Drake The Bookshop
Our first bookshop of 2021 was Drake the Bookshop. This quaint and quirky independent, the newest on Teesside, was founded five years ago with a sense of community at its heart. We spoke to Mel, the shop’s manager, to find out more about this cosy and well-loved family-run bookstore. Read our interview here.
The Feminist Bookshop
We headed down to the south coast in February to visit the Feminist Bookshop – an independent bookshop and plant-based café located in central Brighton. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign, the Feminist Bookshop opened in November 2019. It works to support and promote self-identifying female and non-binary writers, creatives and entrepreneurs, as well as stocking a range of books written by and about women. We spoke to Ruth, the store’s founder and manager, to learn more about this inspiring shop and its mission. Read our Q&A here.
Lindum Books
Nestled on the historic Bailgate in Lincoln’s Cathedral Quarter, Lindum Books offers a carefully curated selection of new and old books in a charming browsing environment. In March, we sat down with the shop’s manager Sasha to find out more about this well-run and well-focused Lincoln independent. Read our interview here.
Rossiter Books
For April’s Bookshop of the Month, we were delighted to choose Rossiter Books, a family run business with locations in Monmouth, Ross-on-Wye and Leominster. We spoke to Andy, one of the owners, about the bookshops’ history and the role the branches play in their local communities. Learn more here.
Good Press
Our May Bookshop of the Month was Good Press, a Glasgow-based bookshop and art space specialising in independently produced publications and projects. We spoke to the soon-to-be workers cooperative about Good Press’s vision and its place in the Glasgow arts community. Read more here.
Sam Read Bookseller
In June, we headed to the Lake District to visit an award-winning independent bookshop in the heart of Grasmere. From Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Romantics, to John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, EM Forster and Arthur Ransome, Sam Read Bookseller lays claim to some impressive literary connections. Established by Sam Read in 1887, the bookshop is currently managed by Elaine. We spoke her about the shop’s celebrated history and exciting future plans. Read our Q&A here.
Museum of the Home
We paid a visit to the newly redeveloped Museum of the Home in East London in July. This reimagined museum aims to be a place where everyone can explore what home means, consider the ways we have lived in the past and explore creative ideas about new ways of living in and looking at the world today. To learn more, we spoke to Sonia, the museum shop’s manager, about the store’s place within Museum of the Home and its plans for the future. Read our interview here.
Shrew Books
In August, we packed our bucket and spade and set off to Fowey to check out Shrew Books, a Cornish independent specialising in new releases, children’s books and nature writing. We spoke to Kate, the shop’s founder and manager, about what it’s like to run a bookshop in Fowey and the shop’s special connection to the local community. Find out more here.
Manchester Art Gallery
We headed to Manchester in September to visit the Manchester Art Gallery – the original useful museum – initiated in 1823 by artists, as an educational institution to ensure the city and all its people grew with creativity, imagination, health and productivity. Today, it is a gallery for and of the people of Manchester. We chatted to Maggi-May about what it’s like to work in such a vibrant location and what exciting plans they have in store for the gallery shop in the future. Learn more here.
The Stripey Badger
In October, we went to the Yorkshire Dales to visit The Stripey Badger, an independent bookshop, café and kitchen in the beautiful village of Grassington. Surrounded by the wonderful National Park countryside, the Stripey Badger is the perfect place to experience Yorkshire hospitality at its best – and, of course, buy a few books. We chatted with Linda and her son James about All Creatures Great and Small and how times have changed since they set up shop three years ago. Read more here.
The Forest Bookstore
At the heart of the Scottish Borders, the Forest Bookstore is an independent bookshop that was founded in 2006. It stocks a wide yet discerning range of literary fiction and non-fiction titles, with a core collection of literature, art and environment books. To find out more, we spoke with Allan, the shop’s founder and manager, about the Forest Bookstore’s place in Selkirkshire and the Borders, and its plans for the future. Read our interview here.
The Hepworth Wakefield
Our final Bookshop of the Month for 2021 was the Hepworth Wakefield, an art gallery, museum and creative space as unique as Barbara Hepworth – the woman who inspired it.
Its significant collection and compelling programme explore the connections between the local and the global, and blend the contemporary with the historical. We sat down with Rosie, the shop’s Retail Development Manager, to find out more. Read our Q&A here.
1. The Hepworth Wakefield is a unique and inspiring art gallery, museum and creative space. How has this incredibly rich environment influenced your bookselling vision?
The Hepworth Wakefield strives to be bold across all aspects of the gallery. We embrace a spirit of adventure to challenge and surprise and this ethos runs through our bookselling vision. There is such rich inspiration in the gallery from our ambitious collection and exhibitions to our core story of Barbara Hepworth and Yorkshire as the birthplace of modern British sculpture. Our book-buying is also influenced by the gallery’s riverside setting, Sir David Chipperfield’s striking architecture and the beautiful garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. We champion women in the arts and this, and the diversity of our programme, are all reflected in our bookselling and publishing by supporting a diverse range of subjects, authors and other book contributors.
We strive to sell publications that enhance our audience’s creative encounters and provide a richer experience for those engaging with our gallery.
2. What is the history of The Hepworth Wakefield shop? Do the exhibitions and art displayed at in the gallery inform your buying?
The Hepworth Wakefield is an award-winning art gallery in the heart of Yorkshire, set within Wakefield’s historic waterfront. Designed by David Chipperfield Architects, the gallery opened in May 2011. Named after Barbara Hepworth, one of the most important artists of the 20th century who was brought up in Wakefield, the gallery presents major exhibitions of the best modern and contemporary art and has dedicated galleries exploring Hepworth’s art and working process.
The bookshop offers a stunning range of unique publications, artist books and artist-designed products. We have a successful publishing strand, working independently and co-publishing with leading publishers. Award-winning publications include collaborations with fashion designer JW Anderson, and artists Magdalene Odundo and Martin Parr. As a charity all bookshop sales support our mission to create exceptional art experiences that inspire, captivate, surprise and enhance everyone’s lives. In the art world, where there are increasing financial pressures, we are delighted that our bookshop is able to act as a window to the gallery and provide it with vital income, ensuring its continued viability and sustainability.
3. What is your favourite part of working at the Hepworth Wakefield?
I started working at the gallery just before it opened in 2011. Since then, an everchanging programme of beautiful collection displays and a commitment to showing contemporary art means that no two days are ever the same. I love the creativity and collaboration that comes with my job, from designing products and sourcing interesting books to working with artists on limited edition artworks and publications.
4. What sort of books do you find your customers are mostly interested in? Do they generally correlate with featured exhibitions or are they more varied?
Anything related to our exhibitions and collections will always sell well in our bookshop. However, we find our customers are motivated by more than just art and design. The same interests that inspire the artists we exhibit in our galleries often motivate our customers’ book purchases; from poetry, music and dance to philosophy. We always ensure there is something for everyone, from gift-led paperbacks to high-end limited edition publications.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
In Spring 2022 we will be opening a major new art exhibition, Sheila Hicks: Off Grid. The exhibition will explore the many facets of the artist Sheila Hick’s ground-breaking work from her small woven drawings to large-scale installations that will fill the gallery spaces with vibrant colour. To coincide with the exhibition, we will be publishing the catalogue Sheila Hicks: Off Grid which has been designed in collaboration with APFEL and includes contributions from Andrew Bonacina (Chief Curator), Jo Applin (Courtauld Institute of Art) and Jennifer Higgie (Editor, Frieze). A special, limited edition version of the catalogue will also be available, featuring textured elements. Alongside this we will stock the newly reprinted Sheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor published by Yale. The volume, designed by Irma Boom, was named the ‘most beautiful book in the world’ at the 2007 Leipzig Book Fair. Both these publications exemplify the way in which art and artists push the boundaries of book design. With the publications we produce and sell, we strive to subvert the traditional forms of publishing. Art doesn’t stand still and nor do we.
Sheila Hicks: Off Grid, The Hepworth Wakefield, 7 April – 25 September 2022
1. The Forest Bookstore has been said to be a mainstay of the cultural life of the Scottish Borders. However, it has been a challenging couple of years for bookshops around the world. How have you been able to maintain your connection and commitment to the local community?
Beyond sporadic deliveries of books on our shelves, on foot, by bicycle or by car, ’20-’21 lockdowns meant long closures, some enjoyable gardening and time for making things, as well as sustained reading projects in near isolation. Since early summer loyal readers re-awakened us with telephone orders and email enquiries. Then visits to the bookshop began to surge. Perhaps losing privileges allowed us all to see what is good and vital in literary culture and those extraordinary threads of connection through street life or open-minded, unrestricted travel once again? Undoubtedly, grants from the government sustained us financially, making a slow recovery possible.
2. What’s it like running an independent bookshop in the central Market Place of Selkirk? What do you hope your shop brings to the local area – both now as well as when it is business as usual?
As ex-academics, we had imagined an art-literature-ecology axis as the only viable cultural platform for a serious and uplifting bookshop. The ‘independent’ part means that we don’t do mainstream commerce, that we help in the leading out from narrow self-interest or work and career specialisms, that we serve some collective ethical being. Draw a radial map with ‘Market Place, Selkirk, Scottish Borders’ and it leads to individuals, communities, associations, mostly well-meaning, thoughtful, caring, and all with creative energies.
3. How do you go about choosing the installations you feature in your gallery space?
Ah, the art work. Well, it happens only occasionally, perhaps twice or three times a year, as with book launches. Two walls and a few plinths is a limitation demanding selectivity and re-invention. We have exhibited prints, paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and artist’s books. All have been from artworld practitioners of local and national standing, either people we know or artists who live locally and befriend the bookshop. Most artists live in the margins far from the cosmopolitan ‘centre’ (even though they may have that in sight).
4. How do you go about choosing the books that line your shelves?
The whole space is arranged in small, inter-locking zones: modern fiction, poetry, philosophy- politics – culture, design-architecture-art, ecology-environment, food & plants, travel writing, children’s books. Anne and I read English & Scottish Literature, Art History, Moral Philosophy and Drama between us (at Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh universities) then we taught and lectured for twenty years. Avoiding complete self-indulgence is an issue…so we mix our taste with the best of customer choices, ‘troubled’ critical reviews from journals, and publishers’ advance catalogues (Yale, Verso, Reaktion for sure). Speculative international, multi-cultural enquiry guides our selection too, so there’s lots of fiction in translation. It’s all very far away from ‘Brexit’.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
We’re still bound by the wider society’s faltering return to health and well-being. As the social and productive fabric gets stronger again, so will we. A small publishing concern might do well, with the bookshop as parent body. There is a need for a Scottish journal in the area of ‘image-music-text’, with mainland, islands and international contributions. We’ll see. That would be terrestrial print and some kind of digital archive.
1. When you set up The Stripey Badger, what was your bookselling vision?
We opened three years ago and, to be honest, our vision was simply to have a shop filled with books! But we did imagine running literary events and community events and that is how it has panned out.
2. What’s it like running a bookshop in the Yorkshire Dales? How have you seen the area change over the years?
We are in a village with a strong rural community, village schools and a thriving library/hub. So our customer service has to match those needs. But we are also a tourist destination, so we also stock local books and walking guides and the like. Staycation has been huge every time we have been able to open up in Covid times, so we have also had to think about our stock and stock levels to keep pace. And, of course, All Creatures Great and Small used Grassington as Darrowby and our bookshop was G F Endleby in the show. The visitors coming as a result of this successful show has increased our footfall and this is expected to rise as the overseas visitors return.
3. How do you go about choosing the books that line your shelves?
James loves science and sci-fi, Linda loves history, and both love natural history and quirky books! So, after those books are chosen, we select from best-seller lists, publisher recommendations, signed books and indie specials to give us a unique selling point over Amazon and such.
4. If you could recommend one book published in the past year, what would it be?
We have two recommendations: 1) The Power of Geography blew us and our shelves away! And 2) by far and away, our best selling hardback was followed very closely by one of our favourite authors Stacey Halls, whose Mrs England nearly took the award for most hardbacks sold.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
Yes – we are recruiting and very excited at the opportunities this will allow us! We have been so busy when open during Covid times, and the support for indies as opposed to online sales has been huge. Besides, staycation could be here for a while yet, so we intend to increase our social media presence, organise a proper event calendar and put on great window displays!
1. What’s it like being based in the heart of such a diverse and vibrant city? How have you seen it change over the years?
It’s a privilege not only to be in the heart of the lively and spirited city of Manchester – but also to be a destination that the public is keen to visit and support. Our visitor base, as a result, is hugely diverse – we have locals who make weekly visits to us, tourists who have travelled from across the globe to see our collections, people in the city on business who are rushing in to pick up a greeting card – the list is endless! No day is the same and the conversations you have are fascinating. I have lived in Manchester for almost 10 years, and the changes in that time have been immeasurable with a boom in food and drink culture, business and tourism. What remains unchanged though is an indelible civic pride which is what makes Manchester the city it is.
2. The Manchester Art Gallery has a fantastic programme of events all year round. Do these tend to influence the popularity of certain books or prints with customers?
Absolutely – our exhibition programme can connect with our visitors in profound ways. When that happens, visitors want to take that feeling of connection home with them, or learn more about what they’ve just seen – this always leads them to our exhibition catalogues and our curated range of related reading. Our current special exhibition, Grayson Perry’s Art Club, has had an often very emotional response from our visitors as it documents the public’s experiences of the coronavirus pandemic. The exhibition catalogue has been a bestseller – people want to reflect on that time of their lives and that moment of history.
3. The gallery was founded in 1823 by the artists and merchants of Manchester to ensure a healthy culture for a growing city. When was the addition of the shop introduced and how has it changed since then?
The shop in its current form was introduced during a major refurbishment and extension of Manchester Art Gallery shortly after the millennium. It occupies the large, central space on the ground floor and our visitors have to walk through it to access almost all the spaces in the building – it’s therefore an essential part of the visitor experience here. The shop is constantly evolving with our exhibition programme and the wants and needs of the people who visit us – though I think our most marked change was our redesign in 2017 – at the time it split opinion, but it has given us the right space and environment to properly showcase our product ranges.
4. What’s your favourite part about working at Manchester Art Gallery?
Being amongst art everyday, the cake selection in the cafe.
5. Do you have any exciting plans for the store that you’d like to share here?
After various disruptions to our programme over the past 18 months, we are thrilled to finally see our ideas and planning during this time become a reality. We have some collaborations with local artisans in the coming months, and we are also excited for the opening of our next special exhibition of Derek Jarman’s work at the end of the year, where our publication range will explore themes of protest, artistic rebellion and queer experience.
1. What’s it like running a bookshop in Cornwall? How have you seen the area change over the years?
It’s been a pretty mad year to start running a bookshop anywhere, but in Cornwall – and particularly towns like Fowey – you see such a huge range of customers, because of the seasonal nature of trading here. I’ve now experienced the quieter months when some of the shops around Fowey even close because of the drop in footfall, as well as the beginning of the holiday season when my energy levels need to stay high to manage the number of visitors to Shrew Books! On top of the general surge in holidaymakers during the summer season, Fowey also attracts many deeply committed Daphne du Maurier fans because of her strong links to the area, and this year we’ve had to go without the Fowey Arts & Literature Festival which would also usually bring many avid readers to the town from all over the country.
Fowey has definitely seen a lot of change since I last lived here as a teenager – the shops and restaurants now cater for the rapidly changing visitor and resident demographic, which is becoming increasingly high-end. While holidaymakers are very welcome and essential to a lot of local trade, much of the centre of the town is sadly populated by second homes and holiday rentals that remain empty for large amounts of the year, which can make life hard for residents and businesses in the winter. On a more positive note, Cornwall is a blissful breath of fresh air after many years in London, and there is a real appetite for books among many of the residents and the visitors here, so I’m feeling really confident about the future of Shrew Books.
2. What types of books have your customers been buying recently? Have you noticed any trends?
One of my loves is nature writing as memoir, so partly because of my large range of nature writing, and partly because of the wider trend, it’s an area that’s been doing really well at Shrew. One of the recent bestsellers is The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes, with The Salt Path being a perennial favourite, and I’ve also been recommending Windswept by Annabel Abbs, as anything related to wandering and roaming is popular here – which makes sense given our proximity to the South West Coast Path. I’m also getting a lot of recommendation requests for anything escapist – there’s a real sense of being lost in a mass mood of post-trauma after the last few lockdowns, so while I am consistently selling a lot of more literary fiction like The Manningtree Witches, Burnt Sugar and Summerwater, a lot of lighter Cornish romance is also flying from the shelves like The River Between Us and Beneath Cornish Skies. I also do a fair trade in sci-fi and fantasy, with a couple of my staples being works by China Mieville and Jeff Vandermeer – a very different kind of escapism… And of course, because it’s Cornwall, Kurt Jackson’s Sea has been performing so well, and it’s one I’m really happy to see succeed.
3. If you could recommend one book published in the past year, what would it be?
One of my absolute favourites has been Cwen by Alice Albinia – it ticks every box for me personally, a novel about an ancient island matriarchy in the far north of Scotland being re-established by local women in the present day. Albinia’s writing is witty and unrelenting, and I fell in love with it instantly.
4. When you took on Bookends and set up Shrew Books, what was your bookselling vision?
While Bookends has been a roaring success for many years, famous for selling second-hand titles and being a hub of Daphne du Maurier information, I was really eager to update and personalise the range of books, as I felt that there weren’t enough places nearby for locals and visitors to source really great new books. I wanted to create a warm and bright environment for people to seek out exciting, diverse and progressive new titles, whether fiction, non-fiction or children’s books, and a place that readers can feel comfortable to express their passions, and get as much out of that as they put in. I’m also keen to push forward books from smaller publishers and titles that might not be getting the breathing space and attention that they deserve in such a crowded publishing calendar.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
I’ve been holding back from planning a full calendar of events this year, as it’s been a tough one to predict in terms of capacity and other restrictions to movement. I recently held a small talk with local author Clare Owen about her new YA novel Zed and the Cormorants, set along the River Fowey, and have held signings at the shop with both Meriel Schindler and Cathy Rentzenbrink. I’m really looking forward to helping launch the beautifully hilarious new book by local illustrator and photographer Gretchen Viehmann in September, which is based on some of the worst Trip Adviser reviews of Fowey pubs and restaurants – a platform on which many of our dedicated local businesses witness some of the meanest and maddest outpourings you can imagine. I’m also really passionate about the importance of the creative subjects that have been cut or reduced in secondary education, so I’m in the process of planning a monthly creative writing workshop for children, which I’m hoping to finalise a location for and kick off later this year.
1. What do you hope your shop brings to the Museum of the Home experience?
During these unprecedented times, a Museum of the Home is more relevant for our society than ever before. Having just re-opened following a significant re-development project, and further delays caused by the pandemic, our reinvigorated purpose is to ‘reveal and rethink the ways in which we live, in order to live better together’. Delving into the past, present and future, the Museum is moving beyond objects to questions and stories which ignite debate about what home means to different people.
In the gift shop, we wanted to reflect our revamped displays, creative programme and East London location through a newly curated range of products and books. Our aim is to enhance the visitor’s experience both within the Museum and in their own homes long after their visit has ended, through the special souvenirs they’ve bought. We’ve done this by theming our ranges under a broad umbrella of making, keeping and being at home, including exclusive designer collaborations and bespoke collection-based merchandise. With books specifically, we do not profess to be a library for the specialist, but rather weave beautiful and useful titles throughout the shop which are visually and thematically relevant and appeal to every visitor type.
2. How do the exhibitions and collection displayed at the Museum of the Home inform your book buying for the shop?
We have developed key product ranges in response to the Museum displays and tend to buy books that link to these themes so they can be merchandised together as fellow gifts. For example, we have brought some of the vintage textiles from the Museum archives back to life on bespoke homewares and accessories, and compliment these with books on mid-century design and vintage style. The Museum also has beautiful gardens which show how city gardens have developed over centuries, so urban gardening is another key book theme for the shop.
3. How have you found running a bookshop as part of a larger museum?
The key here is collaboration, whether internally with colleagues in other departments, or externally with creative partners, to ensure we are all working to the same vision and values whilst sharing knowledge, opportunities and inspiration. The gift shop, both onsite and online, should form an intrinsic part of the overall visitor experience.
4. In normal times, what sort of books do you find your customers are most interested in? Do they generally correlate with the Museum of the Home’s featured exhibitions?
Having joined the team while the Museum was closed, with the sole purpose of developing an all-new retail offer for when it re-opened, I wasn’t able to find much data on what sold well in the past! However, judging from my experience working for other museums and galleries in the past, I know that gift shop customers are usually motivated to purchase books and products which continue and expand on the stories they have been told during their visit – but which also stand alone as great souvenirs or gifts that are beautiful and useful. They want to take a piece of their experience home with them.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
I am already working on ranges for Christmas, which has always been a popular time at the Museum, with its seasonal dressing-up of the Rooms Through Time – a series of room-sets from London lounges of the past 400 years. This year we will be broadening our themes to encompass winter festivals from different faiths and cultures, so I am hoping to offer something for everyone in the gift shop.
1. Named after the celebrated Victorian, Sam Read Bookseller is steeped in literary history. What’s it like running a bookshop with such a fascinating background?
It is most certainly a privilege to be the owner of such a prestigious bookshop!
When I bought it from my predecessor, Margaret Hughes (who had run the shop since 1969), I practically had to sign in blood to promise that I would keep the Sam Read bookselling name going. In fact, I’m only the sixth owner in the shop’s 134-year long bookselling history.
2. You’ve remained independent for almost 135 years, which you must be really proud of. Do you think being independent affects the way you do business or how you deal with customers? If so, how?
I’m sure being independent affects how we operate. Obviously, we can choose what we want to sell and this means we can offer our target audience exactly what they are looking for. Also, the service element is so crucial in what we do and, although a large proportion of our customers are spread out over the globe, they really do appreciate the lengths we go to to source titles and supply them as quickly and efficiently as possible.
3. What’s it like running one of the oldest bookshops in the Lake District? How have you seen the area change over the years?
Apart from the Gingerbread shop, we are the longest serving shop in the village – everyone knows Sam Read’s and, although other businesses around us come and go, we so appreciate seeing successive generations of book-loving families come through our door. The Lake District, always historically a seasonal holiday destination, has seen trade bloom year round in more recent years. Sadly, we have lost most of our community-based businesses in favour of tourist-oriented ventures – my husband was born in the village and remembers butchers, garages, greengrocers, a bakery – indeed Grasmere, like most villages, was largely self sufficient. Fortunately, however, the bookshop continues to thrive, helped along too by the numerous literary connections we have here, ranging from Wordsworth, the Lake Poets and Ruskin, to Beatrix Potter, Arthur Ransome, and Alfred Wainwright, to name but a few.
4. Last year was a landmark and challenging year for independent bookshops around the world. Given the restrictions we’re all experiencing during this pandemic, how has Sam Read Bookseller fared?
There is no doubt that last year was a challenging one, as it was for all businesses. Despite our physical doors being closed, we adapted by creating a successful online shop as well as offering a click and collect service for people living nearby. We saw orders come in from loyal Sam Read customers far and wide and we were proud to be able to supply them with all their lockdown literary requirements.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
It was lovely to have been able to re-open our doors in April and we are looking forward to a busy summer/autumn ahead – no special plans but hopefully lots of happy customers to keep the Sam Read name going into the future.
1. What would you say is the vision behind the Good Press? Would you say that this vision has changed or evolved in the past year?
Good Press has always, and will always, be about promoting the making and distribution of independent publishing activity. We run a bookshop in the hope that people come in and see making a publication is a possibility and not beyond reach.
We hope the space is seen more as a way of thinking constructively and actively about how a book shop and art spaces in general can function: completely non-hierarchical (the foundation of which is our open submission policy), not informed by taste or our own preferences, an encouraged blurred line between author/artist and customer and a more responsive, transparent and accountable engagement with the community, both locally and globally.
This hasn’t changed over the past year, but its been difficult as so much of what we stock should be handled and its form understood in person. The most difficult part of this year has been a lack of conversation around books – a huge reason as to why we do this. But hopefully that will be back soon!
2. Do you find that being volunteer run sets you apart from other bookshops? If so, how?
We don’t think for a second it sets us apart in any way, nor would it make us different, I think the volunteer aspect has just enabled us to be realistic and transparent at the same time, and it helps collectively manage fluctuation and gives us a flexibility to change when needed. From the outset it had been necessity to uphold certain beliefs and structures whilst maintaining life outside of Good Press.
We’re soon to become a workers co-operative which we see as a middle ground between collective activity but also fair renumeration for work. At the back of our space is a small print and book making studio, and this has helped us to open up and discuss further thoughts on labour and work.
3. How do you go about choosing the books that line your shelves?
As most titles come to us via the organic means of open-submission, we try to select additional titles which are based around the themes and subjects of the main bounty of stock.
It also goes around visitor interest too, so if we see a lot of pamphlets written around the subjects of labour, or design, or sound – we try to support that with a selection of critical theory or texts which can accompany that. Or if a visitor suggests a title – we might try and source that too. We all make and publish books, so we see a lot too, and we can’t help ourselves to indulge our own interest sometimes… we just hope others like it too!
4. If you could pick one book on your shelves that everyone should read, what would it be and why?
We all collectively said the same thing here – we couldn’t possibly pick one to be honest, the range and accessibility is what makes the bookshop so special. Things we’ve loved of late are the pamphlets we’ve had coming through from Ugly Duckling Presse, the Maryanne Amacher Selected Writings is very special too. Free Jazz Communism published by RabRab was a favourite. Anything published by PSS, London Centre for Book Arts, After8, Inventory Press, the list goes on.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
2021 marks the 10th anniversary of Good Press.
We’d love to have a day-long celebration with people coming and going, but that’s not looking likely right now, so I guess we’ll take it as it comes. Our birthday-birthday is not until October and we’re not a group who dwell on Good Press being an entity so it would most likely be a fleeting celebration anyway.
Its been such a long time since people have been coming and going from the space and we very much try to live in the NOW. Our plans are to have people come back and we’ll concentrate on that for the time being. We had the Sunday’s print studio fitted out to make it more functional and we have some nice new storage and browsing solutions for people coming in so lets see how they pan out first.
1. When you first founded Rossiter Books, did you have a bookselling vision? How has the shop developed and grown since then?
I had been managing Waterstones stores for years and we had been researching Independent Bookshops for a year when the Borders chain collapsed. This gave us a fairly cheap way of furnishing our store so we bought what we thought would represent two shops worth of fixtures and fittings. We lived between the towns of Ross-on-Wye and Monmouth and neither one had the kind of interestingly stocked, vibrant, community focussed, event heavy bookshop that we enjoyed as customers so that was our vision.
We opened another store in Leominster in 2018 which has been received well by the local community. The longer the stores are open the more you are led by what your customers are actually asking for or responding to. We had no idea that cycling was a massive sport around us when we opened but we now regularly host events featuring the top writers and riders (Geraint Thomas twice) in theatres and other local venues.
2. Do you find that being family-owned sets you apart from other independent bookshops? If so, how?
Most independents are family owned. We are all very different in our approach but anyone running their own business realises the stakes are higher when working to support yourself and family. The rewards are also far greater so setting your own agenda and trying to create a good work/life balance is a nice part of the job (I run Rossiter Books with my wife Victoria). You never get to completely walk away and switch off though so late night emails and working at weekends are normal.
3. Under normal circumstances, Rossiter Books prides itself on being at the centre of the community. However, this has been a landmark and challenging year for independent bookshops around the world. How have you been able to maintain your connection and commitment to the local community?
This has been very difficult, especially during the lockdown months where our shops have been closed and our staff placed on furlough. We have maintained a steady online presence, posting on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. During the first lockdown we uploaded regular videos of staff members reading children’s stories, poetry and extracts of their favourite books.
Author events are a large part of what we offer our local customers, so we moved to a digital program and have continued to offer online events throughout the year; specifically supporting local author book launches where possible. This month we are excited be holding events with Steven Walker, Barbara Erskine, and Andrew Taylor.
4. How do you go about choosing the books that line your shelves?
The large majority of our stock comes from publisher representatives who we meet with every few months. The Reps give us an overview of the key titles that are due to be released, and also pick out titles that they believe would specifically cater to our customers. Our staff play a big role in finding titles from smaller publishers or niche subjects that we might not come across naturally; they read a lot of reviews in magazines and newspapers, listen to interviews on the radio and in local papers, or delve into social media. It is really important for us to stock interesting and diverse books that browsers would not find easily unless they visited an independent bookshop. Lastly, we also take personal recommendations from our customers, who are often a very valuable source of information.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?
Yes, we are going to open our doors to the general public again on April 12th! This Covid pandemic makes planning too far ahead a risky business so this is about as far forward as I’m planning at the moment.