Events
The next two months, and the seats left.
Thirty-five chairs between the shelves, a lamp on a lectern, and a writer two metres away. Thursday evenings at seven, doors at half past six; £6, which comes off the author's book if you buy it on the night, and launches usually free. Book here, at the counter or by phone; sold-out evenings have a waiting list and sometimes the church hall.
Booking
Eight evenings, and a Saturday morning.
Seat counts are updated at the counter each evening. Two seats per event are held for book club members until the Monday.
- Fiction
Elin Haf: The Weather at Nash Point
Reading and conversation with Ceridwen
- Nature
Tomos Ellis: Salt Marsh
A walk through the book with photographs
- Children
Lowri Rees: The Fox Who Counted Stars
A reading and drawing morning for under-eights
- Crime
Anwen Morgan: The Second Register
In conversation with a retired registrar
- Poetry
Three Vale poets
Dafydd Price, Megan Rhys and a guest, launching a pamphlet
- Memoir
Siân Lloyd-Jones: Pencil and Rain
Memoir, Penarth in the sixties, with photographs from the archive
- Cookery
Meg Howells: The Slow Kitchen
With soup from the book served by the café
- The shop
The Christmas books evening
Four of us recommending the year's best, with mulled wine
How an evening goes
Doors, a glass, forty minutes, questions, a pen.
Half past six
The shop closes at six and opens again at half past. A glass of wine or a soft drink is in the ticket; the chairs are not numbered, so the window seats go to the people who come early and browse.
Seven
The author reads or talks for forty minutes, usually with one of us asking the questions we wanted to ask anyway. Then yours, for twenty minutes, and nobody is made to ask one.
The book
Your £6 comes off the author\'s book at the till that evening. Most people buy it because the author is right there with a pen; nobody is counting, and you are welcome to come for the talk alone.
Afterwards
The signing runs until everyone who wants a book has one, and signed copies go on the shelf by the till for people who could not come. The café stays open for the queue.
Every Thursday
Storytime at half past ten, for nothing, for nine years.
Two picture books, a song the parents pretend not to know, and a book to take home if they like, with no pressure to buy. Under-fives, from whenever they will sit on a lap; no booking; upstairs on the children\'s floor, or downstairs for anyone who needs the step-free route. Ffion or Ceridwen reads.
The children\'s floorWritten a book? Launch it here.
About a dozen launches a year for Welsh authors, usually free and usually busy. Email with the book and the month you have in mind; we read it first and say honestly if it is not one for the shop. Private hire of the shop for an evening is from £150.