Niche Books Valbonne
A real bookshop
with real people
Welcome to Niche Books
Your English Bookshop in Valbonne
Debbie welcomes you to the most recent incarnation of your English bookshop in Valbonne, a part of village life for over 30 years. Niche Books will continue to serve you in time honoured tradition, with real books and real people in a real shop!
Our Favourites for May
Book of the Month
The Wide Wide Sea – Hampton Sides
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach in Hawaii, Cook was killed – beaten and stabbed in a conflict with the indigenous population.
What brought Cook to these final moments, so at odds with his reputation? Renowned for his humane leadership, dedication to science and the curiosity and respect, not judgement, with which he greeted societies that were new to him, Cook had already mapped huge swathes of the Pacific and initiated first European contact with numerous native peoples. The stated mission for his third voyage was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London high society, to his home islands. But Cook carried secret orders to venture north, to discover the fabled Northwest Passage and chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals.
And Cook himself was different on his final, fatal voyage.
