Bookshop Picks: The Bookshop, Marbella
I'm delighted that my first bookshop guest post is by Alicia from The Bookshop in Marbella, Spain! Alicia, who is from Dublin, runs an English language bookshop in Malaga with Derek and was kind enough to pick some great smart thinking books for us this week! Read her great interview answers below.
Q. What are two recent smart thinking books that are your favourite and/or have been popular in your shop?
Educated by Tara Westover is a compelling story about a girl raised in a doomsday cult. It deals with mental illness, complex family relationships and the power education has to transform our lives. It is heartbreaking, thought provoking and makes for a great book club pick.
Educated
Review from Book Depository:
Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn't exist. She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she'd never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn't believe in hospitals.
As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so she discovered both the transformative power of education, and the price she had to pay for it.
Buy On:
Book Depository €8.22 Waterstones £6.99 Amazon UK £6.29 Amazon US $13.99(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari continues to sell really well. It provides an interesting view on the development of civilisation and what it means to be human. It is great for sparking discussion and debate.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
A fascinating whirlwind tour of the history of the human species, from cave paintings to the industrial revolution onwards. Provocative concepts delivered with effortless eloquence, well that's how well it reads anyway.
Buy On:
Book Depository €9.45 Waterstones £6.99 Amazon UK £6.99 Amazon US $13.54(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Q. What are two classic or established smart thinking non-fiction books that you and/or your customers like??
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking is a very accessible and readable introduction to theoretical physics and to the big questions of life, the universe and everything.
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes
Review from Book Depository:
Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries?
These are just some of the questions considered in the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by the world renowned physicist - generally considered to have been one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders.
This new edition includes recent updates from Stephen Hawking with his latest thoughts about the No Boundary Proposal and offers new information about dark energy, the information paradox, eternal inflation, the microwave background radiation observations, and the discovery of gravitational waves.
Buy On:
Book Depository €8.17 Waterstones £9.99 Amazon UK £5.49 Amazon US $11.29(All affiliate links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Reading Lolita in Theran by Azar Nafisi is a great book to recommend to people who enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale. It deals with the rise of a patriarchal, religious authoritarian power and the erosion of women's rights in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The author was a university professor who was expelled from Tehran's University for refusing to wear a veil, however, she continued to meet in secret with some of her students to discuss banned western novels.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Review from Book Depository:
Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, gradually they come to share their own stories, dreams and hopes with each other, and, for a few hours, taste freedom. Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir is a moving, passionate testament to the transformative power of books, the magic of words and the search for beauty in life's darkest moments.
Buy On:
Book Depository €7.67 Waterstones £9.99 Amazon UK £6.49 Amazon US $9.89(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Q. What is one wildcard smart thinking book that you like and/or you have in stock which may not be very well known?
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe documents the year Tom Wolfe spent with Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters as they travelled around the USA in a bus overseeing experiments with LSD. It is notable for its intersection with Hunter S. Thompson's Hells Angels and Jack Kerouac's On The Road (Kerouac's driver Neil Cassidy, who the character of Dean Moriarty was based on, later became the driver for The Merry Pranksters)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Review From Book Depository:
In the summer of 1964, author Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters set out on an awesome social experiment like no other. Blazing across America in their day-glo schoolbus, doped up and deep 'in the pudding', the Pranksters' arrival on the scene - anarchic, exuberant and LSD-infused - would turn on an entire counter-culture, and provide Tom Wolfe with the perfect free-wheeling subject for this, his pioneering masterpiece of New Journalism.
Buy On:
Book Depository €12.99 Waterstones £10.99 Amazon UK £10.99 Amazon US $13.86(All links earn commission from purchases that help fund this site. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Huge thanks to Alicia in The Bookshop, Marbella for picking some fantastic books!
Check out The Bookshop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Cornerstone (Educated), Transworld Publishers Ltd (A Brief History Of Time), Penguin Books Ltd (Reading Lolita in Tehran), Vintage Publishing (Sapiens, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
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