The Bookshop Band take on US tour with Gardners' help

The Bookshop Band will play a 15-date tour across America next month, with sponsorship from Gardners and US-based entertainment distributor All Media Supply.

The Bookshop Band, formed of Ben Please and Beth Porter, will play across bookshops, libraries and libraries in various states including New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Colorado with sponsorship from wholesaler Gardners and US sister company All Media Supply (AMS), an entertainment distributor.

The tour will launch at Little City Books in Hoboken, New Jersey on 16th January and close at the WORD Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York, on 3rd February. The band is also visiting the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico to play in a series of special performances.

The Bookshop Band was originally formed in 2010 by Please after he 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.

Bottomley, also chairman of the Booksellers Association, said: “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.

“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.”

Nigel Wyman, head of business development at Gardners, said: “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 US tour.  It did not take long before Jonathan Little, Gardners’ m.d. and owner, agreed this was a great idea.”

Please revealed it had “it’s always been a pipe dream of ours to organise a tour” in the USA and added “we’re very proud to be taking over songs inspired by Mr B’s curation of 8 years of fantastic new literature, and hopefully bringing a bit of the flavour of what is happening in the UK’s literature scene over to the US”.

The band has composed songs such as 'For an Ending' based on A Monster Calls (Walker Books) by Patrick Ness and 'How not to Woo a Woman' based on The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Penguin), which has seen them take on several tours and play live on BBC radio. 

Gardners and AMS are also now stocking all of The Bookshops Band’s albums.

For more information on the tour, visit this website.