Yes, it’s another of those occasional posts in which I bang on about The Bookshop Band! It’s been two years since I last saw them play live (my post about their Emerge, Return tour gives a lot of general background info), but this concert was special because their third founding member, Poppy Pitt, who left the band in 2015, was back for a one-time reunion concert. She performed 6 of 11 songs with them as part of the 20th birthday event at Bath Elim Church for Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, the UK-famous independent bookshop in Bath where they got their start as the house band in 2010. I’ve visited the bookshop a couple of times, but I was definitely going for the band. The evening also featured appearances from three authors who are longtime friends of the band and/or shop: Patrick Gale, Naomi Ishiguro, and Joanna Nadin.

First two photos by Chris Foster.

The Bookshop Band have written four songs in response to Gale novels and played two of them yesterday evening: “Petroc and the Lights” (Notes from an Exhibition) and “Making Tracks” (Rough Music). Another they didn’t play is “A Place Called Winter” – which shares a title with one of his novels, the companion to which (he insisted it’s not a sequel) has just been published. Love Lane takes up Harry Cane’s story when he returns to England from Canada after 40 years. Gale read a passage in which his daughter Betty awaits his arrival at the port in Liverpool. This is the second time I’ve seen Gale in person, after the keynote talk at the Marlborough Literary Festival four years ago. He’s an excellent speaker. And in a neat fusion of literature and music, he played cello on stage with the band for “Making Tracks”!

Naomi Ishiguro (yep, she’s Kazuo’s daughter) spoke with shop co-owner Nic Bottomley about her third book, The Rainshadow Orphans, the first volume in an urban fantasy trilogy that’s inspired by anime and has a political point to make about how immigration is not a threat. She spoke about the confidence she gained as a Mr B’s bookseller in her early twenties and the challenge of building a whole world whose details (such as the economy) she had to work out so everything would make sense.

The first ever Mr B’s author event was with Joanna Nadin, who was then releasing her fourth book, a children’s pirate adventure. She has just published her 104th book (!!), After Darcy, a Pride and Prejudice sequel set now, with the Bennet sisters all in their thirties and forties. She encountered Austen rather late in life, just seven years ago after being asked to rewrite Sense and Sensibility for middle grade readers. She told Bottomley that writing about Austen’s characters was a pleasure because they’re already there and fully formed, and figuring out what they’d do in the present time was simple. (She’s diagnosed Mary as autistic and Lydia as ADHD.)

We heard a number of Bookshop Band favourites that show up in most sets, such as “Room for Three,” “Faith in Weather” and “Smog over London,” but there were also some deep cuts that Poppy sings and I’d never heard live, so they were a real treat for a mega-fan: “The Paris Wife” (based on the Paula McLain novel about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley), “Gold and Black” (about Carol Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie) and “Oh Saci” (inspired by the Brazilian legend of Saci Pererê, a mischief maker), as well as “Making Tracks.” Ben and Beth also sang several songs based on their collaborations with Robert Macfarlane and/or Jackie Morris: “The Binding” (Morris’s The Unwinding), “The River” (Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive?) and “Charm on, Goldfinch” (the pair’s The Lost Words & The Lost Spells).

“Smog over London” was written about the Hodder novel. Another favourite from the band’s repertoire is “Bobo and the Cattle,” based on Alexandra Fuller’s memoir, which I’m currently rereading for book club. (We’ve also read both of the Gale novels in book club!)

A fun evening and not too hot, though it was quite stuffy in the church. I wanted to corner Poppy at the end and ask why I’ve never seen her about doing musical things in Newbury, where we both live, but it was too busy and the opportunity didn’t arise. Perhaps one day my dream will come true and I’ll get a reunited Bookshop Band playing a gig in my town!