Blog
Out on the Boats
If you have read The Body in the Wall you will know there is quite the boat chase, so I took my family out for a bit of research. Not so many explosions though 😀 We had the boat to ourselves and made our way to the end of the harbour for 9am. Our skipper […]
Ah Statistics… is the e-book really dying?
Today’s headlines sounded rather jolly, the ebook is declining, the print book is rising, ra ra ra. Here’s the BBC story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39718016 “Last year, one of the most eye-catching figures from our statistics was that physical book sales were increasing while digital book sales dropped,” said chief executive Stephen Lotinga. And here it is again in […]
Getting your book into a bookshop
I speak as a bookshop owner. Someone who loves books. Most of us that run bookshops do, so please bear in mind that if you want us to stock your book we theoretically, will lend a receptive ear. But here are a few tips to help make the whole submission process a bit easier. Running […]
When you really regret selling something.
Steve and I sell lots of stuff. Thankfully. Mostly books but as we go to auctions we also pick up lots of other stuff. We also buy and list separately which can mean that when we come to pack and post something that has just sold, it can be the first time that we see it. […]
One Silver Summer – Perfect in every sense.
There are lots of perks to running a bookshop, obviously, the main one is running a bookshop, but close behind that is receiving free books. Sometimes they are excellent, often they are not, not because they are no good but because they are just not my cup of tea, and given that I don’t like […]
Happy Birthday to Us
December 2nd 2006 – 2016 and onwards! The last twenty years have seen a massive decline in independent bookshops but here in a corner of Cornwall one is flourishing. Another 67 bookshops closed in 2013, leaving just 987 in 2014 across the country. In 2005, the figure was 1,535. A third of all UK bookshops […]
We’ve got the best books, great books, let me tell you…
I love books, let me tell you, no one loves books more that I do. Everyone tells me I have great books, I don’t know, but it’s what people tell me. And those books? Great books by the way. They are written by great authors, the very best, let me tell you, seriously, we have […]
Rupert Everett and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
I had been chatting with a friend online about books and he mentioned that I should walk over to Portholland to see some movie magic going on, he promised I would not be disappointed so Steve and I grabbed the dogs, parked at Porthluney and headed over the coast path toward Portholland. At any time […]
In which Liz Fenwick comes to visit.
It’s fair to say that Hurley Books doesn’t do much in the way of events. Our highlights tend to be when we change over the blackboard, but Steve bumped into Liz Fenwick at The Wadebridge Bookshop (excellent bookshop), thought she seemed really nice, her books are incredibly popular and she was keen to do a […]
Too many books? I think you mean too few shelves!
Hello, you may have noticed a change in the website, or not. Either way, we have a new site and it is full of teething problems not least that we have currently lost our e-mails but those are tears for another time. In this time we are excited that this website is going to do […]
Dreaming Of Cornwall?
Did you know that you can now also stay with us? We have three wonderful apartments, two are over near Pentewan and have use of a private indoor heated pool and one is above the bookshop. We can’t guarantee that the harbour is heated and half the time it’s not even full but the apartment […]
NADFAS Russian Art of the the Early Twentieth Century – Theodora Clarke
Much was lost after the Russian Revolution but I hadn’t realised that we had lost so much stunning art. Not that the paintings were destroyed but the Russian artists fled and those that remained or emerged were forced to paint along the party line. And whilst that did result in a very stylised form of […]
In which I nipped up to London, bumped into George Bernard Shaw in Mevagissey, listened to a £250,000 loudspeaker and fell in love with bits of paper.
Hurley Books has had to take a bit of a back seat whilst we launched our holiday lets business, Dreaming Of Cornwall, unfortunately the season waits for no man and suddenly we had missed the London Book Fair which I had every intention of going to this year. Anyway the stationery fair beckoned and whilst […]
Hatshepsut – The Portrait of a Female Pharoah BODFAS NADFAS
Hatshepsut c.1507–1458 BC I had gone to great lengths to make it to this NADFAS as I am on a mission to not miss any and despite the disappointing start to the year I was not going to let that influence me. So I changed rotas in the shop, re-booked deliveries, and left with plenty of […]
Three Great Families and their Gardens
Three Great Families and their Gardens – Caroline Rayman – BODFAS First Bodfas of the year and I’m going to try to make everyone as they have all been so good. Arrived by the skin of my teeth again, I do hate being late and settled down to some stunning gardens. Ho hum, that wasn’t […]
What we read in December
Half the World – Joe Abercrombie Having successfully read book one in this trilogy I happily ploughed into book two but found myself back where I began. Stumbling through it and dissatisfied. I guess I really need to have my head in a certain place to enjoy Abercrombie, and at the moment I guess that […]
What we read in November
The Book of Life – Deborah Harkness After the frustrating Shining Girls I went back to finish the Harkness trilogy. First time I read it I was disappointed as I didn’t think it was as good as the first two books. Now part of that is down to simple expectations. I read the first two […]
What we read in October
A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness Not sure why but I’ve ground to a halt with books to read, I think its just because I’m busy and don’t have the time to get into anything new. When I feel like this I like to reread old favourites, I know what I’m in for and […]
Words and your Heart – the most optimistic, happy book for children
Words and your Heart Kate Jane Neal £7.99 BUY THIS BOOK NOW! Oh this is so gorgeous and I am thrilled to be stocking it. It is such a wonderful book about the power of words, not hurting each other with them and how we can make other people feel better with the […]
The British Portrait from Hogarth to Hockney – Vivien Heffernan
Well today’s talk started with the AGM, a mercifully brief and efficient meeting and then we were off into the talk. With regards to the AGM it’s worth me noting how much I enjoy being part of this society and appreciate all the work that the committee do to achieve it. Anyway the talk, […]
What we read in September
A Year of Marvellous Ways – Sarah Winman Gorgeous characters, clever writing veers between lyrical poetry and coarse vulgarity. There was something very beguiling about this book, the story was slow and troubling and at times heartbreaking. And in a shift as quick as a fish turning, the story would be fun of light and […]
The Elizabethan and Jacobean Country House – Dr David Bostwick.
Finally arrived in good time, with my glasses and without interruption. So far, so good. Our speaker arrived and I was thrilled to see that he was a total dandy. Blue suede brogues with red laces, bright pink socks and a pale pink pocket ‘kerchief. Brick coloured trousers, a checked shirt and a pin striped […]
What we read in August
Ancillary Justice by Ann Lecke This book won pretty much every award last year. Turns out they were right. If you like Le Guin and M. Banks you are probably going to enjoy this. It’s always terrifying to read a hyped book as it’s bound to disappoint but this time you’ll be fine. Honest. […]
What we read in July
I am Pilgrim – Terry Hayes Well after a year of everyone telling me how good this book was I thought I had better read it. So I put it forward to the reading group as our next choice and thought no more about it until I started reading it on holiday. Now our reading […]
Mudlark’s Press
Recently we’ve been branching out, investigating new idea, playing around and one of the things I’ve done is set up a publishing house. Doesn’t that sound grand? The whole reason behind it was that I wanted to collect all my newspaper columns together and then get them published. I sent off my first collection to […]
What we read in June
Don’t Tell Albert – Nancy Mitford One from the book group. I’d never read any Mitford before but it’s fine. Nice and fluffy, nothing taxing. Nice clipped writing, easy story line. Trinity, War of the Roses – Conn Iggulden Well we are now into book two of the series and I still don’t think that […]
Spare Spine Labels
Do you like hidden treasure? Finding a little something extra that you didn’t know you had? I do so I was really tickled to discover spare spine labels. So far I’ve only discovered three but I never knew what to look for before. I can’t find anything written about this so at the moment its […]
Persian delights, Iranian art and architecture – BODFAS 2
Behind the Veil: the Arts of Islamic Persia – John Osborne So my second BODFAS approached and I was determined not to make such a mess of it this time. However, the fates are cruel and things cropped up. The phone rang as I was leaving, the car needed fuel, there were massive roadworks and eventually […]
What we read in May
Picnic in Provence, Elizabeth Bard This is the most gorgeous tale of an American city girl falling in love with rural France. On holiday with her French husband in Provence they stumble across the home of a French resistance hero. They fall in love with it and in a moment of instant attraction they decide […]
What we read in April
Tigerman, Nick Harkaway Oh yes! When a good man goes to war, father and son patterns, accidental chemical warfare, what happens to desperate people and killer tomatoes. If you haven’t read Harkaway before, and he’s only done two other novels, so why would you, you are in for a treat. If you have read him […]
Knickers, knockers and knee britches – BODFAS 1
The Foundations of Fashion – Kate Strasdin Well I’m just back from my first NADFAS talk. For a long time I’ve missed the lecture circuit and academic discussions and so it was nice to stumble across the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies, recommended to me by a friend. I had managed to miss […]
What we read in March
The Magus of Hay – Phil Rickman Not sure where this went wrong. Set in Hay, central characters were hoping to run a second hand bookshop, written by Phil Rickman. lots of ticks but for me it just fell flat. No aspect was given free rein, be it the eugenics plot, the dead partner, the […]
The Vagaries of Facebook
Oh Facebook! You with your hidden algorithms, and arcane suggestions, how is anyone supposed to know how to get you to work properly? I run two pages Hurley Books and I Love Mevagissey. I mothballed the Mevagissey site last year as another similar site was doing the same thing and I decided to just focus […]
What we read in February.
Station Eleven Surrounded in gushing hype and very good word of mouth I had high hopes but honestly I think the people that like this are not normal SF or fantasy readers. There is nothing new to readers of these genres, nor did it bring any particular insight that might have been gained from a […]
What we read in January
The Daughter of Time by Josephine TeyThe downside of finally reading a much recommended book; and it disappoints frown emoticon It was terribly 1950s which is fair enough but it read far more like a one sided argument rather than a story and boy Josephine Tey is hard on women. Dry, unbalanced and unkind. In its favour, […]
And the winner is – Well not us!
Recently invitations were issued to apply for The Independent Bookshop of the Year Award. We had a go at this a few years ago and made it to the shortlist. We polished everything up, made it look really shiny and submitted our entry. We didn’t get any further than the shortlist and in all honesty […]
Village Life
It’s cold and blowy and the only people about are locals and there’s not many of them either. I don’t blame them, I don’t want to be out in it either but the sales have to be sent. I finish tieing up my post sacks and nip over to the post office to drop them […]
Holy Wells: Cornwall by Phil Cope. Filmed by The Cornish Bookshop
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etTdsb4SSCs] Sacred wells have played an important part in the culture and landscape of Cornwall for several millennia, and continue to do so. Holy Wells: Cornwall is a collection of beautiful colour photographs of forty-five of the most important and pre-eminent wells in the county, accompanied by an informative text about the history and legends associated […]
How do you view a dictionary?
I read this brilliant article this morning and I’ve been thinking about it all day. It is a discussion by Lynne Murphy on the different ways in which the British and American view their dictionaries. https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/02/british-american-attitudes-dictionaries/ I can understand how a nation that was creating itself anew and taking in people from all nationalities might […]
We can provide books for props, set designs and art installations as well as entire libraries
The stunning Scarlet hotel. Of course we all love books but sometimes we also sell books by the yard, so to speak. Previous clients have included the Eden Project, The Eden Cafe, La Cote and we also provided all the books for the Richard Curtis film “About Time” as well as a German production of […]
Christmas Book Hampers
Christmas day and everything is warm and wonderful. You’ve had breakfast, maybe gone to mass, been on a bracing walk. The fire is roaring and you are gathered around the tree. What will this year’s gift be? An itchy jumper? Some vouchers? A food blender? Or what about a tailor made hamper full of books […]
Me, Dylan Thomas and some mad birds
I’ve just made my first Vine, which for those of you that don’t know, is the current latest social media thing. A vine is a six second video, I’d have thought Vix would have made more sense as a name but hey ho. I’m still waiting for someone to come and ask me to rule […]
When isotonic drinks are REALLY bad for you!
It all started my my dentist peering into my son’s mouth and then asking me how many fizzy drinks he had. None, well maybe one a fortnight? Hmm, fruit juice? Nope. The dentist’s concerns were that Finn’s teeth were showing considerable acid erosion, this is something different to decay caused by sugar. She was concerned […]
Just One Evil Act – Elizabeth George.
Just One Evil Act – Elizabeth George. Oh woe unto the reader whose favourite author becomes a best-seller. Elizabeth George is a wonderful author, she spins exciting whodunits with great twists and turns, peopled with fabulous stand out characters but recently she seems to have developed itchy feet. Ever since the death of Helen, George seems […]
Val McDermid – Cross and Burn
Val McDermid – Cross and Burn At the end of the last Tony Hill thriller, Carol and Tony’s lives were torn apart, leaving them adrift from work, society and each other. The emergence of an utterly brutal murderer forces both of them back to the criminal justice system. Abandoned and struggling with her new position, […]
Stormbird – War of the Roses – Conn Iggulden
Stormbird – War of the Roses. Conn Iggulden Despite a recent TV series, the Wars of the Roses has been generally overlooked, the most anyone knows about this period of history is via Shakespeare and his interpretation of a hunchback Richard III and the death of the Princes in the Tower. Given how violent and […]
Hurley Books – a change is coming.
Dear all of you, Hurley Books is undergoing a bit of a transformation. We are moving the warehouse into the rear of the shop and turning the front of the shop into a new bookshop. We are also re-launching our website so that you will find shopping online with us a bit easier. The first […]
Russian Roulette – Anthony Horowitz
Russian Roulette – Anthony Horowitz A gripping and clever thriller that reveals how a contract killer is made. This book is billed as an Alex Rider prequel, certainly it starts off with international assassin Yassen Gregorovich being given orders to kill Alex Rider, and we know from the series that he doesn’t do it but what caused […]
Prayer – Philip Kerr
Prayer – Philip Kerr God may well be real and he’s taking his revenge on the most vocal of atheists. This is Kerr’s first stand-alone novel in almost 10 years and it packs a very powerful punch. FBI agent Gil Martins is an ex Scottish Catholic who now lives in Texas with his evangelical wife. […]
The Windsor Faction – DJ Taylor.
The Windsor Faction – DJ Taylor. As the mist descended the mourners arrived. Large black cars ferrying in the rich, the powerful and the socialites; all wondering the same question, “Would the new King attend the funeral of Mrs Wallace Simpson?” So starts an alternative war thriller. Prince Edward was believed to by a fascist […]