The Rhino Reads independent bookshop

Hurrah! My very own bookshop!

This morning I created the Rhino Reads Independent Bookshop and, over a coffee or two, chose the first twelve books to grace my virtual shelves. A tricky choice indeed!!

Myindependentbookshop.co.uk offers a virtual storefront where I can celebrate books and thrust them at like-minded people – and at the same time I can support a real, bricks and mortar, bookshop. Hurrah! Directly linked with Hive.co.uk, browsers can become buyers and purchase books from the shelves, with a small percentage of each sale going to my local independent children’s bookshop, Bags of Books. A lovely idea! And to top it off I get to look through all the bookshops other people have created and see what books they are selling. It’s like popping my head out from the toppermost branches of The Faraway Tree and finding myself in the cosiest, most heart-warming place – Bookshop Land!

And here’s the thing…. I’m hooked! It’s gently addictive. Not the “I have to finish this all immediately or my life won’t be worth living” kind of addictive, but the subtler “I’ll just check one more shop, I’ll just buy one more book, ooo I wonder what’s in there…” kind of link-following addictive. This is how it goes… I am browsing through the streets of bookshops, sipping my coffee and smiling at the books on offer. I stumble upon Playing-by-the-Book-Zoe’s shop, I smile at her selections (properly good – take a look!), I have a mooch through her shelves and look at a few blurbs. I move on and find the shop run by that-really-great-bloke-from-twitter-who-always-recommends-amazing-books. I buy one. Or two. I follow through to his favourite shops and find a whole new world! I turn a corner and there’s a whole street of shops run by authors. This is amazing! I’ve bought a few books, made a note of a few to come back to. And then I wander down a side street and am in Librarian Lane and am buying just one more… just one more.

Prepare for heaps of inspiration, gushes of nostalgia….. and outpourings from your bank account!
But it’s all for a good cause, right?

I intend to update my bookshop every month with books I have read and loved and books I have shared with my year 6 book group to a resounding “woo HOO”. I also plan to use it as a place where I can recommend great books that have been sent to me for review that, for whatever reason, I haven’t had a chance to properly review on here. I’m hoping it will alleviate some of my reviewer’s guilt!

Start your own bookshop here.
Or start your wanderings through Bookshop Land with a visit to one of these gems:
Rhino Reads
Playing by the Book
Jim Dean (Yayeahyeah)
Gabrielle James
John Boyne

Note – whilst there are some really great features here, the site is new and still a bit clunky in places, but do a page refresh and stick with it because it really has the potential to be an amazing community.