The Wallingford Bookshop

16/06/2026

FATHER’S DAY coming up on Sunday. Here’s a few suggestions from Helen.

15/06/2026

Happy Indie Bookshop Week!! This week is all about celebrating independent bookshops, which gives us the perfect opportunity to thank you for all your support 🙏🤗Our little shop wouldn't be here (or half as much fun) without you! We'll be busy as usual with our book clubs and writers' group, plus we'll be celebrating all week with choccies, High Five vouchers, goody bags, stickers and totes. And a fun treasure trail to test our younger customers' detective skills this coming Saturday. Pop in and say Hi 👋

12/06/2026

Huge congratulations to Lyse Doucet and Virginia Evans, winners of this year’s Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and Women’s Prize for Fiction respectively. In The Finest Hotel in Kabul, Lyse Doucet weaves a forty year history of Afghanistan through the lives of the people she met whilst staying at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul as a war reporter. I had the immense good fortune to meet Lyse once at an evening promoting My Pen Is The Wing of a Bird (check it out - it’s truly stunning) and her empathy and respect for the people of Afghanistan shone through then, as it does here. The Correspondent has flown off our shelves continuously since publication. It’s such an accomplished debut and Sybil Van Antwerp is an unforgettable protagonist. Lovely Dru in our team first pegged this one as a winner and she was absolutely right! ❤️ Let us know what you think, and if you’ve ready any other books on either shortlist pop in and tell us your favourites 📚😊

11/06/2026

Illustrator and author visited us yesterday to design a cheery window on a rainy day for his new picture book That Bird Can Draw. That Bird Can Draw is a delightful (and delightfully touching) story about collaboration over competition, doing what we love and not comparing ourselves to others because we are all unique. It’s also very funny! We‘ve fallen in love with Vera and her arty beret and we think you will too 🥰 📚🎨

06/06/2026

We had a great day yesterday with visiting three local schools to talk about Clare‘s fantastical foray into middle grade, The Othernauts. The Othernauts is a witty retelling of Jason and The Argonauts, illustrated by the brilliantly talented . It turns out that Jason, Hercules, Orpheus and Chiron would never have had a chance of nabbing the Golden Fleece without 11 yr old Phoebe and her friends, Perry and Cora. We absolutely love this one and Clare kindly signed some shop copies so pop in and grab one before they disappear. You won’t regret it! Happy weekend everyone! 😊📚❤️

05/06/2026

Pizza and books!! So happy to be supporting Cholsey Community Library with this brilliant idea for 12-17yr olds ❤️First meeting next Wednesday. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cholsey-ravenous-readers-young-adult-book-club-tickets-1989369333228?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios&sg=ab6df6f8f0c18c1b73f8078fc2b99b38fc72ab1beeefcdacc31464251f0c04d989340ed50ca732529b29722aaf5100d4696be49c8d3920918a33fd3f914ad154eaf4064303e45753caff43d337

Book your space!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cholsey-ravenous-readers-young-adult-book-club-tickets-1989369333228?aff=oddtdtcreator

02/06/2026

Had a tidy up over half term? Time to send your books on new adventures! 📚🥰

From now to 20th June, we'd love your donations of new and used children's books. We're teaming up with The Children's Book Project again, which will get your books into the hands of children who have few or no books of their own. The Children's Book Project is a registered charity that directly tackles childhood social, emotional and educational inequalities by gifting beautiful new and pre-loved books to children in our most under-served communities. This year the Children's Book Project will gift one million books across the UK. Help us share the joy of reading!
https://childrensbookproject.co.uk/

30/05/2026

We have TWO June bookclub choices. Either/Or … or both. There’ll be lots to chat about come June 29th. Black Woods Blue Sky is a magical fictional novel set in the Alaskan wilderness in contrast to: The Mercy Step, 1960’s Bradford and a young girl’s quiet rebellion and refusal to be bowed down by her circumstances.

27/05/2026

Join us as we welcome Dr Steven Parissien, Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, to discuss his book, Building Britannia, A History of Britain in 25 Buildings.

In Building Britannia, Steven tells both a national story, tracing how a growing sense of British nationhood was expressed through the country’s architecture, and also examines how these structures were used by later generations to signpost, mythologise or remake British history.

From the iconic (the Roman baths at Aquae Sulis, the early Gothic splendour of Lincoln Cathedral and the Tudor jewel that is Little Moreton Hall) to the quirky (a Regency pub in Manchester city centre and the Edwardian Baroque Electric Cinema in Notting Hill), we’ll be discussing buildings that promise to open doors into some familiar and perhaps less familiar areas of social history. If you love history, architecture or just learning something new in good company with a glass of something nicely chilled, you will enjoy this! Link to book in bio or pop in 😊📚

25/05/2026

DON’T FORGET it’s bookclub tonight! A great chance to catch up in the shop and round up a glorious bank holiday weekend. See you all there 7:30. Cool drink and a chat about a book - perfection!