When Limestone Books opened, we had high hopes of running and supporting bookish events throughout the year. As we all know, Covid has made this impossible for the time being, but always ones to look on the bright side, we thought we’d take a look back at what we did manage to achieve in our first year.
Just before the shop opened, Margaret Atwood’s follow up to the Handmaid’s Tale, ‘The Testaments’ was published. A huge live event in London was beamed across the country and Settle was lucky to have a screening at Victoria Hall. Limestone Books was in attendance, selling copies of the book, and it gave us our first chance to chat to potential customers. We also attended ‘Fleabag’ live at Victoria Hall, and sold limited editions of the play.
Our first true shop event was opening day. Local authors Diane Allen, Julia Chapman and Leah Fleming all came to officially open the shop and sign books. There was a real buzz in the air and their enthusiasm for having a bookshop in the town was infectious.
Next up was local legend John Killick, who launched his book, ‘Onlyness’. In this book John explores the predicament of being an only child, and he gave lively readings, and led a very interesting discussion.
David Johnson gave a lunchtime talk about his book, ‘Time Please!’, which is all about the lost pubs and alehouses of the Yorkshire Dales. The event was well attended by members of the local CAMRA group who all went on to congregate in The Talbot – a very fitting end to the event!
Susan Parry, an analytical chemist and researcher at Imperial College came in to talk about her scientific work and how it informs her crime novels.
Jane Fenwick spoke to customers about her murderous Gothic romance, ‘Never the Twain’, on Christmas lights switch on day, and Sue Vickerman came in during the afternoon to introduce customers to her poetry collection ‘Adventus’.
Heather Dawe, former winner of the 3 Peaks Cyclocross, gave us a talk about her love of running, cycling and climbing in wild and mountainous places. She also gave readings from her books, ‘A Cycling Year’, ‘High Inspiration’ and ‘Waymaking’.
Marion Dunn released a memoir of her journey into the boxing in her fifties. She had a launch event at Victoria Hall with videos, readings and demonstrations and Limestone Books were in attendance to sell copies of the book.
So, all in all, quite an array of events, considering.
We really hope to have events back up and running as soon as we can in 2021. Watch this space!