1. What was it that inspired you to open up an independent bookshop, particularly in Portobello?

Like a lot of people I’ve always loved bookshops, they provide a space like no other to discover new stories, ideas, and make new connections. They’re always the first thing I seek out when travelling, and I’d always hoped to open one at some point. After putting in a few years in London working in commercial photography and realising it wasn’t for me long term, I moved back to Edinburgh, where I’d studied originally, and began looking for premises to open a shop.

Edinburgh itself already has a collection of great independent bookshops, and with location being so important for a business to survive – and not wanting to tread on anybody’s toes – I looked at premises away from the city centre. Portobello has a fantastic High Street and a thriving community, and is an ideal place for a bookshop – I’ve always been surprised there isn’t one there already. When I came across this former fishing tackle shop I thought it would make a really wonderful space to open a bookshop. After some deliberation (the premises are much larger than anything I’d intended originally so working out affordability took a while), I felt this could be something really unique.

2. Stocking an entire bookshop must have been a rather daunting and yet exciting task. How did you choose the books that now line your shelves?

Stocking has taken a lot of time and energy to get on top of. Our assistant manager, Alice, joined from Blackwell’s fairly early in the process and the two of us spent a couple of months working our way through piles of catalogues, spreadsheets, and using our own knowledge to put together a list of titles we thought was fairly representative of what we’re about, and which will hopefully appeal to a broad range of customers. Ensuring our list was diverse, unique and inspiring were key factors we had in mind. The last few weeks we’ve had another staff member join us, Sarah, who’s also been a great help in fleshing out our stock list. We’ve tried our best to ensure our opening stock is exciting and fresh, but there’s still plenty of books and publishers we look forward to having in the shop in future.

3. What are you hoping your shop will bring to the Portobello area?

Portobello and the surrounding areas don’t have a dedicated bookshop carrying new titles. If you want to browse for recent releases you’d have to travel into the centre of town. So first and foremost we’re bringing the opportunity to discover new books to the high street. Beyond that, once we get into the swing of bookselling and the shop is running smoothly, we’re going to start developing our events programme. Like our stock, this will be highly curated to ensure we bring great quality and unique events to the high street. We’ve also got a piano in the shop, and music will definitely play a part in our events programme.

4. This summer is an exciting time for the Edinburgh literary scene, what with the annual Book Festival and the opening of both The Portobello Bookshop and Topping & Company. What is it like being part of this particular cultural moment in the Scottish capital?

It’s brilliant. There’s a real buzz in Scottish publishing at the moment, with lots of interesting new publishers such as Charco Press and 404 Ink doing great work. And as you point out, there are new bookshops opening too, and it’s thrilling to be part of this movement. The competition from online giants and the small margins the book industry has to work with are always going to be a problem, but the revival of people supporting local businesses and physical stores is something that will hopefully continue.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you’d like to share with us?

Our primary plan was to get the shop open during summer, and we’re really pleased that we’re going to be able to do that, and that people will soon be able to wander along the beach, pop in to a local cafe and then visit us for some book browsing afterwards. In terms of plans for the future, we’ve got a few things in the pipeline but I won’t jinx them by putting them out there just yet.

1. As a radical, not-for-profit bookshop, tell us a little bit more about your bookselling ethos.

Opened in 1945, Housmans was born from the pacifist movement that flourished in the aftermath of the Second World War. The shop’s stock range has greatly expanded over the years, but at its core is the same political mission to promote and make available revolutionary and progressive literature that helps lead us to a better and more just world. All the books we stock, be they fiction, poetry, music, children’s books, art books, or our core politics titles, are chosen to fit that remit.

2. You boast a very impressive and varied events schedule. How important are these events in your vision for the shop?

One of the biggest threats to the radical left is a lack of physical spaces in which to meet, organise and share ideas. Outrageous property prices have had a massive negative impact not just on indie bookshops, but on other alternative social spaces. Housmans’ role as a social space is as important to us as its function as a bookshop. There’s rarely an evening when there isn’t something going on in the building, whether it’s a public talk, a book group or a private organising meeting.

The speakers we host at our book events are often people who might struggle to get a hearing at other more mainstream venues. It’s a great time for radical writing, and we are spoilt for speaker requests. My impression is that ideas that seemed fringe or extreme a few decades ago are becoming increasingly common sense, and the audience for these ideas is growing exponentially. Still a long way to go of course, but despite all the depressing headlines I am somewhat hopeful about current trends.

3. Housmans hosts not just one but four monthly book clubs. How did these diverse groups come about?

Organically! The cross-genre Housmans book group, Fuse, was started by one of our customers, the late Wali Hawes. This group is very autonomous and book choices are made collectively by participants. Subsequent book groups were started by passionate individuals with their own specialist interests. Housmans is very much a space that tries to make itself available to anyone who has a vision in which we can share.

(Learn more about these exciting book groups – The Fuse Book Club, Housmans Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, Housmans Queer Book Club and Self-care as an act of warfare: A Black women’s reading group – on the Housmans website.)

4. If you could pick one book on your shelves that everyone should read, what would it be and why?

Recommending books is a tricky thing, as so much comes down to the reader’s personal taste, experience and interests. But I won’t dodge the question completely, and would encourage everyone reading this article to check out the two book prizes which Housmans is deeply connected with: The Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing and The Little Rebels Children’s Book Award. The books on the shortlists have been through rigorous reading and judging processes and are guaranteed must-reads!

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

In November 2019 the building in which Housmans exists, Peace House, will be celebrating its 60th anniversary. Over the years Peace House has been home to countless campaign groups (such as Gay Switchboard, McLibel, Peace News, War Resisters International, Campaign Against Arms Trade and many, many more). We’ve got a range of plans for the anniversary year – including an oral history publication of the building’s history, and we’ll also be organising a campaigning conference to bring together a wide range of activists groups under one roof, with a view to make connections and encourage new people to get involved. On one level that doesn’t sound that book-related, but for us that’s all part of our wider campaigning remit!

1. 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of The Aldeburgh Bookshop. How are you celebrating this landmark year?

Celebrations started in March this year with the publication of a short history of the shop in the Aldeburgh Literary Festival brochure. The Red House (Britten’s house in Aldeburgh now a library and archive) unearthed some fascinating receipts kept by Benjamin Britten showing that he was a customer from the very beginning. In 1971, for instance, he bought a copy of Death in Venice, the subject of his subsequent opera, as well as E. M. Forster’s tale of homosexual love, Maurice.

We’ve been researching more of the shop’s history, which is closely tied in to that of the town. The son of Christopher Rowan Robinson, founder of the bookshop, is currently Mayor of Southwold, and we are asking him a lot of questions. We have a continuing programme of book launches throughout this year, ranging from a bestselling children’s book about a mouse in the Resistance, a history of the Labour party, ten tips to save the planet from environmental writer Edward Davey to an exciting new short story collection from Lucy Hughes-Hallett.

2. Benjamin Britten was one of the shop’s first customers in 1949, setting the trend for a future of luminary visitors. Tell us more about the stars who have visited your shop.

Ronald Blythe told us the best story about the bookshop: [Britten] came in with E. M. Forster who was hoping to buy some ink. The bookshop owner was in a hurry to close for the evening and threw them out of the shop. I always wonder what great work remained unwritten for lack of Quink.

Many authors live locally or visit the town, and we are lucky to have the support of Aldeburgh resident, Craig Brown and novelist and scriptwriter Jon Canter. One Christmas Eve we had Coriolanus, Dumbledore, the head of MI6 and Craig Brown in the shop almost all at once.

We were early readers of Alexander McCall Smith, so we were thrilled to be name-checked in one of his stories several years ago. And I think our most famous regular visitor is Emma Chichester Clark’s delightful dog, Plum, whose book published by Vintage is a perennial bestseller.

3. How do you choose the books for your monthly book club, and what are you reading for June?

We started the book club as a Guilt Free Book Club. So many customers come in looking stressed about the pressure of reading for their clubs. Anyone can come to ours, and you don’t have to come every month. Sometimes we have visits from authors—when Yale published the new Pevsner volumes on Suffolk, James Bettley very generously took us on a guided walking tour of Aldeburgh—it was so popular he had to do two tours in one day. One month we did a book on soup and all crowded into the kitchen of the fabulous local deli to be given a masterclass by the chef Peter Harrison. This month Lucy Hughes-Hallett is attending to discuss her rich and complex novel, Peculiar Ground. The choice is usually a consensus, but if there’s no clear selection then I will make the final decision. I am not quite sure what to choose for July, but I think I am going to suggest Warlight by Michael Ondaatje, which is partly set in Suffolk.

4. You organise the annual Aldeburgh Literary Festival, which has been running for eighteen years. What inspired you to set this up?

Aldeburgh is host to the famous Music Festival as well as having thriving Poetry and Documentary Festivals. When we arrived we felt that the sort of books that we were reading and our customers were buying—fiction, history and biography—were not represented, so we started planning the Literary Festival quite soon after we took over the shop in 2000. An acceptance from P. D. James encouraged us and we had a very strong line up from the very beginning. Just before going to print with the programme we heard that Alan Bennett wanted to attend. What a wonderful problem to have. We managed to fit him in… We give ourselves a few months off and then we will start planning the 19th Festival for March next year.

5. And finally, do you have any more exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

John and I will have run the shop for 20 years next year, so I think we will continue the birthday celebrations. We would like to have a party for all the fantastic staff who have worked at or been involved with the shop over the years, and the hardworking reps who take the trouble to visit us. Our close relationship with publishers via our reps help us keep the stock up-to-date and interesting.

1. As the former home of celebrated Victorian artist John Ruskin, Brantwood House is steeped in history. What’s it like running a shop on such an estate?

Running the bookshop at Brantwood is a joy and one of my absolutely favourite tasks is choosing new books. I have been running the bookshop for just under two years now and have met with Sally from Yale [Sales Representative for Northern England and North Wales] on maybe 5 occasions. Every time, she comes armed with the most amazing selection of titles – she is very in tune with what sells at Brantwood, the various subject matters that are appropriate. My only regret is that the bookshop is not larger!

2. Do you find that your customers are mostly interested in books about Ruskin and the Victorian era, or are they shopping for a wide range of titles?

There is no shortage of books out there on Ruskin and his own works so maybe 40% of the books on our shelves are directly Ruskin-related. However, as Ruskin had such a varied field of interest and influence – art, politics, environmentalism, the nature of work and our connection to the land – it gives scope to have a lot of titles in our bookshop around these subjects.

Brantwood’s estate was a living laboratory to Ruskin – he tried out various experiments in the gardens and the 8 gardens we maintain today are as per his design and creation. Gardening books are very popular in our shop, as are books on art, the Lake District and architecture. Ruskin was a vehement lecturer and writer on what he saw as the wrongs of the Victorian age and his ideas were considered radical. Our visitors to Brantwood often comment that they find their visit to Brantwood both inspirational and tranquil. As a consequence, book choices for the shop are very much made around helping our visitors to continue that journey – whether they take a book away about philosophy, politics or art and nature.

3. Brantwood House is known as a bustling centre for the arts. How does the shop support these frequent events and exhibitions?

During the course of a year, Brantwood may have as many as 12 different exhibitions, run courses on art, poetry and creative writing, host music and theatre events, as well as hosting an eclectic range of activities from yoga weekends to weddings and baby showers. For the exhibitions, we like to offer a range of book titles, again to allow people to continue to learn after their visit. We currently have an exhibition in the house by JMW Turner. As a consequence, we have a lecture at Brantwood on 8th June on Turner and we have half a dozen titles about Turner on offer in our shop. We are hosting a Japanese tea ceremony in May, to celebrate the start of an exhibition of Mingei inspired pottery – celebrating the link between Ruskin, the British and Japanese Arts and Crafts movements.

4. 2019 is a year of big anniversaries, marking 200 years since the birth of both Ruskin and Queen Victoria. What are you doing to celebrate?

We are celebrating the bicentenary year with a really exciting programme of events and exhibitions. The current show of Turner’s work in the blue gallery is on loan from the Tate and is the first exhibition at Brantwood dedicated to showing JMW Turner’s work. We are really pleased to be working with local artists, dance groups and makers this year to really celebrate the incredible talent within Cumbria, with demonstrations and workshops. On Ruskin’s birthday, we celebrated with the village of Coniston and held a wonderful memorial service at the local church, involving local school children reciting Ruskin-inspired poetry and performing music.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

We are currently launching a quarterly newsletter to the Friends of Brantwood, allowing us to keep in more regular contact about new titles in the shop, and offering some select promotions. This is facilitated with an online presence, starting with a small selection of our current new titles.

1. What’s it like running a bookshop in Hyndland? How have you seen the area change over the years and has your bookshop changed with it?

Hyndland is a strikingly beautiful part of Glasgow’s West End, close to the university. It has a village atmosphere and despite the best endeavours of developers there’s not been too much physical change.

We have been in business since 1982 and in this location since 1997, so we have experienced bookselling both before and after the demise of the net book agreement and, of course, since before the digital revolution. These changes have been quite dramatic over time. For example, in the past reference books and maps would be meat and drink to any bookseller but these lines have practically all disappeared.

We have also dramatically changed our way of presenting books. We were originally very traditional – heavy oak bookshelves with all books crammed in spine on. About 10 years ago we decided to drastically change our displays and we slimmed the number of titles we held down from around 7,500 to around 3,000. We attempt to display as many books as possible front on and by doing this we have found that each customer picks up many more books per visit. It makes it much easier for them to see and so it has increased the number of books each customer buys per visit. As we have mostly regular customers we have to keep changing our stock constantly in order that customers will see something new on each visit. For this reason we probably take a larger proportion of new titles to backstock than other bookshops.

2. How do you go about choosing the books that line your shelves?

We still read a wide range of reviews from print media and scour publishers’ catalogues. Of course we also look online mostly by using wholesalers’ excellent classified lists. Television is not so prominent as it once was in book promotion but occasionally we will get caught out. Radio however is still as important a medium for book reviews as in previous decades.

Our stock profile is quite eclectic and customers are always telling us they see books in our shop that they’ve never seen anywhere else, which is encouraging. We do not do many events or promotions due to lack of space but we spend an inordinate amount of time getting to know individual customers. That way you get a feel for what might interest them directly or spark their imagination.

3. How has your previous career as librarians influenced the way in which you run your shop?

Well, when working for government departments one learns a lot of bureaucratic methods which we hopefully have slimmed down to a minimum. Still, it has probably helped us keep an eye out for detail which is so important when running a business. It’s easy to let things slip so we have to keep on top of everything behind the scenes in order for customers to have a good experience. Keeping on top of the boring stuff has meant we’ve lasted the pace while others have gone out of business. We are now the only independent bookshop in Glasgow or the West of Scotland mainland.

The old professional librarians course we were on in the early 70s was very rigorous and we probably learned more than most about information retrieval, bibliography and publishing so it gives one a wider general knowledge which I think has helped a lot.

4. Who would be your dream customer and why?

More customers is always the dream. Shops are increasingly destinations as footfall has dropped over the years.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

Another major refit is imminent and after that we have some exciting online projects which are a bit different than most. A secret for now…

1. October Books is a not-for-profit co-operative shop. What is your bookselling ethos and what do you hope your shop brings to the community?

We see October Books as a space to promote books and ideas that tackle the challenges of our time. While we sell a wide range, our speciality is in radical books that give readers the critical tools for understanding the world they live in and offer paths towards a better one. Beyond the books, we offer ecological products and a place for people to find out what’s going on in their area. We also now provide a physical space for local groups with rooms for hire in our community hub.

2. What is it like running an independent bookshop in the age of Amazon?

The shop has had to change with the times, but ultimately people still like to go into a bookshop and physically browse. An independent bookshop is conduit for discovery. Amazon and the supermarkets can sell books, but they can’t sell serendipity like we can. We offer expertise and recommendations, we can find books based on the vaguest of descriptions, and we pride ourselves on being to get in for a customer almost any book that is still in print.

3. Back in November, you underwent a very well-publicised move, relocating 2000 books 150m up the road with the help of a human chain. Tell us about this. How have you been settling into your new premises?

It was a great undertaking to move premises. We had been renting for about 15 years but for the long-term future of the shop we decided to buy a premises. Rather than getting a mortgage from a bank, we issued loanstock to interested locals, borrowing directly from the community. We bought an old bank building on the same street. To move the books from the old stock room to the strongroom of the bank we had about two hundred people form a human chain passing the books from hand to hand. We cleared the room in about an hour and within days the news of it had travelled across the world.

We’ve been very busy in our new place. The shop itself has been more bustling than ever, while we have had a lot to do getting the new place up to order and clearing out the rest of the old premises. There’s still a lot to do but we’re pleased with how things are progressing.

4. October Books hosts a Radical Reading book group. How do you pick your titles for this group and what’s coming up in March?

The book group is one of the new things we’ve been doing in the new space. The first range of books were picked by the convenors to cover a broad range of topics and set a standard, with future titles to be polled from the attendees. One of the conceits of the group is that we only discuss one chapter from the books, which helps keep the reading manageable and the discussion focused. We last read a chapter from Juno Mac and Molly Smith’s Revolting Prostitutes about the conditions and the law surrounding sex work in the UK. Next up we’re reading Teresa Hayter’s Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

March will mark the inauguration of our new community hub. When we moved to the new premises we put our central bookshelves on castors so they could be moved aside to make space for evening events. We’ve been working hard getting the extra rooms in the shop ready for the many community groups, therapists, tutors and artists who are excited about the new space.

1. The Terrace Shop is located in London’s iconic Tate Modern. What’s the best thing about your job as Book Buyer for this exciting venue?

We are blessed with a large space for bookselling, and added to that over five million curious people from diverse international backgrounds come through this building every year. This presents an incredible opportunity and platform to present all kinds of art and ideas to people. Our customers are keen to discover and explore and are open to new and complex ideas, which allows us not only to provide resources, information and souvenirs, but also to experiment, take a few risks and importantly: play.

The bookshop is intended to be an oasis of visual culture in what is an increasingly dull, deracinated and dry retail landscape. Naturally, we do everything about Modern and Contemporary Art, interwoven with the gallery programme and collection, but we also tackle what it is to be in the 21st Century, how we arrived here through the 20th, through visual culture and arts, taking in design, fashion, architecture, culture, media and theory. If you want to understand modernism, your place in it, and how you can express what you feel about it, come by.

That’s one way of looking at it, another is through my belief that everyone is an artist, or about to be. We are hoping to turn spectators into creators, which will ultimately mean there are even more good books to read and better art to look at. So you need inspiration to set you off; we have a whole section on that. Then you need to know how to make and present your idea, so we have a huge section on techniques. And so on, all the way through to criticism of the work that inspires you to start anew, back to the beginning. Whatever stage you are at creatively, day one or day ten thousand, we aim to have something that will help you make good stuff.

The best thing about my job is the opportunity to orchestrate an ever changing ecology of over 8000 titles and to get truly extraordinary books in front of people. The best bit of all is when you really connect a book with a person, and set them off on a new creative path.

2. How do the exhibitions held at the gallery, as well as the events and performances hosted by the shop itself, inform your book buying?

We have several exhibitions a year, four or five major ones, plus an ever changing series of room displays and collection displays. There is also the annual Turbine Hall commission, the BMW live series in the Tanks, plus events, screenings and talks all the time. We also have our own themed displays in the shop, a book of the month programme and our own book events programme. So there is always something specific I’m buying books for!

I research each exhibition several months in advance, because we usually have a large extra shop dedicated to each show. I can add up to around 120 titles for each so we can go way beyond a simple ‘book about the artist’ and delve into all the themes and wider context of each show, drawing on any relevant novels, literature, films, music and poetry. What the visitor then arrives at is an extensive range of supporting material which hopefully far surpasses expectation. If they happened to spot an odd detail or reference in one of the paintings they just saw, we try to have a book on that particular thing waiting for them, as if we telepathically read their thoughts. When that happens they buy it instantly.

3. What are your bestselling titles at the moment? Are your customers interested in your fiction range, for example, as much as they are in your exhibition catalogues?

Our top sellers are from all corners of the bookshop: little quirky gift books, children’s picture books, London guides, or a random art theory hit. The greatest thing about bookselling is that even after twenty years of doing it, the unexpected surprises and inexplicable successes keep arriving.

The major publisher industrial complex is riddled with dismal, predicable, copycat formulas, but creativity always triumphs and there are so many incredible books around, bookselling remains dynamic and fascinating.

You can read book sales reports as a diagnosis of society; if so people are more anxious than ever but also increasingly open to new, radical ideas.

The fiction is popular, and important. I understand the best way to reach people is through stories rather than facts, which is a problematic truth, but fiction works. I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment with a pet theory about the mental health crisis caused by the ‘narrativisation’ of everyday life, but it’s one for the pub. Maybe I’ll write a book on it sometime and hide it in a drawer.

4. Your January Book of the Month was Repeater’s The Worst is Yet To Come. What is your February Book of the Month and how do you go about choosing?

I chose Peter Fleming’s superb book for Repeater as an antithesis to the usual January ‘New Year-New-Me” diet fad routine. I thought it was funny to flip that, be a little curmudgeonly and do that thing of jokingly introducing serious ideas. The book is great though. Things are evidently going to get worse so it’s wiser to prepare for that than to shed a few pounds. I wasn’t at all sure if customers would appreciate this choice, until we sold fifty copies in the first week of January!

February’s is a book called the Seven Keys To Modern Art which explains simple ways to look and appreciate art that is, let’s be honest, not exactly straightforward to access and often alienating and unsettling. It’s very worthwhile to break through these obstacles, so I think it’s an important and helpful book. March is the brilliant reissued surrealist novel Chasm by Dorothea Tanning. Her exhibition is opening at Tate Modern at the end of February and Virago Women’s Press kindly agreed to bring Tanning’s novel back to life for it.

I choose the book of the month based on what I think is useful, good, interesting or relevant to the present moment in relation to the gallery and its visitors. It’s the polar opposite of the WH Smith’s paid-for-bestsellers thing. The greatest work of fiction on display in the WH Smiths ‘bestseller’ chart is the chart itself.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

We’re always hatching plans and schemes, new angles and collaborations of some sort. We’re hoping to do something fun and dramatic to support the Olafur Eliasson exhibition later in the year. I’ve been helping arrange a compilation album for the Keith Haring show in Liverpool with Soul Jazz Records which I’m really excited about. We’re also working on a music selection, some beautifully packaged vinyl treats. I want to do more with indie presses, zines and DIY counter-cultural material. There is an increasing demand and need to create an outlet and space for a new generation of emerging publishers. There’s an extraordinary poetry scene bubbling up that needs celebrating too. There’s a lot of creative energy in the air out there and we’re trying to harness it all and channel it through the shop.

1. 2018 has been quite a year for Pages of Hackney! You were named London Independent Bookshop of the Year back in March and marked your ten year anniversary in September. How did you celebrate these milestones?

It has been an amazing year for Pages and in some ways it has felt like a culmination of a lot of hard work. Both the award and the 10 year anniversary were like landmarks which enabled us to take stock of what we’ve achieved, and identify things we are still working on. We celebrated the award with a slap-up meal, and the anniversary with an all-day party in the shop featuring readings from a line-up of authors (who have supported us since the beginning or whose books have been shop favourites), free booze, folk music and a huge blue cake!

2. Pages is well known for being a welcoming and friendly bookshop. Tell us about your bookselling vision.

This is probably one of our key aims as booksellers. Bookshops can sometimes feel daunting and overwhelming so we always aim to be friendly, welcoming and inclusive to anyone who comes in. The whole point is to make books accessible, to find the right book for each customer and ensure it is a warm and calm space where they can browse the stock. The books we choose are also intended to reflect as broad a demographic as is possible, and we believe it’s important to reflect groups who have been underrepresented in the past, starting from the fact that the perspective of people who have always had power (or publishing deals) is not universal. We hope that our customers see us as a community hub as well as a shop.

3. Not only do you host author events in store, but you also act as the official booksellers for various events across London (not least for a number of Yale launches!). What has been your favourite event of the past year?

My favourite event this year was one of our own: a panel discussion about the cultural legacy of Windrush with Margaret Busby, Jacob Ross, Sharmaine Lovegrove and Patrick Vernon. Both the panel and the audience were really passionate and eloquent which made for a really lively discussion. In the audience Q&A it was a total privilege to hear the many personal stories that were shared, and the vast (and often overlooked) contribution made by the Windrush generation to this country, so it was quite moving.

4. Pages boasts an eclectic range of books on its shelves. What have been your 2018 bestsellers?

Well, we still have Christmas to go, but the following books have been consistently in our top ten monthly bestsellers:

• Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo Lodge
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
• The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
• Crudo by Olivia Laing
• Things to Make & Break by May-Lan Tan
• The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

We’re currently planning our Christmas window (quite late!); we’ve just had a meeting with our window painter, which is pretty exciting! But you’ll have to wait for the big reveal…

1. Yorkshire Sculpture Park occupies 500 acres of sweeping fields, lakes and woodland. What’s it like running a shop in such a spectacular location?

It’s pretty special! Driving into Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), you’re greeted by the incredible view of rolling Yorkshire hills, dotted with contemporary sculpture, including a collection of bronzes by Henry Moore and roaming sheep. And this first glimpse is just a teaser of what’s to come in the rest of the Park. There’re over 80 sculptures, lakes, woodland, highland cows, eccentric follies; the list goes on. It’s impossible not to be inspired by all of this, and we really are! What’s going on in the Park informs what we put on our shelves.

2. The Park regularly exhibits the work of world-famous artists, such as Sean Scully and Ai Weiwei. How does your shop engage with these exhibitions?

YSP welcomes around half a million visitors every year and our temporary exhibitions programme is a big draw so it’s really important for us to reflect this in the shop. We work closely with exhibiting artists to design and publish quality exhibition catalogues which provide a beautiful documentation of these exhibitions. Over the past 40 years, we’ve produced and sold catalogues to accompany exhibitions by artists including Ai Weiwei, Andy Goldsworthy, Barbara Hepworth, KAWS and James Turrell. We also wholesale our books, which extends their reach to wider audiences.

Last year, we worked with the poet Simon Armitage to celebrate our 40th anniversary. He wrote Flit, a collection of 40 poems inspired by his dystopian interpretation of the Park.

3. Is your customer base made up of local regulars as well as tourists visiting the Park? How do you tailor your book buying accordingly?

We definitely do have some regulars, however, our main customer base is YSP visitors (or tourists). YSP is sited in quite a rural location so we don’t get passers-by. Customers of the shop generally come as part of a wider visit to the Park, and this definitely informs our book buying. We tailor our selection of titles to subjects that are linked to the YSP offer, whether that’s books about sculpture, illustration, craft, artists, nature, wellbeing or lifestyle, and we have a wonderful collection of inspiring children’s books too.

4. What have been your bestselling books of the past year?

The outright winner of the bestselling book title is The Wish Post by Mister Finch. The book launched in the summer to coincide with the textile artist’s YSP exhibition of the same name. The response to his show was fantastic and we definitely saw this reflected in the shop – stock of the book barely lasted the duration of the exhibition. That said, we do have a few copies back in stock if you fancy getting your hands on one!

The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford has also sold particularly well. We selected this book for the shop as it fits the themes of our Giuseppe Penone A Tree in the Wood exhibition perfectly. Titles that link to our exhibition programme always prove popular with customers.

One of our personal favourites, which is also a top seller, would have to be The Little Book of Garden Bird Songs by Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham. Quite often the sounds of serenading blackbirds and robins drift into the area around our children’s book display. There’s no better soundtrack.

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

Yes, we’re opening an additional visitor centre at the Park next year, which will house another shop. We’re currently going through the exciting process of selecting the range of books that we’ll stock there. The additional shop will give us the chance to diversify our offer and also reach visitors that don’t always make it to the other shop (with over 500 acres to explore, it is possible!). The new shop opens on 30 March 2019 so there’s plenty to keep us busy over the next few months.

1. Cornerstone Bookshop is located within the newly completed Cornerstone Centre at St. John’s Church in Edinburgh. What’s it like being part of this community space?

We are lucky enough to be situated on a beautiful, peaceful terrace right in the heart of Edinburgh. While St. John’s sits at one of the busiest junctions in the city centre, we are tucked to one side in the church’s crypt. From the Peace Garden just outside our front door we have views across Princes Street Gardens and up to the Castle. We are in our own little world here and there has always been a strong sense of community along the Terrace, which we share with the One World Shop, which sells fair trade items, and a café.

We all recently moved back onto the Terrace which was closed while the church undertook a massive project, extending their hall and adding more community spaces. While we remain independent of the church, so that we can be welcoming to all regardless of denomination or belief, we do feel part of a community and St. John’s has always been, and continues to be, very supportive. They know what an important resource we are to the community at large.

2. As a bookshop known for its theological resources, do you find that most of your visitors are looking for spiritual reads or are your general interest titles just as popular?

Many of our customers do come to us for religious titles. While we sell many worship resources, bibles and hymnbooks, we are especially known for the breadth of the largely liberal, progressive theology and spirituality titles which we stock. We work hard to have a wide range of books available which don’t patronise the reader. A lot of people who come to us have questions and we are able to offer books which help them reflect on these. Our philosophy section is popular and we have a large poetry section which showcases authors not commonly found on the high street. We also stock children’s picture books, Scottish titles and natural history, so perhaps not your average Christian bookshop!

3. You offer your customers an ordering and postal service. At a time of astronomical growth in Amazon book sales, how important do you think it is for independent bookshops to provide such a service?

Our ordering and postal service is an important part of our business. Like any independent bookshop, we will never be able to compete with Amazon on price which is one of the reasons we don’t sell online. What we can offer is a personal service. We will happily order any book (so long as it is in print) and will turn the order around as quickly as possible, so we have many regular customers who do all their book-buying through us. People also appreciate that we will send books out with an invoice rather than asking for payment upfront.

We regularly send deliveries far and wide. There are so few Christian bookshops left selling the range of material we do (we also stock cards, gifts, candles and other church supplies) that we have people up and down the country who order from us, from Shetland to Cornwall and quite often from abroad too. This is mostly because they cannot find what they are looking for elsewhere, though some of our more far-flung customers shop with us simply because of the relationship we have built up with them over the years.

4. What do you think makes the perfect bookshop?

Everyone’s idea of their perfect bookshop is different and we hope that we come pretty close for at least some of the people that come here. Many of our customers love how peaceful it is here and are grateful for the comfy seating area where they can hide away, sometimes with a cuppa. Others like that we know their tastes and will often have a book we know they will be interested in set aside to show them when they come in. We are fortunate that many of our customers are also friends so Cornerstone is frequently a place of encounter; lots of lively conversations are struck up around our ‘new and interesting’ display.

One of the great things about independent bookshops is the variety; each space will be different and the passions of the people who work there will influence the atmosphere that each shop has. There can’t be many bookshops that are in a crypt, with literal bodies under the floorboards; for many of our customers, this holds a certain fascination!

Before the re-development our shop was in a slightly different location on the Terrace. At that time our till counter was actually a tomb! Some of the bodies buried under the Terrace are remembered on wall plaques. We discovered that one of those we had been living alongside was Lady Elizabeth Finch-Hatton, the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Mansfield who was raised by her Uncle (then Lord Chief Justice) alongside his great-niece, Dido Belle. The story of their upbringing and the influence Dido had on her uncle’s rulings against slavery were the subject of a book and film and is also said to have inspired Jane Austen’s novel, Mansfield Park.

If there are any spirits residing with us in the shop they are certainly friendly ghosts!

5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop that you’d like to share with us?

Nope! The re-development of the Cornerstone Centre meant that we had to move the shop twice in the last three years, so for now we are simply enjoying being booksellers rather than shop designers, removal men or project managers.