Bookshop of the Year

Uppsala, Sweden, is home to the Codex Argenteus, a Gothic language bible of great theological and linguistic importance. Uppsala is also the location of Scandinavia's largest cathedral and Sweden's oldest university. Uppsala University was established in 1477. You should take a look at their fantastic island campus, the Gotland Campus.

Also, to add to these impressive sights, Uppsala is now the location of the 'Bookshop of the Year'.

Civibility index

Congratulations to The English Bookshop in Uppsala for winning the award at the London Book Fair. On a perfect high street, the availability of a good bookshop is essential. If there's a traditional hat shop, pub, barbershop providing wet shaves, tobacconist, gent's outfitters, florist and tea rooms on the street too, then it's going to be ranking highly on The Tweed Pig's 'civibility index'. If your high street is dying it probably has none of these but too many charity shops and nail bars.

Outstanding loyalty

In the towns and villages local to Tweed Towers independent bookshops perform heroic, often Herculean, feats to provide a valued service to their community and protect us from the cultural bulldozers. How does The English Bookshop in Uppsala manage this effort to an award-winning degree? In order to win the award, they 'demonstrated their all-round capability with the outstanding loyalty of its customers and outreach'.

Book and pint

The bookshop runs reading groups and storytelling sessions for children, and events called Book & Pint, in conjunction with the O'Neill's pub nearby, and Afternoon Tea Talk, which sounds splendid.

English Book Recommendations

As it's The English Bookshop, let's recommend a few English (and Scottish) titles to seek out, thumb through and purchase when you visit.

Först till kvarn

I'm afraid there won't be something for everyone in the following recommendations — an impossible ambition. No, this is a list exclusively for people like you to enjoy (and it's also a way of reducing my backlog in one fell swoop).

• Naples '44 — a memoir of the Second World War by Norman Lewis
• Terence Rattigan: A Biography by Geoffrey Wansell
• Dorothy L. Sayers — any title, but preferably produced by the Folio Society
• The Rob Roy on the Baltic  —  a real-life adventure story by John MacGregor that is geographically pertinent
• The Bounder - The Riotous True-Life Adventures of a Bon Viveur — a memoir of card-carrying cad Mike Daunt
• The Human Kind — a collection of war stories by Alexander Baron
• The Mask of Dimitrios — a classic thriller from Eric Ambler and one of Tweedy's absolute favourites
  
• Summer Lightning and Heavy Weather — a classic literary twinset from top-of-his-game P.G. Wodehouse — good for summer hols
• Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769-1814 — part one of a grand historical biography of a national hero by Rory Muir

I think you have enough to go on for now. Först till kvarn.