Did it involve bookshops?! Well, OF COURSE IT DID! In Snettisham, where I was based, is Torc Books, a treasure-trove of secondhand volumes, tucked pretty much next to one of my favourite cafés, the Old Store. So the combination is irresistible. Breakfast or brunch, and then a leisurely browse through Torc’s 6 rooms of books. . .

I first visited Torc two years ago, and although I didn’t realise it, it was the first day the shop had been open again following the passing of its long-time owner, and well-loved local, Heather Shepperd.

Heather started the bookshop in 1977, after a career as a primary school teacher and headmistress. She was a talented individual, loving travel, classical music, ballet, film, and opera — as well as, of course, books. Heather ran the bookshop until it had to be closed during Covid, and then she passed away peacefully, aged 90, in February 2024.

As you can see from the pictures above, the business was up for sale, and the bookshop open again for the very first time on that May day. Not knowing the circumstances, I bounced in, eager to explore the old Penguins and Pan paperbacks I’d seen through the window, and met Heather’s son Edward, who was at that point, trying to decide what to do with the shop. Assisted by the amazing Alison, whose sunny character makes the bookshop a welcoming space, Edward was understandably struggling with all the emotions of opening, but his commitment to the bookshop was clear, and the deep love Heather had for it. Her extensive knowledge of books, too, permeates the shop, giving it an uplifting and warm atmosphere, with plenty of treasures to find in each room. I very much enjoyed talking to Edward that first visit, and felt an instant connection to this special bookshop: so I was extremely pleased to learn later that Edward had decided to continue to run it himself, keeping Alison on as an assistant, and when I returned a year later, the shop was beginning to show marks of his tweaks and improvements.

It felt like returning to old friends, and I couldn’t wait to catch up on the news, and see how Edward and Alison were doing. At that point, Edward was thinking about experimenting with social media, so I remember talking to him about that — I am not an expert, so woefully unable to help very much — but so thrilled that this would mean another way to keep in touch with the bookshop when I had to return home! One of the joys of this shop is that because the stock isn’t on the internet, you can genuinely go in and discover wonderful books you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get hold of: this kind of book prospecting is my favourite, and trust me, I came back home, once again, with a good-sized pile of purchases (mostly Alison Uttley’s non-fiction, which will form the basis for piece of research to follow!)

So, this year, I’d asked Edward if he’d be able to host me for a day, as part of my bookshop research trips, and he agreed — so I was able to spend some time with him and Alison, talking about his future plans for the shop, and the challenges of attracting footfall when people are less inclined to spend money on non-essentials during this period of economic instability. Inside the shop, new shelves are being built, and the rooms have been reorganised to make sections more accessible. And, of course, there was the window display to prepare: windows have been a speciality since Heather’s time, and Edward is continuing this tradition, changing the window displays regularly and picking themes of relevance to the season or a particular event. When I was there he was making a David Attenborough display to coincide with the broadcaster’s 100th birthday. Edward’s eye for colour and placement design means these windows make the most of the books and often have a whimsical or humorous element which showcases his attention to detail. For this reason I love these pictures of him “in the wild” putting the window together, and checking how the displays look on camera (and yes, sorry, Edward, I know my own picture taking skills are not up to your own!)

Burnham Market, a seventeenth-century Norfolk village, is another place to make a beeline for if you love books. In this beautiful, quiet, picture-perfect place, independent shops, cafes, hotels, and local businesses sit around a central village green. I got there early one morning, so had a chance to park and get my bearings over a coffee in the Tuscan Farm Shop, where I also met the irresistible Bertie Bandana (not sure how much attention the coffee had, tbh — I was smitten!) before heading off to find Paper Moon Books, which looks tiny, but carries an impressive stock of new books: it’s also the village Post Office and newsagents, so space is at a premium!

Next was Old School Books, a shop I’d been following news of since it opened last year. This carefully curated bookshop (specialising in cookery, food history, and nature books) also serves coffee and cake, so it would have been rude not to have had a second caffeine top up here! The books have been colour co-ordinated in some sections, which reminded me of the Poetry Pharmacy — again, it works well in a shop with a more focussed stock selection, and certainly made for a feast for the eyes (as well as a feast for the tastebuds — the carrot cake was delicious!) I couldn’t resist buying the Country Commonplace Book, by Miranda Mills, an absolutely stunning volume of the kind I love — full of snippets of bits and bobs, alongside poems and quotations from prose sources. It was on the counter: again, a book I probably wouldn’t have found without this championing by the booksellers!

And finally, as if all that wasn’t bookshop excitement enough, there was the Brazen Head Bookshop: “Purveyors of secondhand, antiquarian, rare and out of print books since 1986. Our collection of over 100,000 books is arranged over 8 rooms and the corridors which connect them.”

One hundred thousand books!! It’s a higgledy-piggledy heaven. On this occasion, I didn’t make it past the first section and corridor, as I got talking to Hilary, the bookseller on duty, after asking her about Miss Read books. Showing her the Country Commonplace Book I’d just bought, she then told me about the Saturday Books, which I hadn’t come across before. . . and went to get a few to show me. Well, a good time later (thank you, Hilary, for your patience!) I stumbled back out into the sunlight feeling like Alice returning from Wonderland — having, I suspect, found another book collection to work on and add to. . . I will be returning soon to explore the rest of the shop. Definitely.

My final bookshop visit of the holiday was to By the Book, in Hunstanton. Run by Adrian and Anna, this new and second-hand bookshop also has a second space, Write Around the Corner, where they run workshops and events. It had to be a flying visit, (car parking limitations on time!) but Adrian kindly showed me around both spaces, explaining the wide range of services they offer and events they put on, and it’s clear this is a bookshop very much embedded into the busy seaside town.

There will be more to follow up on later, but meanwhile I can thoroughly recommend North Norfolk as a place to visit: sea, plenty of wonderful cafés and places to hang out and watch the scenery, and bookshops. Several fantastic, unique, inspirational bookshops! Not a Waterstones in sight: you can surrender to the happenstance that good indies and second-hand bookshops offer. Just don’t forget to take several strong tote bags with you. . .

This year has been about researching bookshops and wellbeing — and a report for the Booksellers Association will be written up once my final couple of visits are completed in the coming months. This post, in the hiatus between visits, has given me a chance to reflect on the personal impact it’s had on my own wellbeing.

Over the course of this sabbatical, I’ve been able to rediscover a core joy: reading for pleasure. My job means I am constantly reading, but, especially in the past five years or so, the acceleration of emails, and uptick in reports and policy documents has added to the ‘normal’ load of reading-for-marking, editorial work, book trade news, academic articles and books, meaning the time for reading-for-myself has somehow been squeezed into a very small, irregular space. And I’ve missed it. Being around bookshops and booksellers again has reignited this need to experience what’s new, or recommended, in terms of fiction and non-fiction, and brought back that ability to sit still and get lost in a book.

Ironically, time has been just as (if not even more) tight than before, but I’ve found myself motivated to carve out reading sessions in the evenings, if I can, and around tasks at weekends. Less scrolling is happening — more page turning! Maybe this is because I’ve been working in bookshops where there is not so much screen-time involved, so my eyes are more capable of coping, but I think a bigger inspiration has been being around so many booksellers who have introduced me to so many new authors and titles I wouldn’t otherwise have come across — their enthusiasm making me want to discover what makes these recommendations so strong.

The size of my suitcase, and space within it, has meant curbing book-buying impulses more than I’d liked, but as you’ll see from the picture below, showing some of the results, I’ve still managed to rack up a great selection of books from the bookshops I’ve visited so far. Some are titles I’d have snapped up anyway — Joan Aiken’s Castle Barebane, for instance, was a surprise but joyous find at the House of Books and Friends, and Gill Hornby’s The Elopement at North Books was a no-brainer, but my love of historical fiction has been further fed by handselling recommendations like Carolyn Kirby’s Ravenglass, via Will at Sam Read Bookseller, and The Betrayal of Thomas True, by A. J. West, via Tom at Gay on Wye (both of which I’ve golloped and loved immensely!) Careful curation means I found irresistible both Jas Treadwell’s A Fire Beneath the World and Edward Carey’s Edith Holler at Ketts Books — and Patrick Neale’s endorsement of Richard Power’s Playground helped me believe this would be worth reading (I loved Overstory!) Kate at Mr B’s persuaded me to try Grape Juice (loving it so far!) and Louise at Folde recommended Sarah Hall’s Haweswater. Maya at The Poetry Pharmacy has added to my collection of poetry anthologies by sharing her love of James Crews’s work: I’ve been able to benefit so much from connecting to all these wonderful booksellers, and each of these books will be all the more special because of those connections.

With the annual RISE conference currently being held in Verona, it is a good moment to celebrate this enrichment our booksellers make to our own intellectual, imaginative, and creative lives. I know how fortunate I’ve been to be able to experience all these different indie bookshops, and meet all these booksellers, and these encounters, with people, spaces, and books have helped regenerate my own sense of self, which had got a bit lost in the intensity of work.

But I’ve (re)learnt that there is a positive kind of losing, too: you can lose yourself in a book — but in this losing you can also find yourself — in a book, in many books — and in a bookshop, or many bookshops. Lucy Mangan’s Bookish came out in paperback in March this year, and reading it has just underlined some key truths I’ve needed to excavate:

At the start of this post, I asked Chat GPT to generate an image to illustrate “the joy of rediscovered reading for pleasure”, and you can see the result above. Pretty good, I thought. And then I realised I actually HAD that — IRL. The need to read has also nudged me to create a comfortable reading spot at home, which I hadn’t done before, despite living in this house for 13 years (did I say work has been rather all encompassing?!) A new armchair, rug, side table with room for books and coffee, a footstall, light . . .spookily similar in many aspects to that AI-image! Physical reading wellbeing, sorted.

The doorbell has just rung — a big parcel of second-hand paperbacks to add to the TBR: Joan Aiken, Margaret Campbell Barnes, Margaret Irwin. An eclectic mix I’ll be posting more about later . . . This year has set so many reading hares running (including, of course, Chloe Dalton’s book about actual hares, Raising Hare) that I have reading/ research fodder for a long time to come. And I feel all the happier and healthier for it.

The Poetry Pharmacy has just opened its third shop, in York, and, although I’d originally been set to visit the first iteration, in Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, I had to be in Leeds to examine a PhD (fittingly, on bookshops!) so it made sense to see if I could spend some time in York instead. Despite the fact the shop had been open less than two weeks, they very kindly allowed me to spend two days with them, and I think it’s not exaggerating to say this was a life-changing experience. Not, perhaps, in a huge and immediately transformative way, but in terms of those small things I observed, the conversations I had, the connections I made, which, as a result, are gently working their way into my thoughts and reflections.

I’ve been following the development of this particular initiative for many years now — from 2011, back when its founder, Deborah Alma, was the Poetry Pharmacist, taking an old ambulance around events and festivals, and dispensing poems to people who came to her for some inspiration and support. The ambulance became a real shop, in Bishop’s Castle, in 2019, and then in 2024 another one was opened within the flagship Lush store in Oxford Street in London. The story of this latter collaboration is detailed in a book that Deb wrote with Mark Constantine, CEO of Lush, called The Poetry Business School. It’s a book full of wisdom about running a business, as well as full of poetic inspiration, too — highly recommended!

The York shop has been fitted out with the same designer-created, eye-catching lightboxes that the London store has, indicating the different sections: Inspiration, Calmness, Love, Comfort, Wild Remedy, Joy, First Aid, and Becoming. The shop furniture is a mix, including vintage pieces, sourced from wherever Deb can find them: this makes the interior feel lived in, accessible, but also quirky and reassuringly authentic. Beautiful old bookcases and cupboards sit comfortably with more modern counterparts; there are wooden floors and a stunning embossed plaster effect ceiling. The focal point is the glass dispensary (“never called a till” said Deb), which houses examples of all the small bottles of pills containing themed snippets of poetry that you can choose from.

There are currently two rooms — the main shop space, and a smaller room which houses the Cabinet of Curiosities, full of dark and gothic items, and home to the Poison Cabinet “a selection of Vices & Poisons distilled from the Finest Poetical Toxins”.

I talked to Deb over a Zoom call once I’d returned home, and she explained that the Poetry Pharmacies are supposed to be “theatres” – playing on the quack doctor tropes of the past, and setting up a space “like a poetry sweetshop” where people are drawn in by the colours and the enticing, intriguing props which set off the core offering of the poetry pill bottles. I am a big fan of the beautiful little anthologies that Deb has compiled, published by Macmillan – these rainbow-coloured books are not quite the same colours as used for the shop categories (Deb prefers a more muted, calmer set of tones in keeping with the overall vintage feel), but they do help create sections where the colour is allowed to dominate the design scheme.

Books are arranged artfully, grouping colours together within each section, and interspersing with co-ordinating stationery and cards. Books are also displayed in descending height order, too, and I soon picked up when I was in the shop that placing objects carefully, in threes and fives, was also a key aim, based on interior design principles. Kitty Muir (Manager) took me through this when I helped her shelve the delivery, and although I don’t think I was very good at putting the books in the best place, I could appreciate her eye for creating beautiful, enticing sections that drew you towards them. Maya Rowland, Head of Retail for all of the Poetry Pharmacy shops, showed me how these principles can help create a balanced and aesthetically pleasing window display, too.

The results speak for themselves – it is a space where you can hear the exclamations of delight, and the sighs of satisfaction, from people entering from the busy street outside.So many compliments when people came to pay for their selections: it’s clear the Pharmacy has become an instant success in York, and business was constant and enthusiastic throughout the whole time I was there. We filled prescriptions for a mother wanting something to help her son through his A Levels, someone who wanted help for a friend stuck in a rut at work, another for someone wanting to give a friend a bit of a lift. Each person who came forwards shared a little piece of their story, or of someone they knew. It was a privilege to be part of that, and I can only imagine what it must be like, as Maya related, to have someone come in to say that she’d visited Deb in her poetry ambulance 10 years ago, been given a poem that had helped her at that time, and now she’d come back to visit the new York shop to get another prescription, reflecting the much happier, more settled place she was now in.

As well as Maya and Kitty, I met Alice May and Tasmin Cass (Assistant Manager). And although that’s not the full team (being there for two days didn’t enable to meet everyone!) I need to celebrate the brilliant choices made over the staff hires: these are extraordinary, inspirational people with amazing ranges of expertise and talent! Given how unique this bookshop is, and how central to its success the booksellers are – they have to be empathetic to what people might need, using the ‘prescriptions’ you can ask them to fill out for you as a prompt to tease out current moods – this takes customer service to a new level. More specifically, it means a knowledge of poems and books, and the ability to write playful, creative, brief – but bespoke – pieces, rapidly, for those who ask for them as part of the poetry prescription experience / service. I learned so much from each of them, and was deeply impressed by their kindness, their attentiveness to what people seemed to want as they came into the shop, and their commitment to the Poetry Pharmacy as something more than a concept, but a place needed in our busy and stressed culture.

I’m excited to see how this shop develops (there are plans to make upstairs space into a Reading Room, eg), and will continue to track the Poetry Pharmacy’s progress more generally in the months and years to come. The level of curation here is, perhaps not surprisingly, the most focussed of all the bookshops I’ve visited so far (Folde its closest in terms of choice of stock and strength of mission). The poetry pill bottles give the shop a set-apart difference as a destination which makes it a true original, as this quotation from a local publication stresses:

“The Poetry Pharmacy is going to do well here, and Alma and her team deserve success. In a world that is governed by commerce, they’ve hit on something genuinely surprising, and with a heart for wellbeing and authenticity.”

Miles Salter, York Calling

When I was talking to Alice, she suggested the Cavafy poem, ‘Ithaca’, as one for me to take away: what she couldn’t have known is that a few years back, during Covid, a colleague at work had chosen to give me a copy of Cavafy’s poems as a ‘secret Santa’ book present, highlighting ‘Ithaca’ then as a poem she thought I’d enjoy (thank you, Fonteni!) I had lost that memory in the full-on busy-ness of work since Covid, but Alice’s nudge plugged me back in – and it felt like that, like being reconnected to an energy source I’d forgotten I needed. That’s the power of poetry – even a line or two of poetry – it can cut straight through to give you solace, or spark joy, or reflection. Deb may shy away from calling what she’s created bibliotherapy, stressing that she’s not a qualified therapist, but in her quest to make poetry accessible, fun, a “massage for the mind”, she’s manifested a high street experience unlike any other: somewhere to go and seek (and find) poetic tonics, somewhere, “full of adventure, full of discovery.”

My own experience there taught me more about the power of kindness, and the need for compassion, and time to listen. It also reminded me of the way poetry can replenish us, and the pleasure I used to have in keeping a commonplace book of quotes and notes: something I’m going to try and find time for again. And the gorgeous notebook I bought from the Poetry Pharmacy will give me encouragement to do it! Thank you to Maya, Kitty, Alice and Tasmin, and, of course, to Deb, who made it all possible.

Look after yourselves.

His background highlights why he has such a wide-ranging, relevant skillset for his various roles: after taking a degree in Photography and Fine Art at Swansea University, he held a job in in the Creative IP department at CIRIC, supporting small businesses to develop their creativity and reach wider audiences. Then he ran his own fruit farm, worked for a CAD company, and then for the Duffy photograph archive in Gloucester. A move to Hereford in 2021 with his husband helped foster and grow the Gay on Wye business plan, and the shop opened in 2023. Since then, Gay on Wye has moved to bigger premises (next door to the original shop) and has become a destination highlight in a town full of other bookshop options. Tom’s vision is that the shop “is more than just a commercial venture; it’s a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s history, struggles, and achievements.” He says he hopes “Gay on Wye becomes a place where people find stories that resonate with them and, in turn, foster a greater understanding and acceptance in society.”

It’s a reflection of how generous Tom is that he came all the way to Hereford to pick me up from the station, and drive me back to Hay-on-Wye, even though that meant he had to drive back to Hereford again (where he and his husband live) after a day in the bookshop. I’d booked into a self-catering place, the Pavement Palace, for the week — this turned out to be right by the clock tower in the middle of town, and less than a minute’s walk from GoW and The Granary, which is a brilliant place to grab breakfast or lunch, and make friends with the gorgeous Bella, resident sproodle…

On the first full day I was there, Tom took me through the genesis of the shop: with help from his husband Craig, his sister-in-law Carrie, and his friend Dave, he made Gay on Wye a reality, learning the ropes of bookselling by visiting other bookshops, reading the Booksellers Association’s book, Starting a Bookshop, and noting footfall in other bookshops in Hay, talking to other shop owners there, and introducing himself, carefully researching possible shop locations, and working out what he wanted to achieve. The shop itself is a reflection of all this work: from the planning of the shelving, and then hand-making and painting it all so there is a space for everything, to the cunningly designed cupboards above the shelves for storage, and an Ikea-pegboard hacked badge display unit.

It’s not all finished yet – Tom has many plans for further improvement, including making the current cramped backroom space more of a ‘green room’ for visiting speakers, -- but you can tell that a great deal of labour, time, and love has been poured into every square inch. He recounts how much he agonised over the name of the shop – would people feel excluded by the use of ‘gay’ in the title? Ultimately the humour in the pun on the town’s name was irresistible – and anyone who has visited, or connected with Tom and the shop on social media can see this is the most inclusive place you could imagine.

There is a quiet space with a bench seat by one of the windows, so if people want to sit and read, they can (Tom wants people to feel comfortable just coming in and browsing, saying that for many, finding the information they can’t find easily elsewhere makes the accessibility of the bookshop essential); Tom has fidget toys behind the till (and dog treats, too!) so that children and four-legged family members can be kept entertained whilst others have a chance to explore the books.

Tom has a handful of part-time staff who help cover shifts during the week, and I met Graham (Gray), who also runs a retreat centre in an old chapel nearby: a yoga teacher and with extensive experience working with deaf/blind communication, he was another inspirational connection. We bonded over best ways to organise the fiction shelving, after a large delivery, and it’s testimony to Tom’s openness to including ideas from everyone that he didn’t object to a whole section being moved around!

Whilst I was there, Tom also had in a work experience person for a trial session; Tom’s committed to giving opportunities for people to come and work in the bookshop where possible, and mentors students, too.

Tom is a huge supporter of the Booksellers Association, sitting on the Children’s committee, where, despite his own shop having a very small children’s section, he brings in his expertise on more teenage and YA literature and issues. He describes being part of the BA as “like having another colleague” – a network of people who understand the struggles and challenges that might crop up, and who can help each other navigate them. In his turn, Tom has been helping other bookshops, like Gayberystwyth (closed for now as a physical shop, but still operating online whilst they plan next steps) and Nofela, opening soon in Swansea.

He’s also a keen supporter of North Books, which opened a few months before Gay on Wye, in 2022, at the other end of Hay. Julie North, the owner, took the plunge after Covid, buying the bookshop after also doing research on the kind of place she wanted to create. Now the old bakery and tea shop is a cosy, welcoming building where the stock has a strong focus on contemporary fiction, design, and photography. Tom and Jules are looking to collaborate on more events in the future, and although the remit of each bookshop is different, it’s clear that they share a love for the town, and for getting books into the hands of readers. Book clubs at North Books include one focussing on translated fiction, and a regular ‘Stiches and Stories’ session.

Jules gave me some time to talk about her experiences, and was candid about the challenges that running the bookshop has. Hay may draw in big crowds around the Hay Festival period, in May, but there are times when footfall is very lean (this is still somewhere where many shops close on a day a week — and sometimes, like GoW, only open at the weekends in Jan/ Feb) — so finding ways to keep people connected is vital. North Books’s success is shown by the fact that it has only 5 star reviews on Google, and reading the comments you can see how much the stock curation and the service is appreciated. I bought Gill Hornby’s latest, The Elopement, in paperback (just out, and already in stock!) and saw some other tempting titles on offer, too (see pics below).

Tom gave me a packed week of experiences, including a guided tour of the town where he shared fascinating insights into plans Hay has for new ventures and events. It’s clear how beloved Gay on Wye is – and how immensely energetic Tom is in keeping his vision for inclusivity and kindness actively evolving, wrapping in an ever-widening network of supporters and collaborators. I learned so much about the business side of bookselling from my week there – Tom was generous in sharing access to systems and reports, so I really did get a behind-the-scenes masterclass in how to run a bookshop – and I came away with a head full of figures, ideas, and many, many things to follow up on (Edelweiss, that Will at Sam Read had introduced me too, and Tom expanded my understanding of, just one of them!)

Tom likens bookshops to being like pasta: the shape of the pasta is not important, but the sauce you make to put on it is what makes it into a unique dish. Gay on Wye and North Books are two examples of bookshops that showcase what satisfying, inspirational, impactful and nourishing spaces bookshops can be. My two book buys from GoW reflect the joy this can give the reader: out of so, so many I could have picked (train travel the ONLY thing that restricted my choices!) — I chose Brigid Brophy’s The Snow Ball (one I’ve wanted to read for ages, but seeing it showcased in GoW made it irresistable!) and A. J. West’s The Betrayal of Thomas True - entirely due to the enthusiasm Tom had for it, talking about it to another customer! Historical fiction — molly houses, intrigue, a love story — what’s not to like?! A. J. West, Tom tells me, is also the author on a forthcoming book on queer bookshops. If you wanted to support Tom and the fab work that GoW is doing, a pre-order for this would be the perfect action. . .

Wymondham is a market town near Norwich, packed full of history, with its own Abbey, nature reserve, and Heritage Museum. Robert Kett was a wealthy and respected local landowner who gave his support in 1549 to the people of the town who were rallying against the forced enclosure of the common land. He tore down his own fences and sacrificed all that he had to lead their revolt. From under an old oak tree between Wymondham and Hethersett, Kett made a rousing speech offering his life to the cause. He and 16,000 rebels then stormed Norwich, defeating a force sent by the Government to suppress the uprising, although Kett was later captured, tried for treason and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle. Kett’s Books uses his name as a tribute to the values he upheld for the people of this town. The oak tree has also become worked into the design of both the shop’s logo, and the interior design (see below!)

The history of this bookshop is every bit as fascinating as that of its namesake: back in 2013, when the existing bookshop in town announced it was to close, members of the community got together in the local pub and decided to run a bookshop together. A community interest company (CIC) was formed, and early in 2014 Kett’s Books opened, first of all in a tiny space in Wharton’s Court, and then, post-Covid, after a further successful round of funding calls, in a much larger, beautiful space in Market Place.

The Friends of Kett’s Books backed up the plan, and with additional help from South Norfolk District Council, the Norwich Freemens Charity, and the Booksellers Association, plus design input from Jack Kinsey, who appeared on BBC1’s Interior Design Masters, and who lives close to Wymondham, a permanent home for the bookshop was created. A £300000 grant from the government’s Community Ownership Fund helped to secure the premises.

Hundreds of hours of volunteer time was put into the new bookshop, which has used the oak-tree motif throughout. There are stunning murals, two ‘real’ trees, cosy seating, and even a fireplace. . .you can see a short video of the transformation here.

There are 4 salaried staff at Kett’s — the rest are all volunteers. Their input is amazing, and they bring a wealth of experience and expertise to make the bookshop a really special space. When I visited last week, I had the privilege of meeting and working with a few of them, and seeing first-hand what an impact they have on the people of Wymondham — and what the bookshop means to them, too. Gordon Chase is a retired financial specialist, and took time out from serving people to sit with me and tell me about what Kett’s means to him. He described his volunteering day as “the anchor in my week” since losing his wife in 2019, and has mastered the many skills needed to run the various online systems involved in bookshop ordering and sales with enviable thoroughness, as well as being a great people-connector. His patience with this temporary volunteer was exemplary, even when I messed up logging in a delivery and he had to redo most of it again…! Jilly Baines, musician and teacher, allowed me to help her change the window displays. I loved her provocative take on books to showcase around Wuthering Heights — and fear my attempt at books to display around H is for Hawk was not quite so successful, but I enjoyed the challenge, and the patience she showed as I bumbled around!

Tracy Kenny is the co-founder, managing director, and shop manager: she came to bookselling after a career in brand storytelling and communication, and has immersed herself in it, becoming a member of the Booksellers Association Advisory Council and a Mentor on their mentoring programme. Talking to Tracy, it’s very clear how committed she and the rest of the Kett’s team are to maintaining their community-focussed values: the shop’s strategy is “Keep Kett’s Books for Good” and this implies both a permanence and a positivity. In many ways, what Kett’s does is beyond the Kindness Economy tag, because of the literal buy-in there has been from locals, and because this isn’t a brand people are supporting, but a mission-driven service. Any excess money earned is ploughed back into the community, meaning that the ripple-effect from the shop – school events, folk festivals, book clubs, volunteer engagement – is huge.

Everything is carried out with pride and with professional polish: this is an operation with an exceedingly large amount of moving parts to organise, and Tracy does this without losing sight of each individual volunteer’s needs, or the bigger picture of the bookshop’s activities. From serving customers, unpacking orders, dealing with subscriptions, and returns, to keeping the kitchen supplied with clean tea-towels and painting and decorating, the team pitches in, — the DNA of the shop is made up of this wonderfully diverse and energetic mix of people, and perhaps that is why you can feel the warmth so powerfully when you walk in. (Here is Tracy in action, talking to the Friends in Jan 2024 about the shop).

And the impact is amazing: reading this year’s Annual Report, the numbers speak for themselves. A 59% increase in turnover; 594 regular volunteer hours per month, and over 14000 World Book Day books supplied in two years.

In fact, reading through these Annual Reports is to realise just what a phenomenal thing Kett’s Books is: during the pandemic, for instance,

“across several locations volunteers variously took phone calls, received deliveries of books in their homes, rang customers for payment, and then delivered books across Wymondham. The new technology allowed our book groups to continue to meet over Zoom, and we held weekly socials for volunteers to continue to enjoy the conversations they would have had in the bookshop. Once we’d realised we had the resilience to do this, we found that we could be innovative, as well. As the lockdown continued, we turned our attention tohow we could reach customers who might be feeling isolated. Soon we’d created a catalogue of available books to email out weekly to 600 customers. And when the December lockdown was announced, just after we’d invested in all our Christmas stock, we started a YouTube channel with author interviews, so that people could still have access to the conversations they’d always enjoyed when visiting us.”

Kett’s Books Annual Report 2019-2021, pps. 6-7

Kett’s has won and been shortlisted for the East of England in the Independent Bookshop of the Year Award several times, proving, if further proof were needed, that it punches above its weight in the indie bookshop ecosystem: I can also add it would win ‘cleanest bookshop kitchen award’ hands down, too, if such a prize existed! Tracy said, “everything is done with care” and this is what makes Kett’s so special. The care is in every small detail, and is evident in a thousand ways because of the number of people who are invested, emotionally, financially, and with time and commitment, to it. The collective vision, the community foundation of this place, is extraordinarily uplifting and restorative. And I saw, even if just for a couple of days, the amount of hard work that goes into this — embedding the bookshop right in the heart of Wymondham, but with its roots reaching out far beyond Market Place.

I hope this is not going to be the end of my association with Kett’s — I loved feeling a part of it, even if only for a short couple of days. I found two books to buy that I wouldn’t have discovered if not for the curation there (Edith Holler being a direct recommendation from Tracy!) If every volunteer and visitor gets to feel as accepted and welcomed as I did, then what Kett’s gives is a dose of instant wellbeing, sheltered under the oak tree images, symbols of wisdom, strength, and longevity. It could not be a more fitting metaphor for what Kett’s stands for and nourishes.

Having spent time at two of the Topping & Company bookshops so far, I headed off to find the Bath iteration first. Tucked down York Street, this beautiful building, previously a Quaker Meeting House, has been a Toppings bookshop since 2021.

It is HUGE!! The Topping’s wooden shelving and ladders wrap around the lofty main hall, with a mezzanine level making the most of the ceiling height. Downstairs, non-fiction and children’s sections ramble from space to space, in a warren of smaller rooms packed with books on every topic. Books on tables, books on the floor, books in spinners, on counters, — everywhere you look. Over the course of the next couple of days I revisited, buying two Harriet Muncaster books for a birthday present for a friend’s daughter, and unable to resist Nicholas Royle’s Shadowlines, having loved White Spines so much.

I was also able to fit in a visit to Persephone Books in Edgar Buildings. Trying not to drip raindrops over the immaculate, dove grey covers on display, or make too much noise in a very quiet, small shop that was also, the other side of the counter, obviously an open plan work space, I felt clumsy and invasive.

There were so many tempting books to choose from, and posters, postcards, fabric — sigh. I would have liked to spend more time in there, but was conscious of being alone AND being very soggy so I quickly plumped for a copy of Marghanita Laski’s The Village, a Persephone Pin, and a compilation of Persephone diary entries for 2023, Diary of a Provincial Bookshop. I left with relief — it just wasn’t the right conditions for a longer browse. Did I feel elegant and feminine? Rarely on a good day, but a rain-saturated dark February one, definitely not.

I also popped into the Waterstones on Milsom Street — mostly to escape another heavy rain shower — a good-sized shop with a café, in another beautiful building.

On Wednesday it was time for the main event: a day at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, in John Street. Hurrah! The sun arrived, and leant an auspicious benevolence to the walk there from my hotel (and for added joy, an enormous Percy Pig outside a brand new M&S being opened that day!)

Mr B’s is in John Street, tucked just behind Milsom Street: a narrow one-way road. What I hadn’t realised was that the shop has now obtained the space opposite to use as offices and storage, (home to their publishing arm, Fox, Finch & Tepper, too) and when I arrived it was to see a stream of booksellers coming out of that building and crossing the road into the bookshop — there had just been a staff meeting — so the road was full of chatter and laughter. It was to this light, bright, and open plan hub that Nic took me to for an initial coffee and chat, and to meet Juliette.

Both trained lawyers, it was on their honeymoon on San Juan Island in 2004 that the idea for the bookshop began, inspired by The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, which they had visited on their trip. Fast forward two years and Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights opened in Bath, with 8000 hand-picked books, less than half of the floor space it has now grown into, and a (very) small staff team. Neither Nic or Juliette had any previous retail experience, but did a great deal of due diligence and research, spending time visiting bookshops in the North of England to look at how they ran – Nic credits Simply Books, in Bramhall, as one key source of support.

Where did the name come from? In a Guardian article from 2006, Nic explains: “we started thinking of something far more over the top and came up with “Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights”. We liked the idea of something unique, that sounded old-fashioned and ground-breaking at the same time.” The logo shows Mr B’s faithful assistant, the book monkey.

Mr B’s has won Independent Bookshop of the Year twice, and was named one of The Guardian’s Ten Best Bookshops in the World in 2015. Since it first opened it has expanded, running a successful crowdfunder in 2018 to enable this, added reading spas and personalised reading subscriptions, fostered and grown a passionate and talented bookselling team (now over 20 people strong), secured the workspace over the road, and run countless events and projects for the local community. Nic was President of the Booksellers Association (2018-2020), and has been Executive Chair since 2020. His involvement with the Booksellers Association is clearly something he feels very committed to, and he is a strong advocate for booksellers everywhere: he was getting ready for an upcoming trip to the USA to participate in the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Pittsburgh when I visited. Last year he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship with the Royal Society for Literature (RSL) for making “a significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK.” The RSL website credits Nic for co-founding a “welcoming and irreverent independent bookshop in Bath”, and he is a regular key speaker at book trade and other literary events.

So, given his eminence within the bookselling and book trade world, I was nervous to meet him, and very conscious of his busy (extremely busy) workload. But I shouldn’t have worried. There was an instant warmth coming from everyone I met, and although I must have impeded other work, I never felt in the way – Nic and Juliette were very generous with their time, answering questions at length, and letting me sit in on one of Nic’s meetings with an American who was thinking of setting up a bookshop and wanted some advice. In the morning Nic gave me a guided tour through the “labyrinthine” rooms of the bookshop (a word often used to describe Mr B’s). He moves at speed, -- pointing out each space and the design details of each, which are wonderful, imaginatively created rooms for people to linger in and discover books; there are also useful practical spaces for unpacking and logging in deliveries, sorting out customer orders, and processing returns, as well as a staff room (the Chris Riddell illustrated toilets are awesome!) – except when he spotted a customer hesitating over some children’s graphic novels. It was an instant full stop, and change of gears, and within seconds he’d struck up a conversation with the mother, and they were chatting about possible next reads for her ten-year-old daughter. Now I know about Dana Simpson’s Phoebe and her Unicorn books and it’s a measure of how infectious Nic’s enthusiastic knowledge was that I was also ready to delve into them right then and there. . .

One of the key strands Mr B’s is built on is “extreme customer service” – and the example above is just one of many such interactions with people I saw over the day, with Nic and with others in the Mr B’s team. This is a very real, written-deep-into-MrB’s-DNA, tenet. Nic believes in making every experience a positive one, keeping agnostic about what a ‘good’ book is like, and happy with the bookshop being chaotic or quiet. There are rooms that allow for both, with the upstairs Reading Spa area a comfortable, cosier space for more focussed sessions for individual reading tastes to be explored and supported. These Spa experiences, a draw for people since they became part of the Mr B offering, (currently running at around 4 each day, and booked up until 2027 already) are not the only personalised services: I hadn’t realised how bespoke the reading subscriptions are, with each bookseller being matched with requests that come in, and lists curated which do a deep dive into individual reading tastes and histories. This is very much an integral, work-intensive, obviously much-loved part of the bookselling work at Mr B’s, and makes the most of the extensive, eclectic, and expert knowledge of the bookselling team. With five different product lines running here, too, it is a big part of the Mr B portfolio -- there is even an option to create lists for companies, as a reward or incentive scheme! The stock in the bookshop also reflects the combined interests of the staff, with Nic stressing that the booksellers are better able to recommend and support customers if they have some control about what books are available. I can attest to the success of this, finding two titles I couldn’t resist buying: one via a face-out display (The Modern Fairies, by Clare Pollard) and the other because Kate Padiachy told me about it so enthusiastically as a title they are handselling well at the moment: Grape Juice, by Eliza Dumais.

Nic says they “reinvent things constantly” and this curiosity and readiness to try new initiatives is why Mr B’s hums with a kinetic energy. It’s tangible. Wherever you look there are things to intrigue or excite – not just the books and other merchandise, but the details like the claw-foot bath display, the Tin-Tin wallpaper, the ceiling decorated with luggage tags and pens left by visiting authors…it truly lives up to its promise of being an Emporium of Delights.

One of the amazing aspects of these bookshop visits is realising the golden threads of connection that run between many of them: in Mr B’s case, Nic was the bookseller Darryl Cooke consulted when he had the idea for what became the House of Books & Friends (see previous post). I spoke to Tom Owen of Gay on Wye today about my upcoming visit to his shop at the start of March, and he told me that the day Gay on Wye opened, Nic and Juliette and the family came to see them. This kind of supportive network links these indies in ways which surely exemplify the wider Kindness Economy: moving around within it feels very safe and collegial, and each new experience adds to this deeper appreciation of what these bookshops do.

Mr B’s will be 20 this year, so there will be many reasons to visit and to check out news about forthcoming events and initiatives to mark this! Nic has no plans to expand the Mr B’s empire and open more shops; instead there are ambitions to build on the subscription offerings, and to look at ways to keep improving the experience on the shop floor for customers. His wish? That Mr B’s is “not a temple for books but a playground for books” . That sums it up exactly. Mr B’s is fun, — it’s irreverent and provocative in book choices and gloriously inquisitive about new titles and forgotten backlist ones. Someone had brought in a bag of pick & mix sweets, which Juliette was handing out — a good comparison to Mr B’s. Dive in — you don’t know what you’ll find, but it’s guaranteed to be a treat. . .

“Reading can connect us physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. When we read, we are not alone. Our bookshops will not only sell books but offer a space to create activities that will bond communities, from reading clubs to walking groups to wine societies.

Our focus will be to connect all the charities we work with and, at the heart, to develop a culture of connection that will combat loneliness. We are searching for a bookseller who will bring necessary expertise and passion to our dream and who will work alongside us and the many charities that we work with to bring our dream to fruition.”

Darryl Cooke, Manchester Evening News, 19th July 2022

When I arrived outside the building, I did feel some trepidation: it’s an imposing frontage, and the main doors look like entry into a very corporate world. Only the encouragement of the board outside helped me to step inside and find, to the left of the hallway, a much more accessible-looking door to the bookshop.

The House of Books & Friends is “a purpose-led independent bookshop, cafe and events space with an important mission – to combat loneliness through bringing people together and to build and rebuild communities.” This mission-based ethos puts the emphasis on people – with the books and café as resources to help create a welcoming and accessible focal point in the middle of Manchester’s busy shopping district. The venue consists of three connecting rooms – a bright, large book-lined one with café and book-purchasing counters, a middle, narrower area with more books and tables, and an end room, wood-panelled and carved, which operates as somewhere to enjoy a coffee with friends, or do some work, and also doubles as a stunning event space.

I was welcomed by Naomi Self, the manager, and swiftly given the tour, a freshly made coffee, and a chance to sit down with her and talk about her experiences and how she came to be at House of Books and Friends.

Naomi (a Bookseller Rising Star in 2023) has been in bookselling since doing her degree at Stirling University, picking up part-time work in the Waterstones branch there, and then swiftly moving up to become a manager, and moving around several other Waterstones branches in Scotland before coming to Manchester. A chance to apply for this role at House of Books & Friends came up in 2021, and Naomi jumped at it: she recalls being impressed by the interview, during which she was asked to describe what principles she lived by.

This focus is unsurprising, given the origin story of the enterprise: the bookshop was the brainchild of Darryl Cooke, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of law firm gunnercooke and its charitable arm, the gunnercooke Foundation. Cooke’s blog posts evidence this wide-ranging interest in positive change, wellbeing, and support for charities; he also hosts a podcast, Inspiring Leadership. In the first episode of this, from 2020, he quotes Albert Schweitzer: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” What I learned in the few days I was with the House of Books and Friends was that this tenet runs as a golden thread through every aspect of the business. The people who work here believe in what they are doing, and not only have strong bookselling/ café skills, but are also exceptionally good at connecting to their customers.

Naomi worked alongside Darryl to plan and bring to fruition his bookshop vision, which eventually opened in December 2022, with a carefully recruited small team. Naomi has set up various ways for her staff to connect, including clearly-signposted wellbeing support services, a compliments board, and regular meetings and check ins – it was not lost on me that as well as all the positive interactions staff would have with people each day, there were also going to be challenging ones, too. That is all part of managing such an inclusive space. With calm and efficient aplomb (and often a plunger! — I’d not been there very long before a blocked look had to be dealt with!) – Naomi runs what has become a truly impressive community bookshop/ café: the book selection is curated with awareness of what visitors will be looking for, and full use of the wide reading experiences of her team of booksellers via book recommendations posted on shelves.

Naomi talked about how in a big city, small networks really matter — and that it can be harder in a city to find spaces to connect, which is why House of Books & Friends has also been a venue for yoga classes, workshops, and even a play. Events run on a regular basis, including book clubs to suit all tastes – online and in person, because there is an acknowledgement that not everyone can come into the shop but might still want to participate. You can even have your wedding there now! You can sponsor a bookshelf, or become a super supporter, a scheme where, for £100, you get a lot of House of Books & Friends goodies, plus the chance to get early bird tickets to events, your name displayed in the shop for 12 months, and a personalised book recommendation list. There is an online shop, which includes links to Pay it Forward by pledging money to fund coffees, books or room hire for others.

The café serves delicious, locally produced cakes and sandwiches, and the coffee is excellent. There is an area with a chatty table, and you can buy a pay it forward coffee token – Naomi stresses this means they are able to give out hot drinks to people who need them, and is an important part of their social mission.

In practical terms, I was able to help with clearing tables, and stacking and unstacking the dishwasher so that clean crockery was always to hand – it is a busy little café, so this was a constant challenge, but everyone there helped with this, keeping space clear and inviting. People came in and stayed for a while, having meetings, working on laptops, chatting to staff - who knew many by name - it is a place with pockets of calm in amongst more social areas, but it works. I was also asked if I’d pull together a display of books to help inspire people during these dark and wet early days of the year: a small act of curation it gave great pleasure to do, pulling volumes from the different sections and arranging them on a shelving unit between the front and middle rooms. I hadn’t realised how prominent the word “joy” was until I revisited the picture I’d taken of the result afterwards — definitely a sub-conscious reflection of how it felt to be there!

Staff are across everything and everyone, discreetly observant of need. Talking to Natalie Walsh, the Assistant Manager, who joined the shop in October 2024 after years working in hospitality, I could see the impact her work has on her own wellbeing: she wanted to be somewhere where she could help people, she said, and lit up telling me about regulars like Tony, a widower, who brings things into the shop that he makes, crafting at one of the tables. She also talked about the rhythms of the year – busy with tourists in the summer, but then somewhere for new students to come and meet people, and the long dark winter months being important for those on their own who need company and connection.

Leah Caffrey, the Principal Bookseller, had also come to House of Books and Friends via a hospitality background. Like Naomi and Natalie, when she saw the advertisement for a job, she applied immediately – keen to work somewhere with a more purposeful, community-based feel. She was one of the original team, beginning as a part-timer, and working her way up to Principal Bookseller. She quoted Stanley Tucci’s character from The Devil Wears Prada, saying she feels she is lucky to have a job “where so many people would die to work”. She talked movingly about realising how disposable people were after experiencing the disappearance of hospitality jobs due to Covid – and also seeing the shift towards a need to find places where people felt seen and the service was great.

In a time when parasocial relationships are taking the place of real ones, Leah believes that places like House of Books and Friends are crucial: “you leave feeling good”, she says. It’s not fake: the care for people is genuine. She too has an example: of a woman who said she was the first person who had properly talked to her since she had lost her husband. The emphasis is on people first, selling books and coffee second. Leah’s commitment to this is evident: her ambition is to work on curating more events and opportunities for minority voices, noting that in Greater Manchester more than 200 different languages are spoken.

I was also able to talk to Heather Kerr, Manager of the gunnercooke Foundation, and learn more about how this works: the bookshop is just one project of many aiming to connect people to support in different ways: kindness, as Naomi has also underlined, is a core aspect of gunnercooke. Perhaps, as both she and Naomi hope, there will be more bookshops to follow in other cities where gunnercooke has a presence.

I have come away from my visit full of respect for the team: they are an amazing group of people. “I like working for a business that doesn’t make the world worse” reflected Naomi. The wide amount of knowledge and practical approaches to embedding kindness and connections into what is also a financially viable bookshop are remarkable: a Community Interest Company that ploughs profits back into the business, doing well. To summarise, then, and to riff from Leah’s use of Tucci’s speech in The Devil Wears Prada: “this is not just a bookshop – this is a shining beacon of hope”. Let’s look forward to these beacons being lit elsewhere in the UK and beyond in the future, because we need businesses built on kindness and community more than ever before.

You can follow House of Books & Friends on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/houseofbooksandfriends/

Parts of this post can also be found on BookBrunch, here: https://www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/article-detail/bookshop-bulletin-5-house-of-books-and-friends-manchester/

Last week The Spectator published an article by Arthur Kay, “The independent bookshops that aren’t what they seem”. Arthur is the owner of the Gilded Acorn, an independent bookshop in London. He is also an entrepreneur, urban designer, and Professor of Practice at UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity. His article highlights the part a multinational retail group has in owning some of the UK’s ‘independent’ bookshops. Book Retail Midco Limited has over 1000 stores worldwide. You may not have heard of it, but you probably will have heard of its biggest shareholder, Elliott Investment Management, which is the hedge fund company run by Paul Singer, the founder, co-CEO and President. This hedge fund has been talked about many times in connection with its buyout of Waterstones back in 2018.

This article accuses James Daunt, Waterstones, Book Retail Midco and Elliott Investment (it’s unclear where the focus of the reader’s attention should be) of wolfish behaviour. Specifically, of creating bookshops “seemingly trading under unique identities” when they are in reality part of a multinational retail group.

However, this reporting is old news: as far back as 2014 The Bookseller was reporting on the efforts of Waterstones to launch unbranded shops, continuing in 2017, after more pieces came out in other media outlets, including the BBC and the Mail on Sunday. So I’m not sure what strategy lies behind representing this as if this was unknown before — my research so far shows there are no bookshops named here that haven’t already been written about. The Weybridge bookshop, which ends the article, was opened by Waterstones in 2017, and reported on openly as part of the Waterstones fleet. It’s listed on the main Waterstones website. That’s eight years ago.

As far as I can see, these are currently the bookshops which are owned by Waterstones:

• The Deal Bookshop

• Southwold Books

• Harpenden Books

• The Rye Bookshop

• The Weybridge Bookshop

• The Blackheath Bookshop

Not exactly “dozens of local identities”, or “a growing number of bookshops”. Not mentioned in the article, however, is an attempt in 2018 to open a Stockbridge Books store in Edinburgh, but bowing to indignation from the local area, including indies Golden Hare Books and Lighthouse Books, it was instead branded as a Waterstones. This also hit the mainstream news.

The latest Waterstones furore resulted in a hasty retreat by the chain in early December 2025. This was when there was going to be a new store (but a Waterstones branded one) opening very close to the much-loved indie, Argonaut Books, in Leith. That is a more valid story to pick up at this point — why, after all this time declaring that Waterstones would never set up shop in a town where there was an existing, flourishing bookshop business, did they think that Leith was a suitable venue? The excuse given, that they thought Argonaut was a specialist bookshop, and therefore would not be in direct competition with their more general book stock approach, just doesn’t ring true. There were certainly many loyal readers and supporters of Argonaut and of indie bookshops more generally who didn’t hesitate to protest — more than 2500 people signed an open letter to James Daunt.

And, of course, there is the anticipation around the putting of Waterstones and Barnes & Noble up on the stock market by Elliott Investment Management. This is such big news that it was mentioned in Philip Jones’s editorial letter in the first Bookseller of this year. What does this mean for the UK’s largest bookshop chain?

I appreciate there is a need to hook readers with a bit of dramatic phrasing, but my experience of meeting booksellers over many years has never been that they are “a bit moth-eaten”, as this article claims they are, or that they “are a flock of sheep”, making “it easy for a wolf to slip into [their] clothing.” Far from it. Even my research into women booksellers in the mid-twentieth century proved that reports of them wearing “ravelled” cardigans was unfounded. These were formidable professionals.

Today’s booksellers are fighting hard to survive in a challenging business context, and they are doing so with energy, innovation, creative entrepreneurship, and heart. Sheep?! None of the independent booksellers I’ve had the privilege to work with recently are remotely sheep-like. They may all share a passion for their communities and what they do, but each has forged their own bookshop based on sound strategies which have resulted in unique bookshop spaces, without a whiff of moths about them (although am sure Amber and Karen at Folde would have a few useful books in stock about them!)

And, it should be said — whatever big organisation stands behind them, Waterstones is made up of booksellers who also work hard, who care for the people they serve and the books that they curate and sell. And bookshops that vary in all kinds of ways across the UK. There was a period when the company attempted to rationalise stock, centralise choice of holdings, and make the stores look very similar. By 2011 Waterstones was struggling under the ownership of HMV. The article presents this view as what is currently happening, however:

“Riskier titles are edged out for the predictable sale. Specialist knowledge is replaced by centralised decision-making, and experienced staff are quietly priced out as overheads are trimmed.”

There is plenty of evidence to show that this is not how things are operating now, under Daunt. In a recent interview with the BBC, for example, he stressed that Head Office is there

“to make sure that things work, change the lightbulbs for them, clean the carpet. . . but NOT to tell them what [books] to order and certainly not tell them how to organise and arrange themselves. That’s up to the team, and if they do that well they will be producing the best possible bookshop for the community in which they live and that’s why when you go into a Waterstones you’ll find each really different to the other but hopefully in harmony with the place in which you find it.”

Whatever criticisms are thrown at Daunt, he is still the owner of his own small (very successful) chain of bookshops, and knows bookselling from extensive hands-on experience. Back in 2009, a Guardian article titled, ‘How Waterstones Killed Bookselling’ outlined all the issues with the company. In 2020, nine years after Daunt took over, he was hailed as the “saviour of bookselling”. I haven’t read an article yet which includes interview material with him where he doesn’t champion the role of the bookseller, or the importance of locally aligned stock (see, eg, this article from The Times in 2018). I also know the news has not always been positive: there have been issues around staff pay and progression (eg in 2019, over paying staff a living wage). The Waterstones chain is now in over 290 locations in the UK, and still growing. A very small number of these are unbranded. And as of today, I haven’t found any recent openings (although I will do more research and come back with an update if I find any more!)

It’s certainly good to provoke any kind of discussion around bookshops in mainstream media – I am just uneasy when points aren’t objectively put, or a balanced picture given to the reader. There isn’t clarity here about who, or what, exactly the wolf or wolves are. Is it Singer? Is it Book Retail Midco Ltd or is it Elliott Holdings? I’m still not sure exactly how the relationship between Elliott Holdings and Book Retail Midco works – and how both connect in management ways with Waterstones. I can see Daunt is a Director at Book Retail Midco, but that Singer has 75% or more shares, and 75% or more voting rights. Singer is also, as noted at the start of this, the CEO of Elliott Holdings.

“Bookselling bodies and wider surveys of consumer behaviour consistently show that readers actively choose bookshops they believe to be independent. Local ownership, personalised recommendations and support for local economies are decisive factors in purchasing decisions. This is pertinent when the same book can be bought online with a click, often for less.”

Arthur Kay stressed to me in a follow up email that the legal points are important here: “UK consumer law is explicit: under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, a business commits a misleading practice if it deceives, or is likely to deceive, the average consumer about “the nature of the trader” (who owns it), or if it omits information that would affect a purchasing decision.”

What I am not sure about is whether this is what is happening in this handful of unbranded Waterstones shops: it’s easy to find out that these are shops owned by Waterstones. The shops social media feeds, their webpage links, all point to Waterstones. The shops themselves use Waterstones materials around the shops (as far as I can see so far).

I don’t think readers are unaware of how branding works – there are so many more invidious examples of big companies masquerading as smaller artisan ones, particularly in the food and drink industries, for example, that it’s difficult to avoid this. Is the experience they get when they go into one of these unbranded Waterstones a good one? Yes, if you look at the reviews, it absolutely seems to be. The Deal Bookshop has 86 Google reviews with an overall score of 4.3 out of 5, and if you read the comments, you can see they are getting great customer satisfaction, with a large proportion praising the booksellers for their knowledge and passion.

Is this article saying that these people are not getting an authentic bookshop experience? They are being given a very personal service, by knowledgeable staff, in a well-stocked, well-arranged space that sits successfully within its community. That’s not fake. And it’s not “an illusion of variety”. The variety is real, built by booksellers who know what they are doing.

There are issues with Waterstones and its top level ownership and management that could be justifiably examined more closely – especially with the news that the company could be listing on the stock exchange this year — but honestly, bashing a handful of small bookshops that are, by every bit of information I’ve found on them, doing a great job, and with no evidence that any more of these unbranded shops are forthcoming (or indeed have been opening since before the Covid 19 pandemic) seems unwarranted. Wolfish behaviour has also been categorised as huffing and puffing to blow houses down, and in this instance, the force fails to hit its mark.

That’s not to say this article doesn’t provoke valid questions and illustrate how complex business ownership at this kind of international, large-scale level can be. But this shouldn’t necessitate casting aspersions on all independent booksellers, or implying that readers need to be worried about their high streets, their independent bookshops, and “misplaced” loyalties to these. Keep it real: we are talking about half a dozen bookshops here, with no signs of more additional unbranded ones opening.

I’d welcome comments on this — especially if anyone feels I’ve missed out information, or can fill in some of these gaps of understanding about the different company relationships! Meanwhile, thank you to everyone who has helped fact check and feedback so far — it’s been much appreciated.

These newer designed boxes have a lid glued onto the top of the box, rather than attached flaps. This not only generally means breaking fingernails and a frustrating time trying to get into these, but also wishing they came with a training manual instructing you on how to best flatten them for the recycling. And if you are a bookshop getting a lot of boxes each day, believe me, levels of hostility towards them grows! Maybe they make more sense at the packing stage (are they supposed to be stronger than the ‘usual’ configuration?) but they really don’t help the recipient. Anyway, on a more positive note, there are few things more satisfying than getting incoming stock unpacked, logged in, put away, and all the cardboard cleared from the shop floor . . .

Yes, am suffering strong withdrawal symptoms this week from not being in a bookshop! It was dark and miserable outside all day yesterday, and so I have also been feeling ‘boxed in’ by the weather. ‘Box’ is an intriguing word: the OED says that it probably comes from Old English, although the origin is uncertain. [interlude of tracking etymology of ‘box’ and thinking about all the different phrases we have in English with ‘box’ as part of them…]

I’ve been catching up on some bookshop reading today, and was pleased to see that the Booksellers Association are calling for the axing of the proposed business rates rise to cover bookshops, as well as pubs: Meryl said that:

“The Booksellers Association has been clear from the outset that the government’s business rates reforms risk being deeply damaging, particularly for small and medium-sized bookshops, and a recent survey of our member bookshops underlines that warning. Eighty-five percent of booksellers surveyed said they are less likely to invest in stock, staffing, events, or their premises as a direct result of the Westminster Budget’s business rates changes. Meanwhile, fewer than 10% of booksellers surveyed feel more confident about trading sustainability over the next 12 months when considering the Budget as a whole."

This is a serious issue, and one that I am following with keen interest: 85% is a massive number of booksellers to be expressing this level of impact of any further rate rises, and given, as Meryl goes on to underline, that bookshops are not just retail outlets but

“local, cultural and community spaces that deliver national value far beyond the goods they sell. . . They support literacy and reading for pleasure, host authors and collaborate with publishers, partner with schools and local charities, and contribute to the vitality of high streets and shopping destinations in every part of the UK – and will continue to do that work throughout this National Year of Reading.”

The National Year of Reading (NYoR) activities should help support these statements: in December a partnership between the BA and Bookshop.org was announced, launching a year of co-ordinated promotion of a jointly chosen Indie Book of the Month. Here are the choices for Jan 2026:

The NYoR was officially launched by the government yesterday The Guardian described it:

“The year-long campaign, called Go All In, aims to reverse what organisers describe as a “worrying decline” in reading enjoyment among children and young people. Just one in three 8- to 18-year-olds now say they enjoy reading in their spare time. Only 26% of boys read for pleasure, compared to 39% of girls. More than a quarter of children are leaving primary school having not reached the reading age of an 11-year-old.”

These are yet more worrying statistics (did I say things felt a bit dark and gloomy today?!) — but, there are really positive targets and resources being allocated to this campaign, with a new mandatory reading test for all pupils in year 8, a £5m investment to support reading in secondary schools, and a £10m investment to make sure every primary school in England has a library by the end of this parliament. It feels like folding in a business rate freeze, at the very least, for bookshops, is another obvious and key thing to do as part of this boost for reading.

I also read a piece in The Spectator by Arthur Kay, “The independent bookshops that aren’t what they seem”. I’m still working up a properly considered response to this — but meanwhile, any feedback from others would be gratefully received!

Finally, — I saw the piece in today’s Bookseller, about Kate Nixon’s decision to close Novel, her bookshop/ cafe in Sheffield. I watched the YouTube video she posted a couple of days ago explaining what had been happening and why she’s taken this decision, and it is heartbreaking to realise how much abuse and threatening behaviours she and her small team have been trying to cope with. Again, am still processing this news — had to go off for a brisk walk earlier to clear head a bit, and call in on Toppings for a mood lift — but it’s clear booksellers today face challenges far more devastatingly impactful than those pesky boxes. Kate talks about the bookshop as a third space, — which bookshops often are for their communities — but of course this also means that it attracts all kinds of people, including those who are anti-social and/ or mentally ill.

[NB: If bookshops are members of the BA, they can access resources to help wellbeing via the Retail Trust, which, in its Health of Retail Report for 2025 highlighted the rise of customer abuse as one of the key factors impacting on retail workers across the UK.]

Am finishing with something more positive: talking of wellbeing, Folde’s approach to the New Year is worth reading and following, if you are feeling the January must-get-my-life-sorted-out blues:

See the Instagram post for the list of accompanying recommended books, which are all available via Folde or your own local bookshop. Amber and Karen have closed Folde’s shop (but not online orders!) for their annual two week hibernation / creative planning period, which I think is a fabulous use of this January time. Am sending them and all booksellers across the land warmest wishes for brighter days ahead.

And don’t miss the chance to see Polly Atkin, from Sam Read Bookseller, on BBC’s Lost and Found in the Lakes: a feel good series find and a surprise delight to realise it was Polly featured in one episode!

Mind how you go…

In amongst the blur of busy-ness, there are highlights which stand out: recommending (and seeing it bought!) Slinky Malinki’s Christmas Crackers (my son — now 28 — loved Slinky Malinki when he was little, and we can both still quote large chunks of it!); helping to find a book on ceramics which because of Topping’s huge stock range, we had on the shelf; talking to people about their favourite books, and sharing recommendations; learning the art of the table ziggurat book arrangement from Robert and Stuart (still not perfected!); mastering Book Token and Topping & Company voucher sales on the till system. . .

Less celebratory moment: checking the draft copy for the new leaflet advertising upcoming events, and confidently marking “complimentary” as incorrectly spelled when referring to “complimentary tea and coffee”. Then doubling down on that when politely told this was actually correct. Then checking it once home and realising that years (decades!) of believing I knew the difference between “complimentary” and “complementary” was based on trusting what I’d been told (I can’t even remember who by now), but never researching for myself. That was a true facepalm moment. Luckily Zoe was gracious in accepting my apology (although family and close friends were less so, finding it very funny — I don’t think I will live this down for a long, long, time!) — it just goes to show you should NEVER be complacent about things, perhaps especially those things you feel you have some expertise in!

Hey ho. It might seem like an insignificant blip, but I was mortified — but Zoe and the other booksellers were so good-humoured and kind about it, that it showed me again that so much of our learning experiences depend on how we are corrected and enabled to recalibrate if we make mistakes.

Despite the pressured environment, the booksellers got on with the work they had to do, and apart from the occasional clash of too many bodies trying to be behind the ground floor counter at once, which is inevitable when queues build up, it was an impressively smooth operation. The snagging came from things outside of the shop’s control: the main one being incomplete deliveries, or damaged books. One of my main take-aways from all the bookshop visits I’ve done to date has been frustration from the booksellers on the delivery front. It takes a huge chunk of time to have to log 2 or 3 big boxes of books as missing, and most bookshops don’t have the space to store incomplete shipments somewhere for a few days in the hope the rest will turn up later. Boxes are frequently collapsing on arrival, and are constructed in such a way that they don’t fold down easily for recycling.

For a bookshop with such a large range of stock, the classification of each book was also a challenge. Publishers frequently don’t tell you what subject or genre a book belongs to on the cover; booksellers like Toppings & Company have their own online system which logs the category each branch has as a book’s “home” shelf space — a system which can be amended as needed if views change on the best place for a book to live. When a bookshop has a multitude of sub-sections (eg History, or Art) — how to arrange the books in that section is a very real issue. And some titles straddle two or even three possible categories. This is where the individual bookseller’s expertise is really needed and where the team’s specialist knowledge is unbeatable. To see that in action is an amazing thing: a customer came in and asked for The Botanical Shakespeare, which had me wavering — but a quick brainstorm with the team, and a check online, and we found it.

When I interviewed Emma Lebedyeva, the Events Manager at Topping’s in Ely, she described the shop as “a place of information and happy things”, and stressed the joy of constantly learning about books outside of her own special interest categories of art and fantasy. Katy Bratt, whose expertise in history is phenomenal, underlined the bookshop’s aim to be “for everyone and everything”, and Stuart Havis, the manager, said the vision was to “bring the most books possible to our book browsers.”

In an interview for the BBC’s Big Boss podcast series, James Daunt talked about bookselling from his perspectives running both Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & Noble in the US. He said that traditionally 100% of the profit came in from the Christmas period, but that it’s maybe 70% now, because “we wash our face during the rest of the year”. I don’t know what Topping & Company’s profits look like, but I’d guess that their bookshops perform well across the year because of the combination of stock range, expertise in their booksellers, and beautiful buildings to browse within.

I loved my time at Topping’s, and, as with all the other bookshops I’ve visited so far, have been deeply grateful for the welcome, the patience, and the kindness I’ve experienced in each of them. Chloe Fox, who opened her bookshop Fox & King in Tilsbury in October, wrote a piece last week in the Financial Times about this. She talks about the importance of community:

“Community is what so many of us are lacking in our lives. Our yearning for it is what sends us in our droves to music festivals and overpriced theatres. It’s what we thought we’d found on social media and have since realised we didn’t. And, above all else, it’s what independent bookshops thrive on.”

Chloe Fox, “I opened a bookshop. It was the best, worst thing I’ve ever done”, Financial Times, Dec 16th 2025.

This is, above all, what I have appreciated finding. Each bookshop I’ve visited has held a unique place in its community, but it’s not just about that geographical social and cultural anchor. Being part of that bookshop community, even if only for a very short time, has been a reconnection for me to something I thought I had lost, and whose value I have realised again (but this time with more self-awareness).

To finish this year’s travels, then, let these words of Daunt’s stand as a summary of what I have discovered:

“A bookshop is successful if the booksellers within it are enjoying themselves and communicating that. . . passion is an overused word, but probably an appropriate one for most booksellers. We are vocational by nature.”

James Daunt, Big Boss Interview #15 Waterstones CEO: I Disdain AI Written Books, But Might Sell Them If Labelled

Once safely there, having drunk a restorative coffee in the neighbouring Caffé Nero, I crossed the threshold, and instantly felt my shoulders let go of some of that tension. This was a familiar space — and although I hadn’t been in it in quite this way before, it was still somewhere I knew and felt comfortable. Stuart Havis is the manager, and very soon had me happily sorting out and tidying up the shelves on the top floor, working alongside the two Emmas, who kindly answered queries, showed me the ropes, and patiently helped with all the “where does this go?” interruptions.

There is something quite meditative and extremely satisfying about shelving books: you work in new stock, checking that other titles are in the right place, and are not damaged. The spinner of Candlestick Press’s “Ten Poems About…” series was re-ordered so that all the Christmas-related editions were easy to find, and I sorted the rest into roughly similar categories (Nature, People, Activities, etc). And yes, ok, I realise it is not going to stay that way for very long, but — still, a task completed!

I also spent some time behind the counter on the ground floor with Robert, who showed me (again, sorry, my memory of learning this at the Edinburgh shop was already shaky!) how to cover hardbacks in the Topping signature clear wrap, and talked me through till procedures and customer order processing. I tried not to botch these tasks, appreciating Robert’s efforts to talk me through the various steps on-screen multiple times until they started to become embedded. Deliveries arrived, were unpacked, logged in, and were shelved (this last step of the process, at least, I was getting more confident about by the end of the first day, once I’d mapped out the various sections in my head!)

By the next day, I was looking forward to learning more, and to my delight, was invited to take part in a CWAB with Katy! You’ll remember how much I loved this experience with Mary in the Edinburgh Topping’s, so it really was wonderful to be able to suggest some titles for Katy’s session, and to sit in with her as she went through those selected with the CWAB recipient. The pre-session info sent through was more open this time, so we selected a very wide range of different books to see what resonated. Again, was extremely impressed with Katy’s knowledge and how she communicated useful summaries — you could see how much the reader appreciated this, and how comfortable Katy had made her feel.

This was also the day Stuart let me tidy up the UK travel guide section (one of his) — these are always tricky ones to keep tidy, as there are so many various sizes of books and maps, and so many ways to order everything. As you’ll see, I trialled grouping books by series/ publisher, which looked appealing, but after further discussion with Stuart, who pointed out that people generally wanted to see ALL of the possible guides to a place together, and didn’t often come in with one particular type of guide in mind, I moved everything back into an alphabetical-by-county arrangement. Given I work in a Dept at UCL with cataloguing experts, I did wonder what my colleague Debbie Lee would have said — but am pretty sure she’d have been firmly on Stuart’s side!

On Thursday it was a busy day in the shop, because Luke Adam Hawker and Robert Macfarlane were coming to do an event about their collaboration, Firefly, in the evening, and Luke was decorating the bookshop window! (see his Instagram post here about it!) I was able to go along and ‘help’ — Zoe and Emma and Robert and Stuart had everything very much under control, so my helping really was very light touch, and it was a magical experience hearing Robert read the story to us (something about the way the words sounded when he did so reminded me of the way a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem works — the hearing gives added layers to the way you receive the text).

The church may have been freezing, and the lights went out at one point, but that only added to the occasion — a book about finding glimmers and sparks of illumination in the darkness, in such a setting? Perfect.

Kudos to Emma, too, who is Events Manager at Toppings, and who still came and ran things professionally despite having had major tooth work that same day…booksellers are tough, and very, very committed to what they do!

So, a really varied, busy, wonderful first week! Ready for the next one now — and in my next post I’ll relay more about my interviews with the booksellers, too.

Philip Pullman once called independent bookshops the “lantern bearers of civilisation”, and so this first glimpse of Jaffé & Neale brought that to mind. The next couple of days did not dent that metaphor – but did add more to it, because Polly Jaffé and Patrick Neale not only bring two lifetimes of working with books to the shop, but a wealth of other interests and inspirations, too. This is a place full of energy – I don’t think I ever saw Polly still the whole time I was there – energy for people, for books, for the local community. Both floors of the shop are full of enticingly arranged and carefully curated books, and cards, and other hard-to-resist gift items, -- Moleskine notebooks and diaries, St Eval candles, Angela Harding calendars and cards, for example.

Jaffé & Neale has been a core part of Chipping Norton life since 2001, moving into its current premises in 2006. The vision was, and still is, to provide good books and good customer service, and to create a space where people could meet and chat. On Fridays to Sundays, the bookshop also serves coffee and cakes, giving people more chances to linger and enjoy the location and the bookish ambience.

Jaffé & Neale won Bertram Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2007, at that point being not just a bookshop and café, but also an art gallery and homewares store, a combination of offerings which made it “a great example of the much-vaunted ‘third hub’ concept: a third place beyond home and work where people come to meet, spend time, and indulge in a little light shopping.” It is, The Bookseller Leader article goes on, “no less of a bookseller for being more than a bookseller”, reinvigorating its local community. Though the café’s opening hours have been pared down since Covid, the shop still has an appealing wide range of things to see and browse through, and is, most importantly, somewhere you are welcome to spend time in – or ‘dwell time’ in, a phrase coined to describe our staying behaviours in retail environments. The layout encourages meandering, and discovery, -- with some sections labelled with unusual (but effective!) titles, like ‘Country Matters’, and ‘Worst Journeys’.

In the rare quieter moments, I was there, I had a chance to talk to Patrick, and find out a bit more about Jaffé & Neale’s community collaborations, and their approach to wellbeing: Patrick’s ambition for the bookshop is not to see it expand beyond the current location, but to become even more embedded within the local community. Patrick says, “If a bookshop is functioning, it’s a sign things are going ok in the world.” A bookshop like Jaffé & Neale can bring people together, somewhere they want to spend time: whether that’s via higher-profile events like a Jeremy Clarkson signing, creating a buzz in the town, or acting as a distributor for a local free-range egg supplier, or helping out other local businesses by showing them how developing technologies like chip and pin worked, Patrick and Polly have it covered.

As I write this Bulletin, the Booksellers Association published a Report, The Cultural and Community Role of Scotland’s Bookshops. This well-researched work provides evidence of the place booksellers have in this community-building, and suggests twenty-four recommendations to help ensure Scottish bookshops continue to flourish, because:

“The skilled delivery of cultural enrichment and community support are qualities that cannot be replicated by an algorithm or from a giant automated warehouse” (p.37)

This conclusion is just as applicable to bookshops anywhere in the UK, and Jaffé & Neale certainly fulfil the description of experts contributing more to their local society via selling and celebrating books.

Both Patrick and Polly are very involved in the Booksellers Association – Patrick is a past President, and current bookseller mentor and tutor on the Introduction to Bookselling course, Polly is an Advisory Council Member, and is on the Children’s Bookselling Committee. One key link to my previous research on women booksellers in the mid-twentieth century these visits is revealing is this strong connection many independent booksellers have to the Booksellers Association, and a passion to work to improve the lot of booksellers everywhere, beyond their own shops. Patrick and Polly talk about bookselling as a vocation, and after a few days spent working alongside them this is evidenced in every detail of what they do, be that greeting and helping customers, or unpacking and displaying book deliveries, or talking to publisher reps or local community groups. Bookselling is not for the faint-hearted, but for the big-hearted, and this is a bookshop with huge heart: whilst I was there Polly was at one point sourcing a suitable cocktail recipe for the shop’s forthcoming festive customer evening launching their books of the year, Patrick was talking to an aspiring author, who had come in to tell him about a meeting with a literary agent she’d secured, and both were clearly conducting a masterclass in how to spin many logistical plates whilst still giving customers a warm welcome and attentive service!

Polly and Patrick also make sure that they make their small staff team feel happy: Patrick described it as a “family thing”, with support to people being an organic and natural part of how they operate. Communication is maintained across different shifts by utilising Trello, which helps ensure everyone knows exactly where to find information about things like customer queries or outstanding orders. Patrick is a bookseller with a long history of supporting new technologies and tools for booksellers, and so I am lucky to get some hands-on explanations of how the Batch system operates whilst I am there. Things have certainly moved on since British Books in Print on microfiche was the sole tool for finding books with, when I was last a full-time bookseller! One of the aspects of the bookshop visits I am enjoying the most is the glimpses into the various online tools and systems bookshops now have to help find customers what they are looking for, and to keep their bookshops efficiently stocked.

The digital complements the physical, with the bookshop reflecting what Patrick calls a “shabby chic” aesthetic: lots of wood, and white painted shelves, with highlights in the Jaffé & Neale blue. It is a comfortable space, with plenty to draw the eyes and feet towards. The music playing in the background can be a mix of all sorts, depending on who is on duty – just enough to make a lone browser feel less conspicuous, but not too much so that it intrudes on the browsing experience. (This, I am also fast learning, is an art form in itself!)

At the front of the shop is a huge Anglepoise lamp, one of four special artist-decorated collaborations between Penguin and Anglepoise to celebrate 90 years of Penguin and the Anglepoise Original 1227 Desk Lamp. The one currently on display in Jaffé & Neale is by Supermundane – if you are quick you can bid on this (or one of the others) in the online charity auction which ends on the 30th November.

This lamp seemed to be a perfect metaphor for Jaffé & Neale. Less lantern, and more what this Anglepoise represents: a combination of stability, reliability, and practicality with creativity, quirkiness and fun.

This entry also appeared on BookBrunch today

Their values, too, give them a “compass”, as they put it, for every decision they make:

We are champions for nature: We champion an understanding of the natural world and the benefits it brings, for the land, sea and self.

We are a placemaker in our community: We are at the heart of the community, providing a forum for conversation, discussion and learning.

We are kind: We treat people with kindness, respect and value. Our shop is a safe and welcoming space for all.

We are sustainable in all we do: We aim to be as sustainable as we can in our business and how we work.

We are joyful: We celebrate our people, our interests and our community through conversation, laughter and shared interest

I had been looking forward to this visit so much — but had steeled myself, also, for the reality not to be as great as I had built it up to be from what I had gleaned from social media feeds. My own instincts having been blunted by a particularly challenging few years at work, and exhaustion from what seemed like constant crisis management, meant the chance to visit somewhere that boldly stated that joy and kindness were core seemed too good to be true. But - but. If anything, Folde not only lived up to expectations, but gave added layers of impact, not least because of the embedded way the shop works within the network of other independent small businesses in Shaftesbury.

There was Pamplemousse, a café and flower shop, serving cake and coffee in amongst beautiful blooms; Ecco Gelato, supremo ice cream parlour; The Potting Shed, where Nick sells the most creatively chosen plants and gardening goods; The Botanical Candle Co., selling scented hand-poured soy candles and all kinds of covetable gifts, and The Kitchen Table, where Sarah has collected an impressive selection of cookbooks and kitchen equipment.

These are only the few places I had time to visit – there are plenty more to explore – but what is so striking is the way that this ecosystem of businesses work positively to cross-promote what they do. Mention Karen or Amber’s name to anyone in these other shops, and smiles and enthusiastic praise for them and their achievements is the response. And there is practical synergy, too. The packing paper which comes to Folde in the boxes of book orders is kept in a sack which, when full, is then walked over to the Botanical Candle Co.’s workshop, where it is recycled for their own wrapping of orders. Folde does not stock cookbooks, referring people instead to The Kitchen Table. In a space where every inch matters, being able to specialise but give customers information about where else they can try for books generates heart and purpose.

As I arrived in Shaftesbury, the new Folde space greeted me — this was the day the new sign was being painted onto the building upstairs from the existing shop, so an auspicious beginning to my visit! The new space should be ready for opening by the middle of this month — and having been shown round by Amber, it’s looking beautiful inside: same soft green painted walls as the original space, with lots of light, and plenty of room for the bookcases and storage needed. It will also feature furniture and objects brought second-hand and sourced from friends and family, just as the current shop does. Amber told me that this is important to them: not only because of their commitment to sustainability, but also because pre-loved pieces gave the place energy, history, and a sense of homeliness and welcome.

I could not have been made more welcome: although I’d only popped in to get my bearings on that arrival day, Amber gave me a tour, a list of local places to visit, recommendations for good coffee and food, and leaving me feeling already cocooned in warmth and friendliness. The next day saw me ready for whatever I could do to help: I had a pinny waiting for me to put on (these are a key part of the Folde ethos, and was honestly so thrilled to be allowed to don one!) and was soon learning the ropes of the till system from Louise, who told me about her history with the shop, and with Amber and Karen. Louise’s story, and her praise for the way she is treated at Folde, was incredibly moving. The shop’s impact on the wellbeing of staff is very clearly both real and life-enhancing, and that is something to celebrate. This may be a small shop with little space for staff (although this is about to change with the additional room upstairs) — but it shows that the total environment matters more, including the support and trust given to the team by the managers, and how valued they feel.

After closing time, it was the annual stock-take, and a chance to pitch in with some practical assistance — it’s been a fair few years since I’ve taken part in one of these, but the principles and process are the same: pull off lists of stock in all categories that is supposed to be in hand, and then check these against the reality in the shop. Given how much non-book stock Folde holds, and how much of this is squirrelled away in places someone who has only been there a day would not know about, I plugged away at the book sections I could see in the shop, whilst Amber, Karen, and Kevin (Amber’s partner) tackled the Herculean task of the rest.

It’s testimony to the tight control maintained over the stock that there were very few glitches found, and books were not only correct on the system, but were also in excellent condition. I remember from my time at Hammick’s that a stock take would be a good time to find damaged books and weed these out, but I didn’t find a single one of these at Folde. It is also an excellent way to get thoroughly acquainted with the holdings, so (at least as far as the book stock was concerned!) by the next day I was much better equipped to find things which customers enquired about! It was also good to be part of the team, dining in shifts on microwaved but excellent macaroni cheese, and listening to 80s music as we worked.

I left just after 10pm, but the others stayed to finish off — a long day’s work, but stocktake completed in one evening. And no customers affected! Next year, with the expanded range and space, it’s going to take more time than that to accomplish — but it will be exciting to see how much bigger the range of books and artwork will be!

On Thursday, I had the chance to be part of the (in)famous Folde Thursday Lives. Slightly terrified in case I messed up this joyous, freewheeling (“there is a script!” — Karen) half hour online session, and/or fell off the stool I was perched upon (they really do not have much room to stage manage this in!), I nevertheless got swept along in the energy Karen and Amber generated. “Say words, Sam” said Amber. And I found some. And you know what? As I am re-discovering on these bookshop visits, talking about books and recommending reads to people magically makes all self-consciousness fall away. Just as with doing that CWAB at Toppings, or talking about Patrick O’Brien with Will at Sam Read, telling Folde’s online viewers about a few books I’d loved, and my father had enjoyed, was magic. You can see the full session if you click here.

It was a full day, with some serendipitous happenings — like discovering that another of the Folde team, Annabel Turner is the same Annabel I went to school with, handing over to her as Head Girl when I left, and that one of the artists Folde stocks is Sarah Robinson, — who was in the same class as me at school! Small world. (PS Sarah’s work is beautiful!)

I also met more of the shop’s regular dog visitors (Karen and Amber keep a jar of treats behind the counter, — and clearly they know exactly where to go to find them!) — and customers. There was an intriguing to and fro with a chap who came in for some of the gorgeous Glover and Smith jewellery, (available online via Folde here) — he hoped these “would do the trick”. We speculated about what exactly he had done to necessitate such a statement present . . .Then there was Johnny, a local artist, who compared Folde to being like a delicatessen — full of artisan, special finds you wouldn’t come across elsewhere. He said he often visits Folde to get inspiration for his own art from the book jackets — and talked about how a shop like this is also an inclusive, accessible art gallery for people. This view was echoed later on when Melanie Tyrrell, the Faber rep, dropped in, and declared Folde a “beacon of culture”.

Karen underlined the importance of their events programme in this kind of accessibility — Folde and The Kitchen Table put on around 40 events a year between them in Shaftesbury, giving people opportunities to connect with each other and learn about topics they wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to, and they have helped run the local literary festival, Reading the Land, which celebrates nature writing.

In the two days I was in the shop, I lost count of the amount of people who came in to chat to Amber and Karen, or to suggest ways of connecting with other businesses or communities — and the interest in what was going to happen in the new space was intense. The affection for Folde, and the people who work there, is palpable.

As Amber said, “it is a space for people for whatever they need”; a place for them to stop and breathe for a bit; “community is always important”. This belief goes beyond the shop and its events, however: Folde is also a vehicle for amplifying issues like the Right to Roam movement, the call for a close season for hare hunting, or the campaign to put swift bricks in new houses. Amber and Karen are active champions for nature: they are also active champions for indie bookshops, and are keen supporters of the work of the Booksellers Association, with Amber a member of the Sustainability Advisory Group. Both Karen and Amber have served as judges for the Wainwright prize (Amber in 2023 and Karen in 2024), and Folde was named Independent Bookshop of the Year for the South West in 2024, and a finalist this year, too. It’s quite an honour roll for a bookshop that’s only been running for less than five years!

“Two-way interaction — between business and customer — is transformed into something deeper and broader: by weaving a net of community and connecting members of it with each other, businesses set in motion a conversation that moves far beyond the boundaries of a simple selling proposition.” Mary Portas, Rebuild: How to Thrive in the Kindness Economy, p. 109.

Folde — and by extension, Shaftesbury — is a great example of the Kindness Economy in action. Amber’s mantra, “Be useful, be fair, be kind” a directive she and Karen manifest in Folde’s management. There is a new book, Firefly, by Robert Macfarlane and Luke Adam Hawker, released just before I visited Folde. It’s all about seeking out sources of light when we find ourselves in literal or metaphorical dark times. Trust me, if you are in need of some of that, a visit to Folde will help push those shadows back.

“There is joy in bookselling and tremendous satisfaction in living with books, in meeting the people who write them, publish them, and best of all, buy them.” Thomas Joy, The Bookselling Business, p. 61.

On Tuesday morning, having taken full advantage of the amazing breakfast at Beck Allan’s Guesthouse, I was ready for a day at the bookshop! Will was already there and the shop was open, and although there was more of a flo than an ebb of people coming in and out, he was still able to find time to talk me through some of the systems, and the practical tasks of the day to day running of the place.

When space is such a precious commodity, deliveries arrive directly into the shop, and are unpacked behind the counter as and when time allows. Helping to put the books away, I was reminded again how this helps immensely with getting to grips with what titles are stocked, and where they are. You take in far more than just the books you are finding room for on the shelves, — it reawakened long unused memory muscle, enhanced by covers and titles recognised from past library and bookshop work.

Lessons from then — don’t cram books in so much it’s hard for someone to get them out, don’t pull books from the shelves by the tops of their spines — are still very clear in my head. Moving books around where possible to create space for others is a continuous puzzle I found I still enjoyed doing. It’s also amazing that despite good sales each day, Sam Read’s shelves never seemed to show the evidence in gaps . . .!

But with so many new ones to add to the holdings there were some hitches. Someone came in and asked for J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, and my still-getting-up-to-speed brain headed over to the nature writing section and hovered over Ronald Blythe’s Akenfield. Cue confused moment. Fortunately Will arrived and directed the customer over to fiction, where a copy obviously was. D’oh! I will now NEVER get those mixed up again, though!

Will’s ability to know without checking whether a title was in stock — and where to find it — was a constant source of respect. I learned so much just from shadowing him as he helped people, and by the end of the week I was able to locate a few things on my own. These might have been the more obvious items, like the Wainwright boxed set (beautiful! and a bargain at £79.95), or Beatrix Potter titles, or road atlases, but still. The sheer pleasure of matching someone with what they had come in for is so satisfying. It’s one of the aspects of being a bookseller I love the most.

Sam Read is, as Will confirms, “deeply rooted” in the local community. Partly because of its history, partly because of its central village location, but also, vitally, because of the connections Will and Polly have built with the people.

“It is no uncommon thing for people to go from shop to shop, supposedly in quest of something different. Actually they are searching for a sympathetic salesman, a friendly person who will try to understand their problems. I know of no section of the whole retail trade where companionableness is so essential as in bookselling.” S. L. K., ‘Letters to Susan (VIII): Companionableness’, The Bookseller, Oct 14th, 1943, p. 360.

There was the man who came in to give Will an old map of Grasmere he’d found under an old carpet: a map with Sam Read Bookseller’s logo and address on the top, probably dating back to the early twentieth century. And the lady who came in to give Will a small stack of play scripts — plays that had been put on in the village hall, some starring Helen Read, Sam’s daughter. . . Others came in to chat, pick up orders, or bring their own stories with them from far away places. One South African tourist told us how her mother had been to university with Wilbur Smith — others talked of bookshops in their home towns they were fond of. You pick up so much more than just information about books in a bookshop — especially one with so much history running through it.

On Tuesday evening, I caught the bus from Grasmere to Ambleside, where the University of Cumbria has a campus. Polly gave a talk which wove research on Dorothy Wordsworth and her experience of sickness around personal observations of owls and poetry. It was full of ideas, and references to poems that made me itch to get back and look them all up — the layers of theme and interplay of the personal and the objective worked brilliantly. Her book, The Company of Owls, just out in paperback, is also superb.

On Wednesday morning it was Kim Tillyer’s turn to host me (as a less owl-like, more cuckoo-like presence!) which she did with patient kindness and warmth. A talented artist, Kim’s book on cyanotype is on sale in the bookshop, as well as cards of her work:

I got the chance to meet up with Will over some lunch and a coffee, and begin to go through my research questions with him. His path to bookselling had similarities to mine, in that it was during his gap year that he got his first job (as a Christmas temp) at Ottakar’s in Bury St Edmunds (my gap year was spent working for Hammick’s, in Tunbridge Wells) — before picking it back up again, part-time, once he was at Nottingham University doing his English and American Literature degree, with Blackwell’s there. Staying on at Nottingham to do an MA and then a PhD, and then part-time teaching at the University, Will remained with Blackwell’s, eventually becoming responsible for the mail order side, and also picking up some summer internships with the Hay Festival. All of these experiences helped expand his experience of the wider book/ publishing world, and so when he met Polly, and they moved to Grasmere, he was able to keep working part-time at Wearings Bookshop in Ambleside alongside some teaching at Birmingham University.

(sidebar note: went down research rabbit-hole trying to find out more information about Wearings, found several other unrelated fascinating articles a search in The Bookseller threw my direction, including a Christmas play skit from 1951 called ‘Cinderella’s Bookshop’. . . and here we are, another hour later. There are perils — and sometimes pearls — in bookshop history work!)

When Wearings folded, Will was taken on by Elaine Nelson, then the owner of Sam Read, and he gradually built up his days in the shop until, several years later, she retired and offered to sell the business to Will and Polly. Will had also been taken on as a book review correspondent for Cumbria Life, and a paperback previewer for The Bookseller, extending his already encyclopedic book knowledge; he has also become increasingly involved in the work of the Booksellers Association, as a member of their Advisory Council.

Will’s sense of Sam Read’s place in the community is clear and strong: he talked to me about the tension of keeping customers happy, some who are into the third generation of a family coming to the shop, and also those transient tourists who need to find something new and unexpected in amongst the more predictable ‘bread and butter’ guidebooks and classics. But his community-based work goes beyond Grasmere, and through his freelance writing and the activity with the Booksellers Association, he is making a mark on a much wider book-trade set of people.

On the Wednesday evening, I had a chance to share my findings of some amazing women booksellers, giving a talk in the village hall to what turned out to be a select few audience members (completely understandable — as it turned out, this was competing with another talk on red squirrels and the launch night of Celebrity Traitors!) — but they shared their own bookselling stories, and asked questions, and no-one fell asleep(!), so I really enjoyed it.

I spent Thursday (and most of Friday morning) back in the shop, gaining in customer serving confidence and knowledge of how everything was organised, and chatting to Will in between tasks and customers. And on Thursday evening I was able to go to the online book club that Will and Polly run; the featured novel was Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings and the discussion was a lively one, with plenty of different views being voiced! Will and Polly are excellent chairs — you can see how the teaching experience has been helpful, but it’s more than that. A reading group needs to feel in a safe space so that everyone has the confidence to participate — this isn’t a classroom, so creating a relaxed atmosphere is key, too.

By the time I (reluctantly) got on the bus back to Windermere to catch my train home, I had a rich harvest of thoughts and experiences to take with me; the warmth and kindness of Will and Polly, Abbi and Kim, and all the other Grasmere people I encountered; the gift of being allowed to connect with the bookshop, and with bookselling again; the beauty of the autumn Lake District; intellectual sparks from Polly’s talk; deep respect for how the bookshop operates, and the impact it has; — this has all had a huge effect on my own wellbeing, and I observed this result on other visitors, too.

I also came home (of course!) with new books to read — and I’m going to finish this post with a poem from one of these (bought from Portobello Bookshop), because it sums up everything better than I can:

Introductions

Some of what we love
we stumble upon—
a purse of gold thrown on the road,
a poem, a friend, a great song.

And more
discloses itself to us—
a well among green hazels,
a nut thicket—
when we are worn out searching
for something quite different.

And more
comes to us, carried
as carefully
as a bright cup of water,
as new bread.

–Moya Cannon, from The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume II (2010)

“There was a roaring in the wind all night;

The rain came heavily and fell in floods. . . ”

Wordsworth, ‘After the Storm’

I arrived in the Lake District late into the evening, and in the ongoing tumult of Storm Amy, which had caused considerable disruption on the train lines. A dramatic and disorienting entry into an area I’d never visited before! After spending the weekend in Windermere, hunkering down in The Hideaway whilst the rain continued and venturing out to explore the village whenever it stopped, I caught the bus on Monday to Grasmere, checked into Beck Allans Guest House, and after a wander around, and a coffee at the amazing Mathilde’s Cafe, it was over to Sam Read Bookseller — enticingly just across the street.

The windows were bedecked with golden autumn leaves, painted by Polly Atkin, who owns the bookshop with her partner, Will Smith. They have owned Sam Read’s since 2023, although Will had been working there for a while before the previous owner, Elaine Nelson, retired and sold the business to them both. Situated in the middle of the village, on a crossroads, on a corner, the windows do act as beacons to people, especially if the weather is slightly less than conducive to pursuing more outdoorsy activities in this stunning landscape.

Sam Read’s story is a fascinating one, and has been captured by Will in his blog: a Victorian who came from little and made a successful life for himself and his family in Grasmere, he built a bookshop business in the village, which moved to the current location in 1895:

The bookshop continued to run, taken up by Sam’s daughter Helen, and then Joyce Cockcroft, W. Griffiths, Dan and Margaret Hughes, before coming to Will and Polly via Elaine Nelson. The custodianship of this space is clearly an important element for Will and Polly: as a building, it is certainly a quirky and challenging one to squeeze all the various elements into (including a small coffee outlet, a bakehouse — plus flats upstairs). The bookshop and its booksellers have also garnered several awards in their history — Times Best Independent Bookshop in 2006, (see The Times, 18 Nov. 2006, p. 16[S3].), Bookshop Finalist for Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2024, Will named as one of the Bookseller’s ten booksellers on their ‘roll of honour’ in 2023, to name just a few.

The moment you step over the threshold, this bookshop surrounds you with a sensory overload of colours, of the smell of books, and of a smorgasbord of tempting titles. . . As you browse the display opposite the counter, and then venture further into the spaces, which open up into another two rooms, you begin to get a sense of the bookselling knowledge which underpins the stock curation here: there are the bestselling new novels, and non-fiction volumes, of course, but Will’s talent for finding and presenting lesser known authors, or smaller publishers, means that there is plenty to explore and be tempted by. On spinners and in displays, order gives way to a light touch organisation which allows for a truly submersive browsing experience: if you have come in for something specific, however, you have only to ask Will or one of his excellent booksellers (I met both Abi and Kim during the few days I was there, and as well as their extremely patient and kind tolerance of my presence, cluttering up the shop, it was clear they also had a deep connection to the shop, and an admirable knowledge of its stock), so both kinds of book-buyer are covered.

I was soon happily getting my bearings, learning where all the different sections were, and shadowing Abi as they served customers. It’s a busy space — locals and tourists are attracted to the shop — it’s also, very much, emphatically a community space. Somewhere people come, an anchor-point in the village; a place to share news, connect to others, and yes, maybe pick up a book or two.

There is not much spare space at all — just enough behind the counter to squeeze in a second fold up chair so I could learn the ropes on the computer system, — every inch that can be used for books is utilised. Non-book items are kept to a necessary minimum — plenty of lovely greetings and post-cards, however, and calendars — and there are clearly delineated sections for Wordsworth, local guidebooks, and Beatrix Potter, which are very popular, as you’d expect. Thanks to Polly’s expertise in poetry, (an award winning poet and writer) that section is amazingly varied (it would put to shame many very much larger bookshops’ poetry selections) — I can’t believe anyone who loves poetry would not come away with some new volumes, having been blown away by the selection. The shelves themselves are a mix of possibly original wooden ones, with newer additions and some Ikea cupboards doubling as a main display table by the front door. Spinners stand wherever they can fit, and the children’s section has an entire wall of picture books, in face out displays held in by perspex strips (and yes, this does make the novice shelver’s experience of trying to add in new stock full of trepidation, in case a whole line comes crashing down!) There are special editions, some with gorgeous spredges, and lots of paperback fiction, including a well-stocked crime section, and a comprehensive choice of nature writing related titles.

By the end of that first afternoon, I had got my bearings, and went back to the guesthouse looking forward to more the next day. . .

Topping & Company Booksellers, Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s visits – to Topping’s, and to the Portobello Bookshop – were short but nonetheless deeply impactful. Toppings is an indie bookshop chain that I am very familiar with, as Ely, where I live, has one of their bookshops, and it’s a place I visit often. So I was particularly keen to investigate their other locations: the branch in Edinburgh is bigger than the Ely one, situated in an old bank, on the corner of Leith Place and Blenheim Walk, in a Grade A-listed William Playfair building. At 4000 square feet, with the capacity to hold around 70000 books, it is a behemoth — and impossible to miss (a relief for this geographically challenged seeker as I made my way up the road from Waverley station, buffeted by rain and by the torrents of people rushing to work).

And yet, intimidating as it was in size, the reassuringly familar blue painted doors and ‘Topping and Company Booksellers’ sign made me feel instantly at home. (comparison picture of the Ely store below)

Greeted at the door by those booksellers on the opening shift, I was soon happily helping with the vacuuming upstairs, which gave me the chance to orientate myself a bit before people began to throng the shelves.

The first floor is full of different sized spaces, with enticing rounded walls in some, and corridors which lead you to yet more rooms full of books . . . it was like being in a big book burrow. Maybe this sense of being wrapped around by the bookshelves helps people feel comfortable — it certainly did me — but I could also see how bewildering it could be for people who feel intimidated by books.

However, this possibility is offset by the situating of tables and stools in window recesses, and by shelf-ends, and by the non-intrusive service offered by the booksellers. Duncan Furness underlined the Topping’s philosophy of seeing people not as customers, but as browsers. Once you understand this, you are free to enjoy the experience the bookshop offers, and potter in peace.

Shelving soon tested my book muscles — both physically and intellectually! To start with I was wary of those famous Topping’s wooden library ladders, but by the end of the day was scooting up them to put books away, and the floor to ceiling shelves certainly make room for a mind-boggling range of titles and sections. It’s the first time I’ve come across the practice of saving space by shelving duplicates of titles face out behind the run of spine-front books in front of them, too. In a shop this big, it does need a constant check to make sure these hidden titles do not get forgotten about — I did find a few which didn’t have a counterpart visible to the browser’s eye. . .

A shop this big has the capacity to have sections and sub-sections on diverse topics, making shelving a challenge for the novice, but it is without a doubt the best way to learn about stock and range, and to notice what is selling. My proudest moment was being asked for a children’s picture book — and finding it! — and having that boost that putting a reader in touch with the title that they want gives you.

Another one of Topping’s practices is the wrapping of dustjackets in clear film: it’s been a fair few years now since I last did book-jacketing as a library assistant, but I was impressed with the new (at least to me!) type of jacketing which can be shaped without the need for tape or scissors, and once my fingers had learned the technique, I was very happy to be given the chance to cover some of the new hardbacks (bungling a couple to begin with, honesty pushes me to admit!)

I was also given the chance to sit in on a CWAB, or Coffee With A Bookseller, session. You can buy a voucher for one of these literary consultancy sessions, and then have an hour or so with a bookseller, over a cup of tea or coffee, going through a stack of recommended titles they’ve curated for you. I absolutely loved this — Mary, the bookseller I was sitting with, was brilliant — she’d tapped into what her reader had enjoyed before, and talked so helpfully and enthusiastically about each title, giving the rest of us chance to chip in and make comments too, that the hour flew by. We left the reader with the tea and the pile of books so that she could make her own choices with no pressure, and in her own time. I really appreciated Mary’s expertise, clear love for the books she’d chosen, and the lesson it gave about how impactful a chat about books can be!

Duncan made time for me to interview him (more on that to follow!) — so the day was a packed one, full of experiences I will carry with me over the coming months. This is an exceptionally well-run bookshop, with knowledgeable, friendly, committed staff. A real pleasure to be able to take part in it for a day!

The Portobello Bookshop

The next morning I was able to catch Jack Clark (owner) and Selena Jeskanen (manager) from the Portobello Bookshop, to talk to them about the ethos behind what their approach was and is to running this sassy and smart space by the sea. This indie, which, like Toppings Edinburgh, also opened in 2019, is beautifully designed. Jack tells the story of how the shop came to be —- the old tackle shop stripped back to reveal some original features, like the columns which surround the central serving area, — and how it’s been configured so that most of the shelving units can be easily moved around to create event space. There is cute children’s area, with teepee and reading nooks; community noticeboards, and upholstered armchairs to rest in. The light and use of colour give your eyes something exciting to see in every direction, drawing you into the shop . . .

The window display is an artwork by Jana Middleton, called One Point. Intricately swathed book pages ask the question: Where does it all begin?

“Made from pages of books and vintage amusement tickets, the piece spirals outward like a rollercoaster track or skate trail, reflecting the rhythm of stories and games. It’s a nostalgic landscape of imagination, where memory, motion, and narrative all begin from a single point.”

There was something entirely appropriate and synergetic about this, given that this research trip is a winding, pinballing set of visits across the country to places familiar and new, with a backtrack of my own nostalgic memories of bookselling combining with learning about new practices and initiatives!

What impressed me particularly about Porty Books is the emphasis both Jack and Selena put on staff wellbeing. The staff space is very well thought out for a bookshop, with comfortable seating away from the shop floor, and a recognition that staff may need (and should have access to) somewhere to have lunch or a coffee, and decompress after busy periods. This ethos of care runs through the shop like words in seaside rock — we talked about Jack’s wish that the shop should have a “less transactional” relationship with its visitors, and that it should function as a place to meet people, a safe space for the community; Selena referenced third spaces, drawing parallels between the bookshop and these rarer-to-find-these-days locations where people can meet and talk, outside of the home or workplace.

The shop puts on a vibrant events programme — and gives away some free tickets where possible. There are workshops, and late night openings, close relationships with local schools, and support for book drives. Opportunities to work with local businesses are eagerly seized, and there is a healthy cross-pollination of recommendations with neighbouring shops and cafes. This is a place with a social conscience, exactly the kind of business Mary Portas talks about when she’s outlining what the Kindness Economy means:

“The Kindness Economy is a movement for how consumer culture needs (and wants) to change. The landscape of how people buy, sell, make and live has to change. We need social progress to go hand in hand with commerce.”

Mary Portas, How to Thrive in the Kindness Economy, p. xii

When I left to catch my train, I was replete with a tote bag of books AND many reflections to explore further in the coming weeks.

Edinburgh is a city with several brilliant indie bookshops, and I hope to return and visit some more soon, if budget and time allows — in Toppings and Porty Books I definitely had great examples of both large and small(ish) varieties: bookselling is in very secure, safe, exciting hands here, that’s for sure!

So, it will be a kind of relief to be off next week for the first of the bookshop visits, and to literally have to leave all that behind for a while. I also had a substantial piece of academic work to review as well, which helped focus, and it’s been a big week for bookshop news, so that’s also underlined the timeliness of the research and the purpose of the bookshop connections.

Last weekend was the annual Booksellers Association Conference in Hinkley, and, from reading all the reports and social media posts so far, it was a significant one, with some key talks from Meryl Halls and Fleur Sinclair, — who both highlighted the growing and very worrying rise in the harassment of booksellers amongst other challenges bookshops face. Four hundred and seventy booksellers attended, according to Amber Harrison from Folde, with 70 of those being new booksellers. That’s very encouraging.

From the bits of posts I have gleaned, too, Mary Portas was talking about EXACTLY what I will be researching — ie how booksellers represent the Kindness Economy — so was very sorry to have missed that, but on the other hand, HOW TIMELY!! And, without realising it, next week also sees the official publication date of her new book, I Shop Therefore I Am — and she’ll be coming to Ely to do a book signing and event on the 3rd, so that’s twice I’ll miss her. . . Sigh. Still, given that I will be in bookshops for most of the next two weeks, it’s a pretty sure bet that I’ll be coming home with a copy!

Just before the Conference, The Bookseller announced the Bookshop Heroes of 2025 — 14 booksellers who show “commitment to their communities and a constant search for fresh ideas to keep 21st-century bookselling relevant.” Thirteen names on this list are new to me, so I am looking forward to finding out more about them:

• Lily Baron, Book Space Cardiff

• Helen Cockburn & Irene Humphrey, Green Pastures Bookshop

• Ross Denby, Pages N’ Pixels

• Louisa Earls, Books Upstairs

• Nadia Jones, South London Gallery Bookshop

• Bronwynne Malone, Hubb16

• Ren McGuicken, PaperxClips

• Jenny Moore, How Brave Is the Wren

• Tom Owen, Gay on Wye

• Natasha Radford, Chicken and Frog

• Elaine Sinclair, Daydreams Bookshop

• Courtney Terwilliger, The Enchanted Spine

• Amanda Truman, Truman Books

This morning was a crisp, sunny, golden autumn morning here, and looking forward to the week ahead, I popped into the Cathedral for a few minutes of reflection. For some reason today, instead of focussing on the colours coming in through the stained glass, and looking up at the awe-inspiring structures above, my attention was caught by the floor. I hadn’t noticed before how in places it is made up of a hotch-potch of various sized flagstones, all worn and dented by centuries of feet passing over them, but all fitting together in a pattern that had its own quiet beauty and power.

I thought that held its own message: pieces don’t have to be the same shape, or colour, or size, to come together to make something that works. To create a gathering that says everyone is welcome — there is a place for you all.

Books in a bookshop can do this too. And that’s the message that all of the booksellers and bookshops being talked about this week successfully share. As Fleur Sinclair said at the BA Conference, “Our shop doors are open for absolutely anyone to walk through them”.

Especially now, that feels like a very important claim to support.

It's an auspicious time to begin this: the Booksellers Association annual conference begins tomorrow, and in yesterday’s Bookseller there was a wonderful article by Meryl Halls and Fleur Sinclair (BA MD and President, respectively) entitled ‘Why bookselling is everyone’s business’. So this, in essence, is exactly what I am investigating in the coming months:

The contemporary bookshop is a community hub, a creative industries epicentre and a launchpad for the readers of today and tomorrow. The bookseller of 2025 is an innovative entrepreneur, a grassroots community builder and a skilled curator.

What are the various ways indies are creating these gathering spaces? And can I try and capture why and how bookshops help some people feel safe, or de-stressed, or joy?

I’ve been involved in wellbeing work as part of my day-job, and this means I’m especially interested in the ways books and book-spaces can impact on our health. I also know that for many people, these spaces can signify stress and anxiety, and given the sharp decline in reading across all ages at the moment, would like to explore ways to reduce that. As this year unfolds, it will take in the progress of the National Year of Reading which will pull this conundrum into sharp focus; this will provide a constant backdrop to my research.

There’s also a very personal element to all this, too: my very first ‘proper’ Saturday job (I grew up on a farm, so the fruit and hop-related holiday work I did there seemed to count less!) was at the local town library, and I loved it. Another Samantha and I split the Saturdays between us – I did the mornings, and she did the afternoons – and I was convinced I wanted to be a librarian. Shelving, serving the customers, covering the books – it was all good. And then when I found I needed to take a gap year before going to university, I got a job at my nearest Hammick’s bookshop (more on Hammick’s will follow – a medium-sized chain which got swallowed up by others, and so has now disappeared) and spent that time (and every university holiday afterwards) learning the bookselling ropes under the expert guidance of a manager who knew the book trade extremely well. I’ve also done short stints at Galloway & Hodgson in Bangor (now also no more) and Blackwell’s at Reading University . . .and although life drew me away to follow other career paths, including secondary school teaching, everything has come together in my work as a university lecturer, teaching a module to students on bookselling, and looking at bookshops as my major research area.

It's been an eclectic and far from straightforward road that’s brought me to this point, but bookshops and libraries have always been constants. So I am very excited to have this chance to do some deep dives into indies in the coming months – I’ll be travelling around the UK, working alongside booksellers where they will have me, and seeing how they create the connections with their customers and maintain these communities, these gatherings, as well as running as viable businesses.

I’d love it if you’d keep me company on my travels via this sub-stack, and feedback, share your own stories, advise and correct me if I get things wrong . . .

My first trips are to Edinburgh and then Grasmere (Portobello Books, Toppings, and Sam Read Bookseller) starting at the end of this month, so stay tuned as I prepare for that in the coming days!

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