In 2009, two bookshops a week were closing in the UK and the days of physical books seemed numbered. Now, indie stores are booming. What explains the turnaround – and can it be sustained?When Sarah Mullen was asked to set up a children’s book festival in a leafy suburb of Birmingham in 2012, she couldn’t find an independent bookseller to run the bookstall. “So we all rolled up our sleeves and did it ourselves,” she says. Pregnant with her third child, she had recently given up her job as a solicitor to work for the Bournville Village Trust. Mullen’s task was to set up the Bournville BookFest, which ran for 10 years before being brought to a halt by the Covid pandemic. But far from accepting defeat, she rolled up her sleeves once again and “pivoted the whole thing into a bookshop”. Two years on, the Bookshop on the Green is thriving – a living rebuttal to the once widely held idea that the digital era meant certain death for the neighbourhood bookstore.When I visit early on a Friday morning, a turquoise vintage Smith Corona typewriter holds centre stage in the Bookshop on the Green. Beside it stands Bradley Taylor, a poet whose job is to write poems on demand for anyone who asks. He has composed a lot of Batman and football poems for the children who pile in on Saturdays, he says, before sitting down to tap one out for me about the joy of bookshops. In the multitasking tradition of small retailers, Taylor also works in the shop. He made his cosplay debut last month as the... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-07-27 09:00:32 UTC ]
Usborne author PG Bell, creator of the children’s book series The Train to Impossible Places, has partnered with the National Literacy Trust and The Postal Museum on a letter writing project inviting children to share their experiences of the pandemic with future generations. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-13 22:56:51 UTC ]
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Some pleasant news! In honor of “Peace Train”s 50th anniversary, Yusuf/Cat Stevens has announced that the illustrated children’s book Peace Train, using the lyrics of the famous song, will be published May 11th via HarperCollins. It will be followed by a picture book adaptation of Stevens’ song... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-13 17:36:37 UTC ]
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We've got books for the Read Harder task asking you to read a children’s book that centers a disabled character but not their disability. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-01-13 11:32:00 UTC ]
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Scholastic UK has acquired Escape the Rooms, the "dazzling" children’s book debut from actor Stephen Mangan, illustrated by his sister Anita Mangan. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-13 03:30:19 UTC ]
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Bookshop and Libro.fm, which help independent booksellers sell online, reported huge gains in 2020. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-01-08 05:00:00 UTC ]
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The number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland has grown for the fourth consecutive year, the Booksellers Association has confirmed. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-08 03:46:57 UTC ]
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"It's really special that, with a book about female friendship, we have genuinely become friends through doing it,” says Lauren Ace. She is talking about illustrator Jenny Løvlie, and the pair’s début picture book The Girls, which was published in 2018 and went on to win Illustrated Book of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-08 01:57:49 UTC ]
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LESLIE BRODY’S new biography, Sometimes You Have to Lie, describes the life of Louise Fitzhugh, author of the classic children’s book Harriet the Spy. Originally published in 1964 by Harper and Row, Harriet has never been out of print and has inspired multiple adaptations and spin-offs,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-02 13:30:00 UTC ]
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Aged 15 I got a Christmas job at my local bookshop in Battersea so I could save to go interrailing. My parents’ bookshelves were brimming with mostly Black writers: Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chester Himes, Terry McMillan, and I was surrounded by ‘consciousness’... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-30 21:25:59 UTC ]
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Feature image from Akiko Miyakoshi’s I Dream a Journey * I knew things were going to get hard when the library closed. I am, by profession, a writer and a professor of storytelling. I’ve read to my twin children—now four—since their infancy. But as avid readers as we already were, 2020 upped our... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-21 09:49:02 UTC ]
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A committee made up of booksellers and non-managerial staff at Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, Calif., has sent a letter to store owner Casey Coonerty Protti asking her to voluntarily recognize their joining with the Communication Workers of America Local 9423. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-12-11 05:00:00 UTC ]
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It is a truth universally acknowledged . . . that Northanger Abbey is less quotable than Pride and Prejudice. Nevertheless, Northanger Abbey is the latest of Austen’s six novels to be adapted into an illustrated children’s book for the Awesomely Austen: Illustrated and Retold series. The text of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-01 17:54:13 UTC ]
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Nigel Jones, formerly of Ottakar's and the Totnes Bookshop, and his wife Claire Jones, a former W H Smith children's buyer, are to open their own independent bookshop in Totnes, two weeks before Christmas. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-30 12:29:44 UTC ]
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Publishers Nosy Crow and Pan Macmillan have been named winners of the FutureBooks Awards: Best of Lockdown, after the week-long virtual conference which culminated in the awards ceremony. The pair won alongside Bath-based bookshop Mr B’s Emporium, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and academic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-20 02:37:06 UTC ]
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An even busier Bologna Children's Book Fair than in the past will feature a new parallel general-publishing conference, 'BolognaBookPlus.' The post Bologna Children’s Book Fair Joins London Book Fair in Moving to June appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-11-18 13:58:55 UTC ]
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Achins Book Shop and Coffee Shop, thought to be the UK's most remote book retailer, has been sold to new owners six years after appearing on the market. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 05:13:31 UTC ]
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As many on this side of the pond may not know, Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford is currently all that stands between the United Kingdom and compete moral ruination. In a year where a particularly grotesque grotesquerie of Brexiteer Tories consolidated power,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 19:04:34 UTC ]
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New retail website Bookshop.org has been hailed as a “game-changer” by Booksellers Association m.d. Meryl Halls while its founder has said more features are on the way. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-17 09:40:54 UTC ]
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Graphic novel publisher SelfMadeHero is launching a social media campaign calling for artists to support bookshops with a drawing of their favourite store. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-17 06:10:11 UTC ]
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