Love your Brain, Read Books this NZ Bookshop Day

Love your Brain, Read Books this NZ Bookshop Day

There are over 60 bookshops all over New Zealand celebrating the fifth nationwide NZ Bookshop Day on Saturday 27 October with displays and events, including treasure hunts, brain painting and much, much more.

Booksellers NZ CEO Lincoln Gould says, ‘This year, the Nielsen Bestsellers list has been collecting NZ book sales data now for 10 years. We are celebrating this with a nationwide competition for Bestseller of the Decade.

‘But figures only tell a very small part of the picture of the NZ book industry right now. The explosion of Writers’ Festivals, the continued success of both established and new bookshops and the resolution by the Government to ensure GST is added to online purchases from next October all contributes to the health of our bookstores.

‘It has also been another year of significant anniversaries. Beattie & Forbes in Rotorua has just celebrated 50 years, while Arty Bees in Wellington celebrates 30 years this month. And members Muir’s Bookshop have been going for an incredible 113 years this year, with no sign of stopping.’

We know our customers love physical books, and this year we are renewing our call for them to shop locally for their favourite reads, and make use of the passionate booksellers we have working in bookshops nationwide.

When you shop locally, you are keeping money in the local economy, you create local jobs, you create more choice for yourself in the future, and you become part of your bookstore’s community. On NZ Bookshop Day, our bookshops offer unique ways of celebrating their place at the centre of your thinking life, whether this is by giving free books to local schools, supporting local charities, or displaying your painted plaster-of-paris brain.

Here is just a taster of the events lined up for NZ Bookshop Day on Saturday 27 October.

- Women’s Bookshop Ponsonby: Meet ‘On the Rag’ presenters The Spinoff’s Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and author and comedian Michele A’Court in-store at 2pm.

- Dorothy Butler Children’s Bookshop in Ponsonby will help your kids save the world, with help from illustrator Angela Keoghan, illustrator of How to Help a Hedgehog and Protect a Polar Bear, in-store from 11am. (image attached of part of last years’ event)

- Penny’s Bookstore in Hamilton will be hosting a book character dress-up and treasure hunt: and every person who buys a book goes in the draw to win their height in books!

- Books for Kids in Hamilton is hosting the launch of Tui in a Teapot, with Nikki Slade Robinson and Dawn McMillan in-store, reading and signing at 11am

- Wardini Books in Napier is launching Donovan Bixley’s new book Mozart – The Man Behind the Music, with the author/illustrator instore talking about who Mozart really was from 4pm, and both of their stores are displaying hand-painted brains

- McLeod’s Booksellers in Rotorua will host their annual Treasure Hunt from 9am

- Featherston Booktown has war games for the adults at Messines Books, while you can send your younger friends across to For the Love of Books for a Monster Investigator Workshop – and if you have a novel in you, go along to Ferret Books and get it on paper

- The Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie is hosting a juggling workshop with Circus Quest author Maureen Crisp at 11am, a Tiger who Came to Tea Party at 2pm and at 4pm, a book launch!

- Volume Books are hosting The People’s Bookcase, and encouraging book-positive thoughts with their free bookmarks

- Scorpio Books in Christchurch are hosting Dr Simon Pollard at 10.30am, then holding the Great Scorpio Lit Quiz, as well as being one of the bookshops supporting their local schools.

- Paper Plus Wanaka has a Book Launch Francesca’s Italian Kitchen by Francesca Voza and James Stapley, complete with Wood Fired Pizza fresh from the Oven, from 12.30pm – all proceeds to go local charity Food for Love.

As well as events, all of our bookshops are championing the Top 20 NZ Bestsellers – Booksellers choice. You can vote for your Bookseller of the Decade online or instore to be in to win $500 Book Tokens.

As poet Jeffrey Holman says: ‘Should I lay down my iPhone and repent, turn again to the halls of print and hold a book like a talisman once more, a reminder of how truths on paper have set me free: truths of the imagination, of science, of faith? Visit my local bookshop while it still remains and buy New Zealand made? Yes, I think so.’

So grab your friends and family and visit your local bookshop this NZ Bookshop Day.

ENDS

Full calendar available here: www.booksellers.co.nz/whats-on
Vote form here: www.booksellers.co.nz/votebestsellers

© Scoop Media