In a first of a new series, we profile the amazing volunteers, customers, members and staff at the bookshop. First up is long time volunteer and bookshop co-founder Caroline Turner. 

How you help at the bookshop

I help with the window displays

Favourite Author (and why!)

My all time favourite writer is American writer and poet Marge Piercy who is still writing at age 87.  She's known for her feminism and activism (her memoir Sleeping With Cats is fascinating) and was involved in the civil rights movement. Her novels contain themes such as gentrification, assisted suicide, homelessness, abortion laws,  post gender civilisation, social justice and class which sound like a laugh a minute but are very readable. She has also written 2 award winning Science fiction novels (Woman On The Edge of Time and Body of Glass) and 3 historical fiction novels on themes ranging from World War 11, the French Revolution and post civil war New York City. I enjoy how her novels address social concerns and have strong female characters.

Favourite Book (and why!)

I'm going to pick the children's story The Box of Delights by John Masefield. It's an important book in my family. My dad loved it on the radio as a child in 1943 and got me to watch the 1980's tv adaptation which I fell in love with. My sister and I have passed on our love to my niece and nephew and it doesn't feel like Christmas until we have watched the Box or read the book! It's also been done as an opera and more recently a theatre production. The director of Harry Potter was rumoured to be making a film of it a decade ago but I'm glad nothing came of it as I fear a big studio might ruin it.

Something you've been reading recently that you'd recommend

I am currently reading and enjoying Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang. It's set in the world of writing and publishing.  It's described as a literary thriller and the story revolves around 2 friends who are a successful writer and a struggling one. The successful one accidentally dies one evening when they are together and the other takes a bundle of notes from her apartment and uses them to write a novel which is hugely successful but then everything starts to unravel bringing accusations of plagiarism and cultural appropriation.

Your pick of a book that's currently in store or online

This is hard as there are so many great books! I spotted the other day that we have a lot of the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin so I'm going with these. They follow the adventures of a young woman who goes on holiday to San Francisco and never leaves! There are 9 books and they follow Mary Anne and her friends between 1978 and 2014. The books are a light read whilst still touching on serious concerns like the Aids epidemic and cults. The books have a strong following and there was even a Netflix reboot series a couple of years ago bringing everything up to date.

Could you volunteer at the bookshop? In the shop or behind the scenes, we are a community bookshop and operate on the generosity and enthusiasm of our volunteers. Express an interest using this form or pop into the shop and say hello.