It’s Independent Booksellers Week!
The town where I live, Abingdon near Oxford, although not that large, is blessed with not just one, but two independent booksellers:
First, we have The Bookstore, which does a brilliant job selling books and gifts, but is suffering a bit at the moment with the rebuild of the town’s Abbey Precinct – staying open although surrounded by scaffolding, and surviving despite being next door to W H Smith! If you’re local, they particularly need your support at the moment, as footfall is down while the building work is on.
Secondly, there is the prize-winning Mostly Books which has announced a deal today with genre specialists Angry Robot to offer free e-book downloads of their titles when the paper book is bought at the shop. It’s the start of an innovative collaboration between publishers and indie booksellers.
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If you’re visiting an Independent Bookseller this week, you’ll also be able to buy a copy of an exclusive essay by Julian Barnes – A Life with Books. It’s only available in indie bookshops, and a snip at £1.99 – all profits go to charity.
Our last independent bookshop closed last year, but a friend of mine runs one in Much Wenlock so I think this is the week to go and visit her.
I’ve heard good things about Much Wenlock books. Didn’t Simon S do a post on them a while ago?
Yes, I think he did. There was a piece about them in this morning’s Times as well. Anna is going to be so pleased. Do get there if you can, it is really wonderful and there is also a very good secondhand book shop in the town too.
our shop in chesterfield closed a couple of years ago ,all the best stu
Giving free e-copies along with paper books sounds like a good way for “real” books to rise to the book challenge. Personally, I’ve still yet to hold an ebook in my hands: how behind the times am I?
Very! However as a supporter of local “real” bookshops although I have a Kindle I don’t buy any e-books for it.
I have a Kindle too – I’m sure it’ll come into its own if I ever have to travel anywhere with a baggage allowance, but for now it’s there if I need it…
Our independent bookseller http://englandslanebooks.co.uk/ is celebrating by closing down! Fortunately the parent branch survives. Competition from Daunt (which I support except for their stupid “open door” policy which wastes heat and makes the first 3 or 4 metres of their shops unusable in the winter or a wet summer) and I suspect web suppliers/electronic versions of books has killed them off. A big loss to my neighbourhood.
What a shame! You’d have hoped that your area could have supported more than one bookshop …
Well of course it does and perhaps that’s the issue. There are two branches of Daunt within 20 miutes walk plus at least one other independent in Primrose Hill (about 15′ walk).