Mr B's World Cup of Books

Four years ago Mr B's opened its doors, sorry "door" for the very first time. The country was in the midst of a baking hot June of World Cup fever.

We decided against displaying the same old football biographies and picture books and instead went for the far more complicated and approach of tracking down a great book from each of the nations competing in the World Cup. And thus the Mr B's World cup of Books was born.

AND NOW IT'S BACK 2010 STYLE

So here's the rub. We have identified a novel to represent each World Cup nation. For the most part they are wonderful novels written by natives of that nation. Occasionally (damn you Paraguay) we've had to be a bit more wishy-washy and choose something set in or about the country in question because a total lack of translated fiction from those countries.

Each day as their footballing counterparts do battle we'll be displaying the literary match up in our shop window. And all 32 World Cup of books titles are on display (not to mention for sale) upstairs in our bibliotherapy room.