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Bath bookshop band puts novel storylines to music

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Link leads to short, recommended BBC News video in which The Bookshop Band and the owner of Mr Bs Emporium of Reading Delights bookshop in Bath (one of our first indie bookshop features) are interviewed:

A bookshop in Bath has started entertaining customers by getting a band to create songs based on storylines of their books.

The Bookshop Band was formed to write songs for special writer events – all based around the story of the book.

via BBC News – Bath bookshop band puts novel storylines to music.

Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to.

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This Slate piece explores “the shifting sands of physical bookselling, where the biggest losers are not—as was once assumed—the independent booksellers, but rather the large book chains”:

Slate

Independent bookstores never had to answer to the dictates of public markets. Many of their proprietors understood, intuitively and from conversations with customers, that a well-curated selection—an inventory of old and new books—was their primary and maybe only competitive advantage. In the words of Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, “The indie bookselling amalgam of knowledge, innovation, passion, and business sophistication has created a unique shopping experience.”

Teicher is hardly a neutral observer, but the revival of independents can’t be statistically denied. Not only have numbers of stores increased, but sales at indies have grown about 8 percent a year over the past three years, which exceeds the growth of book sales in general. One of the strongest categories last year and into this year is hardcover nonfiction, and that has not been the most robust area for Amazon-dominated e-books. Amazon’s sales have been strongest in mass-market fiction. No independent bookstore could thrive on mass-market softcover sales.  Instead, they do well with hardcovers, illustrated children’s books, cookbooks, and the like. And while indies cannot compete with Amazon’s inventory, Amazon evidently cannot supplant indies as shopping and social experiences.

via Independent bookstores rising: They can’t compete with Amazon, and don’t have to..

A love letter to local bookshops

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DailyLife

Dom Knight mourns the closure of one of Australia’s independent bookshops:

Great neighbourhood bookshops have an essential quality which cannot be replicated by any other means of book purchasing: taste. Looking across the impeccably neat piles of books arranged just inside the door of an excellent bookshop, and you will see dozens of utterly enticing books, with delightful covers and intriguing premises. You mightn’t have heard of the authors before, but in many cases, you soon will.

This is because good booksellers not only know what weare reading, and what wemight want to read, but what we should be reading. They put their favourite books out in prime positions, because they believe in them and hope somebody will discover them. More often than not, this is because they’ve actually read them themselves, and fallen in love with them.

via A love letter to local bookshops.

Nomad Books – Indie Bookshops Feature #9

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Nomad Books on the Fulham Road is a large independent bookshop with a cafe and basement room that can be hired for functions.

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Its children’s section is particularly spacious and impressive – no surprise really, as it is currently overseen and managed by a bookseller who previously worked for the Lion and Unicorn children’s bookshop. There are storytelling sessions each Monday and Friday afternoon.

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Look at this wonderful display table of World Cup related titles:

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I had paid my first visit to the new Foyles flagship store the previous evening and whilst being on the whole impressed I lamented the absence of comfortable seating (the new Foyles has only uncushioned backless benches to sit down on). So I was very pleased to see that at Nomad Books reader and browser comfort is given high priority:

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It was late in the afternoon on the day of my visit and the shop was in the middle of a busy week, and in between two significant events.

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This ninth indie bookshop visit had been difficult to pre-arrange, as the email address advertised on the website proved not to be the email address that is checked by staff. In the end, as I was in the area, I did what I have not done previously, and turned up unannounced. Apart from not having heard of the ACHUKA blog before, the counter staff were perfectly happy – when they eventually tracked down my original email (sent multiple times) – to let me spend some time in sucking up the vibe and taking photos.

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Nomad Books was opened in 1990 by Harriet, who remains an active owner. Acc0rding the the site’s staffing page, the shop is managed on a day-to-day basis by Andrew. There are five other members of staff listed and certainly something that struck me on my visit was the number of people on site (probably double that of a similar sized Waterstones): this included Hannah on the cafe counter, and a cleaner who was busy dusting and tidying.

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I liked the care and thought given to the various book displays.

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And the way in which, as in all good independent bookshops, a title catches the eye that you have not come across or even necessarily been aware of before:

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One of the booksellers, Mark, has a background in graphic design, and he conducts a drawing workshop each week, downstairs in the Reading Room:

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The cafe is spacious (plenty of room for pushchairs) and well-frequented, with daily papers provided.

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The remaining photos will give you a further feel for this really pleasingly furnished bookshop.

Definitely a must-visit whenever you are near the Fulham Road.

Nearest underground: Parsons Green

But also a pleasant stroll from Fulham Broadway.

The shop stocks just the right amount of secondary merchandise…

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But the books hold centre stage…

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Muswell Hill Children’s Bookshop Up For Sale

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MuswellHillAfter 20 years of running this very special bookshop, we have decided that, for family reasons, the time has come to look for a new owner who will build on the shop’s many strengths to take it forward for the next 20 years.  For further details please contact Kate Agnew at the Children’s Bookshop, 020 8444 5500, or John Agnew: john@hmpbooks.demon.co.uk

via Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill – About Us.

Foyles’ new flagship bookstore in London

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FTMag

Good intro to the new Foyles bookshop, by the FT’s architecture critic, Edwin Heathcote

When we enter the new building, Lifschutz points out the old stage in the atrium where the Sex Pistols once played. Now it will be an overflow area for the children’s book section. This was the school where fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Stella McCartney and John Galliano as well as artists Frank Auerbach and Gilbert and George studied, a warren of dingy corridors and paint-splashed, timeworn rooms. That interior is gone, replaced by a light, bright, open space with staggered mezzanines, so it is always possible to glimpse the next level, half a floor above you. There is no luxury shopfitting here, no confusion with the smooth artifice of a fashion store or a mall. Instead there are 4.6 miles of bookshelves, exposed ducting and lights in the ceilings and an emphasis on books as beautiful, tangible objects. It is a building of exceptional clarity, a fine series of spaces – even if I might have been happy to see something scuzzier, retaining an echo of the original Foyles’ chaos or the colour-spattered walls of the art school.
This is, of course, not just a place for books. Modern retailing, as we are endlessly told, is about the experience. And Foyles was in the vanguard of “added value”. The readings, book clubs, literary lunches and events have been happening here since the 1920s. With a spacious glass-walled new gallery overlooking the atrium and the reinstatement of Ray’s jazz café, Foyles and the architects have made every effort to make this Lifschutz’s place where things can happen.

via Foyles’ new flagship bookstore in London – FT.com.

Halls Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells handed over to new owner | Kent and Sussex Courier

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Sabrina Izzard, owner of Halls antiquarian bookshop in Tunbridge Wells, is retiring after over 30 years as proprietor, having succeeded Elizabeth Batemena in 1983. The new owner is Adrian Harrington, who is currently carrying out refurbishment work on the shop.

courier

“SOMETIMES I hear people saying they’d like to open a bookshop when they retire,” said Sabrina Izzard.

“But that idea’s a complete non-starter – it’s far too energetic for that.”

Looking back on more than 30 years as proprietor of Hall’s Bookshop in Chapel Place, Tunbridge Wells, she said: “I’ve crawled through rafters where the dust was an inch thick, climbed up wobbly steps into attics to lug down box after box of books, and been into cottages where the lights were so dim you could hardly see.”

http://www.courier.co.uk/Halls-Bookshop-Tunbridge-Wells-handed-new-owner/story-21108005-detail/story.html

Independent bookshops call for government to crack down on Amazon’s taxes

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Danny Van Emden, of West End Lane Books, West Hampstead, said: “We have to pay our taxes so why shouldn’t they? We sometimes get customers browsing, asking for recommendations, and then say they’re going to buy on Amazon instead because it’s cheaper.

“It’s incredibly frustrating. But the longer this kind of thing goes on the more I think customers become fed up of feeding the beast that Amazon represents. We get sentiments of solidarity from our customers now.”

Michael Goodwin, owner of Highgate Bookshop, Highgate High Street, also felt frustrated. “Amazon is 
undercutting businesses in a dramatic fashion so it’s incredibly unfair that it doesn’t pay the same level of taxes we pay,” he said. “We’re lucky – we have many loyal customers who understand that you can’t have a local bookshop and shop at Amazon. But we still need a level playing field.”

via Independent bookshops call for government to crack down on Amazon’s taxes – News – Hampstead and Highgate Express.

Bookshop owner dies, after decades delighting Richmond’s avid readers

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A much-loved bookshop owner, who had shops in the borough [of Richmond] for most of his life, has died.

John Prescott, who opened the Richmond Bookshop in June 1975, was a lover of books, art and music.

He died aged 88 on April 25 at St George’s Hospital after a fall on Easter Monday.

The book-lover opened up shop in Paradise Road, until he moved his business to the parade next to the police station in Red Lion Street.

via Bookshop owner dies, after decades delighting Richmond’s avid readers (From Your Local Guardian).