Welcome
Books Paper Scissors is an independent bookshop in leafy South Belfast, near to the Botanic Gardens, Queen’s University and the Ulster Museum.
We stock a curated selection of new fiction and non-fiction, plus classics, Irish writing and poetry. We also have a great children's room, with choices from newborn to teenager. If you don't see the book you want in store or on-line, please just ask via e-mail or telephone, we can source most books in just a few days.
Beyond books we stock high quality stationery, notebooks, pens, diaries and greetings cards. Plus gift wrap, gift bags and of course, scissors.
We also stock a small selection of non book gifts.
Full Covid-19 precautions remain in place, with gloves, sanitiser, screens and distancing.
COVID CLOSURE 27.11.20 -11.12.20
Deliveries can still be requested throughout Belfast, or postal service as required.
We will be available between 11-4pm, via all the usual channels, to bring books out to your car, answer enquiries and offer help of any kind!
New
The Good Bear, by Sara Lean ( hardback October 2020)
£12.99
Suitable for 8-10 year olds.
A wintry animal story that will warm your heart and take you on an adventure you will never forget. From the bestselling author of A DOG CALLED HOMELESS. This is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of Michael Morpurgo, Lauren St John and Sara Pennypacker's PAX.
It's the Christmas holidays and Thea is looking forward to spending them with her father. She can tell him all about her plans to become a writer, and maybe he'll buy her the typewriter she's been dreaming of. But when Thea arrives in Norway, everything feels .
. . wrong.
Her father is as distant as ever and now she has to share him with his new family: his girlfriend Inge and her children.Then Thea makes a surprising discovery. Deep in the snowy woods by the house, is a bear. He's scared and hungry and he desperately needs Thea's help.
When the town hears about a bear living in the woods, Bear's life is in even greater danger. Thea needs to show everyone that he's not dangerous - he's a good bear - if she's to save him. Beautifully illustrated by award-winning illustrator Fiona Woodcock, the artist behind Abi Elphinstone's The Snow Dragon.
Look Again, by David Bailey
£20.00
Now in his eighties, Bailey looks back on an outrageously eventful life. Entertaining and candid.
The State of the World Atlas, Dan Smith
£14.99
In a world governed by 'fake news' and where world leaders are dismissing 'facts', this statistically meticulous presentation of trends is vitally important to understand the world today.
A milestone of graphic reporting, this ground-breaking 'atlas with attitude' keeps pace with the speed of change with informed analysis and graphically analyses every key indicator and vital statistic of modern life.
New topics for this 10th edition include:
Climate change: Impact on human health and security, different scenarios, and the time left to change course
Terrorism: Number of terrorist attacks in each countryWeapons of mass destruction: Chemical weapons use in Syria
Peace: Agreements reached across the years
Democracy: Spread of democracy around the world
Minorities: Peoples under threat
A fantastic resource for anyone who likes facts, and takes an interest in our modern world.
The Autumn of the Ace, Louis de Berniers, (hardback Nov 2020)
£17.99
Louis de Bernieres is the master of historical fiction that makes you both laugh and cry, in the perfect nostalgic read to escape with this autumn. Is it ever too late to change your story? Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second. Now the conflicts he faces are closer to home.Daniel's marriage has fractured beyond repair and Daniel's relationship with his son, Bertie, has been a failure since Bertie was a small boy. But after his brother Archie's death, Daniel is keen for new perspectives. He first travels to Peshawar to bury Archie in the place he loved best, and then finds himself in Canada, avoiding his family and friends back in England.
But some bonds are hard to break. Daniel and Bertie's different experiences of war, although devastating, also bring with them the opportunity for the two to reconnect. If only they can find a way to move on from the past.
Hollowpox : Book 3 of Morrigan Crow series, Jessica Townsend ( June 2020)
£12.99
Discover the magical world of Nevermoor and the adventures of Morrigan Crow, in this bestselling, award-winning series ( for fans of Harry Potter and Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials)
Morrigan Crow is determined, daring and ready for a new challenge: to step into her destiny as a Wundersmith, master the mysterious Wretched Arts, and control the power that threatens to consume her. She and her friends are proud to be in their second year of attendance at the magical Wundrous Society, and together they can face anything. But a strange illness has taken hold of Nevermoor, turning its peaceable Wunimals into mindless, vicious unnimals on the hunt.
As victims of the Hollowpox multiply, panic spreads. And with the city she loves in a state of fear, Morrigan quickly realises it is up to her to find a cure for the Hollowpox, even if it will put her - and the rest of Nevermoor - in more danger than ever before ... Enter a world of hope and imagination in this Wundrous series, winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and with film rights sold to Fox.
The Best of Me, David Sedaris (hardback, Nov 2020)
£16.99
What could be a more tempting Christmas gift than a compendium of David Sedaris's best stories, selected by the author himself? From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics and are now for the first time collected in one volume. For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside.It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work.
Arlo The Lion Who Couldn’t Sleep ( hardback, Nov 2020)
£12.99
What a treasure this is .... if you have a sleepy toddler who just can’t or won’t drop off to sleep, this is a lovely rhythmic story with all sorts of tips to help them relax.....
Arlo The Lion Who Couldn't Sleep is a beautifully illustrated story with a gentle mindfulness message from Kate Greenaway Medal winner Catherine Rayner - ideal for bedtime, and especially helpful for little ones who have trouble going to sleep. Arlo the lion is exhausted. He just can't drop off, no matter what he tries.
It's either too hot, or too cold; too loud or too quiet. But then he meets Owl. She can sleep through the day, which isn't easy when most other animals are awake! Will Arlo ever get any rest? Perhaps his new friend has some special tricks she can teach him ...
AfterLives : Abdulrazak Gurnah (hardback, Sept 2020)
£16.99
'One of Africa's greatest living writers' Giles Foden
'Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real' Leila Aboulela
Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.
Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security - and the beautiful Afiya.
The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised.
The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape. As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.
The Secret Life of Special Advisers, by Peter Cardwell
£20.00
Despite the acres of speculation devoted to special advisers in recent years, from Alastair Campbell to Dominic Cummings, their role is much misunderstood. Who are the people Piers Morgan once called 'these miserable little creatures' and just how much influence do they have? Peter Cardwell served as SpAd to four Cabinet ministers, acting as media adviser, political fixer, troubleshooter and occasional wardrobe consultant. In this candid, compelling and frequently hilarious insider account, he takes the reader into the heart of Whitehall to reveal what the job really involves, from dealing with counter-terror emergencies in Cobra to explaining to the Justice Secretary what a dental dam is, to having your inside leg measured in a government office. Spells in Northern Ireland office add local insight to this amusing book.Packed with advice on navigating the perks and pitfalls of the job, The Secret Life of Special Advisers will inform and entertain anyone who has ever wondered what these mysterious figures really do all day.
THE LOST SPELLS by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (October 2020, hardback)
£14.99
Dazzlingly beautiful and wonderfully inventive, discover the magical new book from the creators of bestselling, critically acclaimed literary phenomenon, The Lost Words . . .Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells is a pocket-sized treasure that introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. Each "spell" conjures an animal, bird, tree or flower -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw -- with which we share our lives and landscapes.
Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart. Gorgeous to look at and to read.
Love, by Roddy Doyle (hardback published October 2020)
£18.99
'A profound examination of friendship, romantic confusion and mortality' John Boyne
One summer's evening, two men meet up in a Dublin restaurant. Old friends, now married and with grown-up children, their lives have taken seemingly similar paths. But Joe has a secret he has to tell Davy, and Davy, a grief he wants to keep from Joe.
Both are not the men they used to be. Neither Davy nor Joe know what the night has in store, but as two pints turns to three, then five, and the men set out to revisit the haunts of their youth, the ghosts of Dublin entwine around them. Their first buoyant forays into adulthood, the pubs, the parties, broken hearts and bungled affairs, as well as the memories of what eventually drove them apart.
As the two friends try to reconcile their versions of the past over the course of one night, Love offers up a delightfully comic, yet moving portrait of the many forms love can take throughout our lives.
Longhand, by Andy Hamilton ( hardback, September 2020)
£16.99
Malcolm George Galbraith is a large, somewhat clumsy, Scotsman. He's being forced to leave the woman he loves behind and needs to explain why. So he leaves her a handwritten note on the kitchen table (well, more a 300-page letter than a note).In it, Malcolm decides to start from the beginning and tell the whole story of his long life, something he's never dared do before. Because Malcolm isn't what he seems: he's had other names and lived in other places. A lot of other places.
As it gathers pace, Malcolm's story combines tragedy, comedy, mystery, a touch of leprosy, several murders, a massacre, a ritual sacrifice, an insane tyrant, two great romances, a landslide, a fire, and a talking fish. And the book was genuinely written in handscript and printed!
Jungle Drop, by Abi Elphinstone
£7.99
'Imaginative, adventurous and wonderful' Robin Stevens, author of A Murder Most Unladylike series 'The Unmapped Chronicles series is irresistible' Lauren St John, author of The White Giraffe '
Where the map ends, the adventure begins . . .
'Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more powerful than a child in possession of a plan.' Eleven-year-old twins, Fox and Fibber, have been rivals for as long as they can remember. Only one of them will inherit the family fortune and so a race is afoot to save the dwindling Petty-Squabble empire and win the love of their parents. But when the twins are whisked off to Jungledrop, a magical Unmapped Kingdom in charge of conjuring our world's weather, things get wildly out of hand.
An evil harpy called Morg is on the loose. And if she finds the long-lost Forever Fern before the twins, both Jungledrop and our world will crumble. Suddenly, Fox and Fibber find themselves on an incredible adventure in a glow-in-the-dark rainforest full of golden panthers, gobblequick trees and enchanted temples.
But, with the fate of two worlds in their hands, will the twins be able to work together for once to defeat Morg and her dark magic?
This series will not only leave children entertained, but will also empower them to battle climate change and environmental issues. Perfect for fans of Michelle Harrison, Piers Torday and Emma Carroll.
Wizards of Once, Never and Forever ( Book 4)
£12.99
The No.1 bestselling series from the author of How to Train Your Dragon. Can Xar and Wish unite their worlds in time to save the Wildwoods? Will it be Never... or Forever? The final book in the magical The Wizards of Once series.Xar and Wish have found the ingredients for the Spell-to-get-rid-of-Witches. Now the Kingwitch is calling them to the lake of the lost. But first they must mix the potion in the Cup of Second Chances ...
Can they defeat the hungry Tatzelwerm monster and escape with the cup? And will the spell be strong enough to lift the CURSE OF THE WILDWOODS... or will Witches reign FOREVER?"A rollercoaster of suspense and surprise" GUARDIAN"Cowell is moving towards national treasure" BIG ISSUE "Another coup
Kidnap on the California Comet
£6.99
Board the California Comet and help Harrison Beck to solve another heart-stopping mystery in the second Adventures on Trains story, Kidnap on the California Comet, from bestselling authors M.G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman. After the excitement of his adventures aboard the Highland Falcon Thief, Harrison Beck can't wait for the opportunity to go on another amazing train journey.
So when his Uncle Nat invites him aboard the California Comet, the iconic three-day train journey from Chicago to San Francisco, he leaps at the chance to travel. But when the daughter of billionaire entrepreneur August Reza goes missing en route, Hal finds himself with another mystery to solve. Can he uncover the kidnapper before the journey's end?An adrenaline-fuelled journey across America from bestselling authors M.G.
Leonard and Sam Sedgman in the second mystery adventure in the major Adventures on Trains series.
Wildly funny, with hairpin plot bends and inventive characters, this series is firmly on track to become a bestseller.'
Elsetime, by Eve McDonnell (paperback, September 2020)
£8.99
An exciting and engaging story, using historical events, from a new Irish author.
'Elsetime is a tale that combines time-travel with evocative description and colourful characterisation to create a unique and compelling story of friendship and courage.' Steve Voake, author of The Dream Walker's Child.
A compelling story based on the Great Flood of 1928.
The Girl and the Dinosaur, Hollie Hughes ( picture book, August 2020)
£6.99
A lovely gentle story, with evocative illustrations, destined to be read for years to come. The wishing stars burn bright tonight, the air is thick with dreams, and a deeply sleeping dinosaur is waking up, it seems . .In a town by the seaside, Marianne is often seen foraging on the beach. But she isn't playing with children her own age.
Instead Marianne is alone, and digging for dinosaur bones to build a special sort of companion. Then, one night, she goes to sleep wishing with all her heart that her dinosaur might come to life . .
I’m Sticking With You by Smriti Halls (picture book, Sept 2020)
£6.99
A wonderful, warm bear-hug of a story with sumptuous illustrations. A modern classic.' - Jim Field, illustrator of Oi Frog
Wherever you're going, I'm going too. Whatever you're doing, I'm sticking with you.
It's wonderful to have good friends to see you through the good times and the bad. But sometimes, friends can also be a bit . .
. well . .
. overbearing.
Great sentiment and lovely rhyming text that will keep children from 2 - 5 entertained.
Book Club
The BPS Book Club meets in the last week of every month. We have two sessions, each one covering the same book so just pick the session that suits you. There is no need to book, just show up. It's a relaxed and unintimidating sharing of views and opinions.
Please contact us if you have any questions about the book club.
BOOKS as GIFTS
Perhaps you have a relative or friend who loves reading but you have no idea what to choose? We can make recommendations based on a few hints! We offer a subscription 6 month gift service where the book(s) are chosen, gift wrapped and dispatched by BooksPaperScissors with a gift message from the recipient.
Recipient will receive an introductory letter allowing them to select genres and identify favourites - we do the rest!
For children or adults.
Our Book Store
15 Stranmillis Rd, Belfast BT9 5AF
Phone: 028 9066 7815
Monday - Saturday- 10.00 - 17:00 *
'Post-Covid 19*
Daily 10 - 5 pm ex Sunday
