The local scene of Coventry and Warwickshire

In yesterdays Telegraph it was brought to my attention that there is a new book showing the UK's crappest towns. You know the type, the books that end up in The Works for £1.99 in a year. Well Nuneaton and Coventry both make the top 10 crap towns at 8 and 7. I also accidentally ended up on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire breakfast show on Thursday too as a local lady had stated she would never go to Coventry in a million years and I tweeted that I'll be moving my business there soon due to Fargo!

Coventry

I'm going to start a new regular piece on the blog about what is GREAT about the area. From buildings and musicians, to parks and shops, to show that Coventry and Nuneaton isn't all concrete and charity shops.

As I live in Nuneaton it is actually a pretty sad state of affairs with no real new direction being made (new KFC! *sigh*), but the old Ritz Bingo hall is being talked about becoming a theatre or community space so hopefully soon will turn a corner.
It has only been in the past 2 years where I've seen a little more of Coventry and I, like the lady on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, thought it was a bit of a dump at first, but after spending a lot more time there, there is so much to do and so many great shops, all independent, it's an exciting time. Fargo Village will be the go-to place too.

Nuneaton

In the shop I will have local acoustic music, or any music really, just not loud rock bands! My first 'Focus on' piece is on a band close to my heart.
It's me.
I've started with me just to get it out the way, and when I say me, I actually mean Jonathan Coates and I, also known as Barricades Rise.

We've been playing together over half our lifetime and mainly in and around Coventry and Warwickshire and we've played some magnificent venues. We'll no doubt grace the Bookshop stage a few times so here's a little song by us to show you what to expect.

For more on us visit www.barricadesrise.co.uk, follow on twitter @barricadesrise and like on Facebook.

I'll be focusing on loads more musicians in later blogs, but just wanted to ease you in.

Michael

I've just come back from the Nuneaton Spring fair

I have just come back from holding my second stall, this time at Nuneaton URC for a spring fair. Unfortunately the rain put paid to a lot of visitors, so much so that I ended up reading The Tales of Beedle The Bard from cover to cover!

I made a few sales but it was all a little deflating, hopefully the next stall we have at Earsldon Festival will prove a hit. Although I didn't sell much, nearly everyone that I spoke to has said they love the idea of the shop and this time I had my business cards at hand.

The stall(s), early morning. I got 2 tables!

One thing I need to look at is the layout and actual books on show. I took more or less the same books to this fair than the last, with a few new additions. I stacked them, fanned them and made them look pretty but I'm thinking I may need to have less books, concentrating on just a few genres rather than as many as possible. It's a learning curve.

Are there any specific genres that you'd like to see on the stall at all? The more input from you, the better!
Finally, I've just come across a great new bookshop start up in local Kenilworth called the Tree House Bookshop. Go and view them HERE

Michael

A local author - David Whitehouse

David Whitehouse, a local author, released his début novel Bed in 2011 and it was received amazingly well with The Guardian celebrating a new voice in literature. I have just ordered a copy of Bed and I'm super excited to read it. Once the shop is open he has said he'd love to pop in so maybe we'll get a reading or signing from him.

He's currently writing his second book whilst tweeting jokes that get retweeted over 10k times.

Lance Armstrong should be applauded for being able to ride a bike so well on drugs. I tried it once. Hit a dog and fell into the canal.
— David Whitehouse (@d_whitehouse) January 18, 2013