The Bookshop Band will play a 15-date tour across America next month, with sponsorship from U.K. wholesaler Gardners and U.S.entertainment distributor All Media Supply. The Bookseller reported that the band was formed by Ben Please and Beth Porter in 2010 after Please "was approached by Nic Bottomley, co-owner of Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, to create songs inspired by the works of the bookshop's guest authors and play these songs at the author events."
"Now, finally, thanks to the incredibly generous sponsorship of Gardners and AMS and the invitation of our friends at the American Booksellers Association, the band can head across the Atlantic to play their songs in American independent bookshops and at the Winter Institute," said Bottomley, who is also chairman of the Booksellers Association. "Many of our peers in America have been itching to host the Bookshop Band and we at Mr. B's are so proud and excited to see them finally heading stateside."
The tour, which begins at Little City Books in Hoboken, N.J., on January 16 and ends at WORD Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y., February 3, will play at bookshops and libraries in various states, as well as the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Albuquerque, N.Mex., for a series of special performances.
Nigel Wyman, head of business development at Gardners, commented: "When Nic from Mr. B's first approached me with this opportunity, something clicked straight away and I knew we had to be part of this exciting U.S. tour. It did not take long before Jonathan Little, Gardners' m.d. and owner, agreed this was a great idea."
Please added that it had "always been a pipe dream of ours to organize a tour" in the U.S. and "we're very proud to be taking over songs inspired by Mr. B's curation of eight years of fantastic new literature, and hopefully bringing a bit of the flavor of what is happening in the U.K.'s literature scene over to the U.S."