published a folk horror novella based on a true story, Coldwell by David Gladwin, and is pictured with newest release The Longest Day by Lisa Williams, each chapter set in a different flat in a Leicester tower block on a blistering June day.

Road Song Books ethos is to publish human stories that are independent by nature, they’ve just signed a debut from Exeter based Melissa Mitcheson, and they are always looking for submissions - currently short stories.

We think it’s vibes to have an indie publisher like Road Song here in Devon so read, follow, support!

01/09/2026

Bookseller Fiction Recommendations

Carnival weekend is done, keep it going with Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance, a classic novel set in Trinidad.

Motherhood and liberation in the republished Gaining Ground as Joan Barfoot tells the story of leaving and not coming back.

An event heckler, TonyInterupter causes cultural confusion, on and offline, in this funny, distruptive tale by Nicola Barker.

An impossibly old woman waits to die one night in I Gave You Eyes And You Looked Towards Darkness by Irene Sola, a family curse a legacy of the women who came before her.

25/08/2026

EVENT
We are excited to host award-winning fashion journalist Tansy Hoskins and Devon activist and shoemaker Alison Hastie in conversation to celebrate the launch of both their new books. Each author brings her unique perspective and we’ll talk about ethical consumerism, crafting, and fashion activism, promising an enlightening and engaging evening dialogue.

Charity Shop World:

With over 80 billion pieces of clothing produced each year and with human made stuff now outweighing living biomass, this is the story of the first sorting site for the deluge of items we discard every single day.
Taking us to the heart of a country hit by austerity and the cost of living crisis, Charity Shop World reveals surprising places of human connectivity, where local communities struggle to find their way through economic hardship to reach a more sustainable way of living. This book also investigates the export of clothes to overseas markets and landfill, revealing hidden shareholders behind a multi-million pound business.

Green Shoes:

Coming of age in the early 1980s, Alison Hastie always knew she was different from the conventional young people around her. One night a voice spoke to her in a dream, telling her to ‘make shoes’, and this is how she spent forty years of her working life.

Living on Dartmoor, travelling between the countercultural town of Totnes and the surrounding villages, Alison made a home and a life for herself based on the principles of second-wave feminism, the idea that small is beautiful, and a deep immersive commitment to craft.

Head to our website for tickets, author info, and to read more about Charity Shop World and Green Shoes.

The Indigo Press

22/08/2026

Hope to see you in McCoys Arcade this weekend, here’s a few non fiction picks, and com to an event this week with Elle Mace | Author | Speaker | Food & Body Expert and Sacred Grounds to celebrate Elle’s Food Freedom, a book that challenges your relationship with food and encourages a fresh, fearless approach to eating , body image, self trust and confidence.

18/08/2026

Thanks to Keith Jarrett who visited Bookbag on Sunday afternoon as part of the Emblaze Live Poetry Book Club, hosted by Davina Quinlivan.

Keith read from collection Hide Me Under The Blood And I Shall Be Satisfied, of which we have signed copies at the bookshop

09/08/2026

Next Sunday: Welcome to The Live Poetry Book Club, a summer book club exploring and celebrating live readings and intimate performances from poets.

Keith Jarrett is a poet, performer, and educator from London, UK. He is the author of the poetry collection Selah (Burning Eye Books, 2017), the play Safest Spot in Town (2017), as well as the poetry pamphlet I Speak Home (Eyewear, 2015). He has performed at and coordinated poetry festivals in English and Spanish in the UK and abroad. Jarrett is a former UK Poetry Slam Champion and won Rio de Janeiro’s Literary Festival of the Urban Periphery (FLUPP) in 2014. His poetry show, Identity Mix-Up (2013), premiered and received 5 stars at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Jarrett teaches at NYU London, holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, and is a Lambda and Obsidian Fellow.

Hosted by Davina Quinlivan and in collaboration with EMBLAZE

Tickets are £5 including the book

08/08/2026

Morning! Lots to browse here at Bookbag, thanks to Sophie Dumont and Sophia Pavelle for poetry & conversation on Thursday night, new horror novellas from visionary Dead Ink Books , shouts to Sophie Bass our favourite children’s books illustrator, August is Women In Translation month so get involved, and local skateboarder / animator Jack Hyde Animations is inviting you to be part of a new exhibition in the autumn

See you in the bookshop

06/08/2026

Reading mainly:

music books on underground music scenes & zines, shoe-gaze & rock, A Tribe Called Quest,

Natasha Brown’s Universality, Ben Lerner’s Transcription, Makenna Goodman’s Helen of Nowhere, Deb Olin Unferth’s Earth 7

Cory Doctorow on AI 🤖

03/08/2026

Join us this Thursday evening for conversation, readings and reflection, as two writers come together to explore the currents that connect their work - books To Have or To Hold by Sophie Pavelle celebrating nature’s symbiotic relationships, and Sculling, a poetry collection from Sophie Dumont.

Across prose and poetry, Sophie Pavelle and Sophie Dumont navigate landscapes both starkly familiar and quietly overlooked, tracing the relationships between bodies of water, bodies of knowledge, and the lived experience of womanhood. From nature’s hidden relationships to the intimate pull of rivers and coastlines, their writing moves through themes of symbiosis, conservation, memory and wildness.

Through a conversation peppered with readings, the two Sophies will explore how language becomes a kind of ecology: a way of noticing, holding, and reimagining the natural world and our place within it, with reflections on climate, craft, and connection, as science writing meets poetry.

There will be time for audience questions, followed by book sales and signing.

02/08/2026

New on the blog from Jude - fantasy novel The Spellshop and community.

If you’d like to blog, review a book, a genre, or share a poem get in touch

Address

7-10 McCoys Arcade
Exeter

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 5pm
Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 5pm
Sunday	11am - 3am

Telephone

+441392757910

Website

https://www.bookbag.shop/

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