This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is technically about books with nationalities in the title, but I didn’t have enough on my shelves and prefer to stick to books I know… so instead, you get ten Welsh books and books about Wales!

1. Afonydd, ed. Sian Northey and Ness Owen.
   This is a bilingual poetry collection in which poets contributed a poem in English or Welsh, and the editors arranged translation into the other language. I found it a lovely experience, a respectful one that acknowledges that many Welsh people only speak English thanks to centuries of suppression by the English. The editors also have another collection, A450, which is similarly put together but not a favourite for me. Something about Afonydd resonated just a bit more.
2. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones.
   Didn’t expect that, did you? But if you’ve read the book (rather than watching the Studio Ghibli adaptation), you’ll know that Howl (Howell) is Welsh, and his Welshness is played on multiple times in the story, from his rugby jersey to the “nonsense” song sung by Calcifer (which is of course “Sospan fach“). I love highlighting the Welshness of this book to people who somehow missed it (it isn’t subtle) or only saw the Studio Ghibli version.
3. Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves.
   I didn’t know much about typically Welsh food other than the best-known standbys: Welsh rarebit, bara brith, Welshcakes, cawl. I enjoyed this book, and laughed a bit at how stereotypically Welsh some of my tastes (like my love of cheese and of sweet, fruity cider) apparently are.
4. Vanished Wales, by Carwyn Jones.
   Has some unexpected gaps, making no mention whatsoever of Capel Celyn (a Welsh village which was forcibly cleared of people to create a reservoir to serve a city in England)… but nonetheless, a fascinating survey of places in Wales that are now gone, some of which I knew about even though I was born after their destruction, because they remain that present to people.
5. Castles of the Welsh Princes, by Paul R. Davis. 
   If you have a fascination with castles, welp, look no further! Note that this one does not discuss the Norman castles built in Wales, so some of the best known Welsh castles aren’t here.
6. The Grey King, by Susan Cooper.
   As a teen, the fact that this book is set in Wales and heavily influenced by the Welsh landscape and Welsh mythology meant a lot. And it’s a lovely story, though I don’t suggest reading it in isolation — start with Over Sea, Under Stone, or if that doesn’t quite work for you to hook you into the world (it’s aimed at a younger audience), skip to The Dark is Rising and then go back to Over Sea, Under Stone if you’re interested in reading more (just read it before Greenwitch).
7. The Owl Service, by Alan Garner.
   This is a retelling of the story of Blodeuwedd that scared the pants off me as a kid. It is genuinely creepy and powerful, and remains really good.
8. Country Dance, by Margiad Evans.
   I read a lot of Welsh fiction in English when I was at university, both because I studied the topic and because the university library had it in copious amounts, but it’s been a long time and many of them are blurry in my mind, so I’ll choose just a couple of books to stand in for all of them — this one because it was the first book I’d read by a Welsh writer while intending to do so. The introduction (by Caitrin Collier) mentioned the way Welsh literature wasn’t valued, the fact that writers like Margiad Evans are barely mentioned outside Wales (and for her, weren’t even mentioned in Wales when she was looking for Welsh writing)… and yep, I’m familiar.
9. Feet in Chains, by Kate Roberts.
   The current translation available is by Katie Gramich, who taught the module on Welsh fiction in English that I took. I don’t think I’ve actually read this translation, but I loved the class, and this book was a revelation. The fact that Welsh soldiers’ families were notified of their deaths in English, a language that none of them spoke and which no one around them spoke, is a fact that clings to my mind ever since.
10. Postcolonialism Revisited, by Kirsti Bohata.
    The book which made me understand that Wales, too, was colonised — and the effects of that on my own life. It is a somewhat technical read, but one which I wish a few more people would attend to, because the utter incomprehension of the effects of colonisation on Wales and the Welsh language online is a regular irritant.

I’ve run out of space to add more, like Glyn Jones’ The Dragon Has Two Tongues, which contains a quotation I’ve said many times: “To me, anyone can be a Welshman who chooses to be so and is prepared to take the consequences.”

But you get the drift!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is about bookish places I’ve visited! I think the emphasis is more generally on cool places from books, author residences, etc, but somehow that’s not a thing that really excites me and I can’t think of much right now!

So… time to talk about my favourite bookshops! After each I’m listing their locations that I’ve visited and can personally recommend, not their full list of shops.

1. Portal Bookshop (York).
   From when Lali saved my bacon with a copy of one of Martha Wells’ books at a signing at Worldcon, I’ve been a big supporter of Portal Bookshop, and was so happy when they managed to set up premises in York — which is close enough to be a good day trip. They stock a range of queer books and diverse SF/F works, and I have them to thank for my love of authors like Jordan L. Hawk and much of my collection of KJ Charles’ books in print.
2. Topping & Company (Bath, Edinburgh, Ely).
   This is a growing chain of indie bookshops, but I first met them in Edinburgh, where the shop is downright magical. I swear there are more rooms than physically make sense with the footprint of the shop, and every time I turned around there was somehow another one. The ladders on wheels and wooden shelving add to that experience a lot. They’ve recently opened a shop in York too, though I just visited their shop in Bath yesterday as part of my birthday trip!
3. Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights (Bath).
   I love the name of this bookshop; the whimsy is definitely part of why I went there. I did find the organisation of the shop a bit bewildering, since all fiction is shelved together without distinction by genre: maybe it sounds weird, given the range of genres I read, but I don’t really like that. It makes my job browsing the shelves harder, when I don’t know if a dragon on the spine means a dragon or just a literary thing. If you’re looking for a bookish conversation or some bookseller recommendations, though, it’s a good one.
4. Gay’s the Word (London).
   Gay’s the Word is the oldest queer bookshop in the UK, and I visited it recently on my graduation trip to London. The shop feels pretty small, but I carried away a sizeable pile of books anyway. I recently read and cried a little over the history of the shop and persecution against its owners and workers in A.J. West’s How Queer Bookshops Changed the World, which is a book I definitely recommend.
5. Forbidden Planet (London, Bristol).
   I know, this is somewhat less potentially niche, but the London store is amazing, with a selection of comics, manga, danmei, and SF/F books that really have to be seen to be believed. I can never leave without new books, and the sheer number of books they showcase means I often find temptations that Waterstones don’t seem to stock. I found a few treasures in the Bristol shop, too, though it’s considerably smaller.
6. Troutmark Books (Cardiff).
   This secondhand bookshop was vital to me in my teens and twenties. Whenever I went home to Wales in my teens, and when I lived there as a student, I loved turning up to look at the SF/F section, poke my nose into the comics, etc. It’s been a long time since I visited, but I imagine it pretty much unchanged, with the high shelves still packed to the ceiling. Maybe I’ll pop my head in today, since I might be in the area…
7. Paramount Books (Manchester).
   In the same vein, this secondhand bookshop in Manchester impressed me so much that at one point I actually wrote a review of it on this blog. I don’t buy secondhand books much at the moment, but if that changes I’ll definitely make return visits — perhaps not too regularly, as Manchester isn’t super convenient… but when I can!
8. Criminally Good Books (York).
   On my last trip to Portal Bookshop, I also heard about this shop and had to take a look. I was admittedly more impressed by their non-fiction selection, since I’m a fan of classic crime and there wasn’t a lot of that to be seen (and what they had, I’d read), but I did enjoy the selections of non-fiction and inevitably left with a few books.
9. The American Book Center (Amsterdam, The Hague).
   When I lived in Belgium, we made semi-regular trips to get me English-language books to keep my engines running. The selection (particularly at the Amsterdam location) was unbelievable, though it was mostly the SF/F that drew me. I haven’t visited since we moved to the UK in 2018, but I’m sure it’s still amazing.
10. Bookshop.org (online).
    If you want to support indie bookshops, then this is an indispensable resource in the UK, and almost as quick as getting your books off Amazon — just as quick, if you pay a little extra for first class delivery, at least in the UK! You can choose a specific bookshop to support with your purchases, or it’ll be divided up between signed-up bookshops.

There are a few others I would’ve mentioned but found out they’ve closed since — don’t forget that an independent bookshop can be a fragile thing and needs the support of its enthusiastic community!