March is a strangely active time in the book world. Like plants that have been slumbering through the cold winter, books are beginning to wake up and stir themselves into action for the joys of spring.
Please indulge me with the slightly dippy analogy, as I think it’s surprisingly pertinent. After all, spring tends to be the time that books by ‘budding’ new authors are published, and when people are more inclined to amble to a bookshop and ‘leaf’ through some books. This is a time to remember that books are of course derived from trees, even etymologically stemming from a word meaning ‘beech’. Maybe this literary spring awakening shouldn’t be such a surprise.
A bookshop in spring is intriguing. Whereas publishers traditionally release their hardback blockbusters in September and October for the Christmas market, spring is the time for quieter books, the books that could be big but aren’t dead certs.
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