National read a book day

We love the line from movie mogul Walt Disney who once said: “There is more treasure in a book than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island.”

And famous author Roald Dahl took up a similar theme when he pronounced: “The more you read, the more things you will know and the more you learn the more places you will go.”

Another quote we like is from author John Steinbeck, who says: “I guess there are never enough books.”

Well, we reckon John Steinbeck would have loved coming to the Braehead Shopping Centre, as we’ve got plenty of stores selling loads of books of all kinds and there’s bound to be a title that he’d enjoy reading!

Reading books will enrich your life, as they can entertain, inform, make you laugh or cry, bring new perspectives to your thinking and be an escape from the stresses and strains of life. And since National Read A Book Day is on Wednesday, September 6, we took a browse among the bookshelves to discover the huge range of titles available.

We popped into our biggest bookstore, Waterstones and came across lots of fiction, non-fiction and educational books for all ages and interests.

Browsing around the shelves we also came across lots of books by award-winning authors. A couple of titles that caught our eye are the latest from Women’s Prize for Fiction winner, Maggie O’Farrell, called The Marriage Portrait. And another one we like is the Waterstones Debut Fiction prize author, Tess Gunty’s book, the Rabbit Hutch.

We looked at a really thought-provoking and ground-breaking autobiography called Page Boy – A Memoir. It’s about the life of Canadian transgender actor, Elliot Page and his struggle to become his true self. If you’re interested in transgender issues or the LGBT+ community, then this is one for you.

There is also a great range of books for people with dyslexia, or reluctant readers for whatever reason. So, it’s great to see Waterstones have a series of books that are aimed at making it easy for people with these issues to read books.

It’s all clever stuff and a tip of the hat must go to the publishers Barrington Stoke for producing these books for ages five to 13 years and older with a special typeface, page design and shade of paper that makes the books dyslexia friendly.

We asked the helpful staff in Waterstones which books were their current best sellers and we were told that the light-hearted romance fiction title, Meet Me In Milan, by Sophie Gravia; The Whalebone Theatre, by Joanna Quinn and a book called, Murdle, by G.T, Karber that gives readers the chance to solve a series of murder mysteries are the most popular.

That last title sounds like great fun, as just by opening the book you can become your favourite sleuth and solve a whole raft of who-dunnits.

The store also has a wide section for educational books with a selection of learning guides for all ages from pre-school kids all the way through to pupils studying Highers in secondary school.

Manager at Braehead’s Waterstones, Josie Scaife told us that more and more people are coming back to reading books in print. And that this is particularly the case with young adults, who are finding out about new titles and reading reviews and recommendations on social media channels like TikTok’s BookTok community.

If you’ve got a TikTok account it’s worth having a look at BookTok and see what’s hot and what’s not in the world of books.

Josie mentioned one particular author, Colleen Hoover who had self-published several titles and sold lots of her books thanks to reviews and recommendations on TikTok. Colleen became a TikTok phenomenon and was so successful with her self-published romance and thriller novels, she was signed up by publishing giants, Simon and Schuster. Her latest novel Too Late is a psychological thriller and it’s in stock at Braehead’s Waterstones.

Another book that’s found favour among BookTok fans is Red White and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston. Now, this book has nothing to do with a certain football team in Glasgow! It’s an LGBT romance novel centred on the son of a US President and his relationship with a British Prince.

We also popped into The Works on the upper level of the centre and they’ve come up with a fab idea to offer customers the chance to have a Blind Date With A Book. To be honest, we’d never heard of a blind date like that before!  This quirky and fun initiative sees staff choosing books and wrapping them in brown paper to hide the cover then, without giving anything away, writing a short description on the brown paper wrapper. This has become very popular with people coming back time and again to buy their mystery books. Super idea and if you’re looking for something new we highly recommend it.

HMV might be best known for music records, CDs and DVDs, but they also have a good selection of books that caught our eye. Their non-fiction range features biographies and autobiographies about musicians and entertainers and their fiction titles are about pop culture, fantasy and science fiction.

So folks, lets celebrate National Read A Book Day, and visit one of our stores and choose a title perfect for you.

And as one avid reader was overheard saying to his friend: “I was reading a book about anti-gravity and I just can’t put it down!”