Balancing the books: how Waterstones came back from the dead

The chain of booksellers has announced its first profit in years – thanks in part to a bold decision to run each branch like a local bookshop Late on Thursday afternoon, would-be wizards across the UK dropped what they were doing to join the professors of Hogwarts for Harry Potter night. At 6pm in the basement of Waterstones’ six-storey London Piccadilly building, staff were scurrying around with bowls of jellybeans and bottles of raspberry lemonade, but the Harrys and Hermiones were nowhere to be seen.A couple of elderly customers looked faintly disgruntled to find their favourite section shut for a private party. Two young sisters, Alex, 11, and eight-year-old Polly, fidgeted by the closed door clutching a box of quidditch balls, while Yang, a 22-year-old physics student from Korea, appeared baffled. Related: A Twitter love story: the woman who wed @WstonesOxfordSt Related: Waterstones children’s book prize 2016 shortlists - in pictures Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2017-02-03 00:00:00 UTC ]

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