November has been a month of book launches for me, mostly friends books. By some miracle of organisation I’ve managed to get to three of them.

The first was a Cinnamon Press launch for three North Walian poets, Steve Griffiths, Marianne Jones and Pete Marshall. This was held in a welsh language bookshop, Palas Pendref Print in Bangor. I believe it was their first poetry reading and it was nearly standing room only. Siop Pentref is a gem of a bookshop, like bookshops used to be before Waterstones et al took over with their book group choices, 3 for 2 offers, next to no poetry.
I could have bought up half the shop in Bangor as their choices of books were just the things I like to read, some already on my to be read list and others which immediately added themselves – intelligent, literary, well-spoken and interesting – much like the audience for the reading.