Bookshop Digest • July 2024

Welcome to our round-up of all the things we are loving right now. We receive a constant stream of news from the community at the shop and so we thought we should share it with you! You'll find here regular updates on happenings down south, food reccos, podcasts, telly and various local finds.

Eclectic jazz band and music school Music Matters is touring Sri Lanka. Scheduled to play at Martin Wickramasinghe Folk Museum on 1st August and Ruhunu Cultural Center on 2nd. These guys are one of the few jazz bands we feel play authentic, interesting sounds. Tickets are a STEAL at only 300LKR pp. available through Insta or on WhatsApp. Hope to see you there!

A staple in Colombo has finally opened its doors down south. We now use the famous baton loaf with our soup and buy the seed loaf for home but our utmost favourite is the almond croissant. Open 8:30am–6pm in Dewata, opposite Sea Fair / Sahana / Farmers Market. This little corner is fast becoming a one-stop shop for our weekly groceries!

London Review of Books has a tendency to be a tad on the serious side but we found this episode a light and candid chat about a book with real substance. Saraid is a fascinating second-gen Lankan from New Zealand doing lots of cool things, including a pod of her own, playwriting, acting and now a novel – Amma (which is our book club pick for August 2024).

Collated by Afdhel Aziz, this list celebrates Sri Lankans here and from around the globe, killing it with their creativity. The arts is still too undervalued here in Sri Lanka so we hope lists like this inspire youth to follow their creative dreams. Gold star to anyone who knew of all these names already!

It's been shown in Colombo for a while now and finally, NTLive is coming to the south coast of Sri Lanka. On 3rd August at 4.30pm, catch a screening of Hamlet at Sky Lite Cinema Matara, organised by British Council. RSVP to LK_Arts@britishcouncil.org to request 2 complimentary tickets.