Bookshop Tours of Britain is a slow-travel guide (by an indie publishing company of course!) that takes you on 18 tours around the country, visiting beaches, castles, coal mines and whisky distilleries, with a little bird-watching, hiking and canoeing thrown in. The book tours journey from the Jurassic Coast, over the mountains of Wales, through England’s industrial heartland, up to the Scottish Highlands and back down through the Norfolk Broads and into London.
- South West of England Coast
- Bath and Bristol
- Oxford and the Cotswolds
- South Wales
- Brecon Beacons, Shropshire & Malvern Hills
- North Wales & Snowdonia
- Peak District
- Industrial Heartlands
- Yorkshire Dales
- Northwest England
- Scotland
- Scottish Borders
- North East of England
- Norfolk & Suffolk Coastlines
- London
- South Downs
- Wessex
Author Louise Boland is a publisher, who first started touring bookshops after founding literary publishing house Fairlight Books. Dedicated to publishing new and emerging writers, it aims to support quality original writing and to produce beautiful books. It is also a keen champion of indie bookshops.
In Praise of Good Bookstores is an eloquent and charming reflection on the importance of bookstores. Beautifully written, Jeff Deutsch (the director of one of the finest indie bookstores in the world in Chicago) pays loving tribute to one of our most important and endangered civic institutions. He considers how qualities like space, time, abundance and community find expression in a good bookstore. And explores why good bookstores matter. Jeff Deutsch is the director of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstores, which he helped incorporate as the first not-for-profit bookstore. He lives in Chicago, USA.
Seven Types of People You Find in Bookshops is a book by an indie bookseller in Scotland, who details his 20 years of people-watching. Step inside to meet a crafty Antiquarian, a shy and retiring book browser and the gormless (but strangely likeable) shop assistant Hugo. Meet the locals!
- Expert
- Young Family
- Occultist
- Loiterer
- Bearded Pensioner
- The Not-So-Silent Traveller
- Family Historian
A teenage girl who had been sitting by the fire reading for an hour, brought three Agatha Christie paperbacks to the counter: the total came to £8. She offered me a fiver and I refused, telling her the postage on Amazon alone would come to £7.40. She wandered off muttering about getting them from the library. Good luck about that: Wigtown library is full of computers and DVDs, and not a lot of books.
A woman spent about 10 minutes looking around the shop, then told me she was a retired librarian. I suspect she thought that this was some sort of a bond between us. Not so. On the whole, booksellers dislike librarians. There is nothing they like more than (with no sense of irony) putting a plastic sleeve over the dust jacket, to protect it from the public’.
Shaun Bythell is Scotland’s grumpiest bookseller! He has run a bookshop since 2001, with his passion matched only by a sense of despair for the future, and an ill-humour inspired by almost 20 years of dealing with confused customers and surly staff. He spends his free time – shooting Amazon Kindles in the wild!
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap is the lovely story of a couple in the US (one originally from Scotland) who as Amazon Kindle was taking off, decided to take to the mountains and set up a second-hand bookstore. Knowing nothing of the business – all they had was themselves, their animal friends and a real love of books. But even though others thought they were mad – not only did they succeed, but they created something else. A community.
Jack and I often engaged in conversation in what we’d do one day, revolving around a recurring theme. ‘We’ll settle down and run a nice bookstore. A used bookstore with a cafe that sells locally-grown food. It will have beautiful wood floors that squeak when you walk across them. Lots of big windows, to let in the sunlight. In a town with tree-lined streets, with lots of foot traffic for people to walk in on impulse. Everyone will love us as colourful local characters. You can wear a baggy sweater and push your glasses up your nose and talk about Scotland. And I can teach at the nearby university and write the great American novel. I talked to a lawyer, gave two weeks notice, and walked away. We owned our house and don’t eat much, so we could call it quits.
This book confirms what I’ve long suspected; that book lovers are good people, and that bookstores are the best places on earth. Add in the elements of pre-loved books, in-love bookstore owners and to-fall-in-love-with local characters, and you have a story to thrill anyone who has ever dreamed of owning a bookstore. A treasure of a book about books. Nina Sankovitch
Authors Wendy Welch and her husband (Scottish folk singer Jack Beck) own and operate Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books in Virginia, USA. An Ethnography PhD (learning about cultures and community), she recovers shelter animals and is one of the world’s fastest crocheters!
