The Book Lounge
Located in the picturesque market town of Kirkby Lonsdale, our February Bookshop of the Month is The Book Lounge, featured in “Bookshop Tours of Britain”. We spoke to its owner Valerie about the dyslexia friendly book area, the popularity of poetry and the shop’s much-talked-about book counter and clock …
1. We see from your website that The Book Lounge opened in 2018 and you have recently expanded with The Jigsaw Lounge – what has been your vision behind setting up these shops?
I had been a school librarian for 13 years and took redundancy in July 2018. At a loss at what to do, (there were no other librarian vacancies in the area), I had the inspiration for The Book Lounge as I was driving into work one morning. By the end of the day I had the vision of a second hand bookshop with a comfy reading area in front of the fire to sit and relax with a freshly made coffee. The shop has developed and evolved over the years, and we now sell mostly new books, but I still have an area with used books available. We have a wide range of book themed gifts, including jigsaws, which leads me into why we opened The Jigsaw Lounge.
During lockdown as the nation took to doing jigsaws, we sold out of our book themed puzzles and found it almost impossible to restock as manufacturers couldn’t keep up with demand. In April 2021 as we emerged from another lockdown, we opened a stall on the local charter market running a jigsaw exchange, we soon introduced new jigsaws alongside the exchange, and then when the opportunity to rent a small shop just 4 doors down for The Book Lounge we decided to open The Jigsaw Lounge, which opened its doors in November 2021. Keeping with the lounge experience we try to have a jigsaw on the go so customers can add a few pieces, although there is no room to sit down.
2. What made you want to go into bookselling? What is your favourite and least favourite part about it?
I went into bookselling after redundancy, it seemed a natural progression from being a Chartered librarian in a school. It was a risk, I didn’t get it right straight away and am continuing to learn. I started as a second hand bookshop as I felt I couldn’t compete with larger online book sellers and supermarkets. I was wrong, it soon became apparent that the local community wanted a bookshop where they could buy and order new books. It has been a huge learning curve, but I love what I do.
Many customers take photos of our book clock and our counter made of books, both big talking points with the customers which is always a pleasure. My favourite times are when customers come back and tell me how much they enjoyed a book I recommended and then trust my judgement when choosing another one. Least favourite, there’s not much I don’t like, but I guess it is when you get a customer who just dismisses everything you recommend and can’t give you any idea of what they actually do want. This has probably only happened a couple of times but is frustrating.
3. What types of books are your customers buying? Have you noticed any trends over Christmas and into the New Year?
Poetry is very popular and over the years I have built up a good selection of poetry books for all ages. Recently a local photographer produced a book called “Forty Farms”, amazing photography and interviews with farming families in the Lake District, this has been very popular for Christmas and being published locally has been easily accessible for me, being hand delivered by the publisher. Local interest books are popular at any time of the year. History books are also trending for us, selling quite a few of a Yale publication, “Going to Church in Medieval England” in the run up to Christmas.
4. What is it like running a bookshop in Kirkby Lonsdale?
Kirkby Lonsdale is a beautiful small market town on the borders of Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire. There is a great community spirit in the town and the high street is made up of independent shops that are well supported by the local community. Tourism is good in the area, so our summers can be quite busy. I support a lot of local authors and it is amazing how many talented writers live nearby we held 2 local author book launches last year along with several book signings.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you would like to share with us?
I set up a dyslexia friendly books area in the shop recently and will be extending and promoting it this year. This came about from having been a school librarian and wanted my bookshop to provide books for everyone.
We’ll be hosting our second Kirkby Lonsdale Poetry Festival in 2024 having held our first very successful one in August 2022 and I’m planning an author event with Carol Wyer in March, she is one of our local authors, and will hopefully be organising many more during the year.
The Book Lounge is featured in “Bookshop Tours of Britain” by Louise Boland and this year The Jigsaw Lounge has been listed in a new publication, “111 Places in Lancaster and Morecambe (including the surrounding area) That You Shouldn’t Miss” by Lindsay Sutton. I will be making sure that we continue to be worthy of these publications throughout the year, no pressure!