The Heath Bookshop
A newly established independent, The Heath Bookshop can be found in King’s Heath, Birmingham. Owned and managed by Catherine and Claire, we chat with them about how the bookshop came to be, what genres are currently on trend and what’s to come! Read on to find out more …
1. Congratulations on recently celebrating your 1st birthday! What made you go into bookselling and what’s your favourite part?
Thank you so much! It’s a very strange mix of feelings. It feels like yesterday since we opened the shop but at the same time like it’s all we’ve ever done. We both had different reasons for signing up for the Booksellers’ Association Course “How to Start and Run a Bookshop”. Catherine was ready for a major career change, after spending 22 years running her own company working with children with a diagnosis of autism and owning a bookshop had been a lifelong dream. Claire is a musician and when the theatre work stopped during covid, she signed up for the course out of interest as she had always loved reading. That’s how we met! We discovered we lived round the corner from each other, met up, spent lots of time together and realised that running a shop together could be perfect. It really is! We’ve learned a lot this year but meeting each other and creating our shop and a wonderful community of customers has been amazing.
2. How did you go about finding the perfect location for your shop?
We initially wanted a shop on the main high street but unfortunately didn’t get it. We hadn’t considered being off the high street but when we found the units in Kings Court it was the perfect location, and it’s been wonderful. Away from the traffic, it’s a lovely place to visit with many other independent shops around us. It’s given us the calm we wanted.
3. Tell us more about your subscription and book club services. How do you choose the books you recommend?
We have sixty spaces in our book clubs, split into four groups. Each month we suggest four different books for members to vote on. They can sometimes be themed eg Black History Month or Women’s Prize for Fiction list and are usually books we haven’t read so we can also read something new and join in the discussion.
Our book subscription is currently one book for all as we’re such a small shop. This choice is always a book that one of us has read and we think will have universal appeal.
4. What types of books have your customers been buying recently? Have you noticed any trends?
One trend this year has been fiction in translation. It’s been so popular! Our customers also like books written by local authors.
5. And finally, do you have any exciting plans for the shop in the coming months that you would like to share with us?
We have an event with Brian Bilston in December. His was one of our biggest events last year and he was so generous with his time.
We also have plans for a festival next year so that could be an exciting step forwards for The Heath Bookshop!