Books Are My Bag, the biggest ever promotion of physical bookshops in Ireland and the UK, will be celebrated in 2014 with an event in every bookshop.
The 2014 campaign will continue to highlight the vital role of high street and Independent bookshops and will build on the success of promotion in 2013, which created hundreds of thousands of walking adverts for bookshops, through consumers sporting the BAMB bag. Over 100 celebrities were photographed with last year’s canvas bag – this year’s celebrity design hopes to capture the hearts and minds of hundreds more.
To celebrate this year’s campaign Award-winning British artist, Tracey Emin, has designed a collector’s edition bag to celebrate the 2014 Books Are My Bag campaign. The bags will be exclusively available from chain and independent bookshops nationwide, offering booklovers a unique platform to express their support for their local stores.
Emin says: “I travel a lot and the thought of getting on a plane or a train without a book would just drive me insane. A few years ago I thought I was being smart and I bought a kindle…I have never used it. To me there is nothing more pleasurable then turning the pages of a book and realising that this book for a certain period of time is going to become my best friend”.
Artist Tracy Emin designed this year’s bag.
Emin is the latest figure to back the campaign, which has won the support of over a hundred high profile figures since its launch in September 2013 including Cecelia Ahern, Bob Geldof, Lily Cole, Dr Stephen Hawkins and Nigel Slater among many other bestselling writers from Ireland and the UK.
The official book of the 2014 campaign is The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell. The Bookshop Book explores bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I’ve-ever-been-to-bookshops.
From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favourite places, and looks at over two hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we’ve yet to build a bookshop down in the South Pole). The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.
Books Are My Bag was launched to the bookselling and publishing industry in April 2013 at The London Book Fair. Since then, it has recruited well over 100 high profile UK and Irish and international authors, broadcasters, models, sports stars, actors, politicians, chefs, journalists and comedians – all willing to lend their image to the campaign, to be photographed with the iconic canvas bag which has been designed as the centrepiece for the movement.
Bob Johnston, Chair of the Bookseller’s Association, Irish Branch says: ‘Books Are My Bag is a fantastic campaign! It’s a great reminder to people of all the wonderful things that physical bookshops and physical books have to offer. In a world obsessed with new technology there’s no harm in reminding people that one of the world’s oldest technologies still has plenty going for it. Bookshops across Ireland will celebrate Books Are My Bag on 11th October with all kinds of events to show why they’re still so important to their local communities.
The Books Are My Bag bag carries a simple and powerful message allowing readers to display their love and support for local bookshops while encouraging others to do so. Over a quarter of a million bags were distributed from 14th September to Christmas at over 1,800 chain and independent bookshops from across the UK & Ireland.
