to be ongoing, and potentially reach a wider area,” she says.


Wilkins has reached out to her customer base—“made up of exactly 50% locals and 50% tourists”—to invite donations, and encourages visitors to “round up” purchases to the nearest pound, with the difference donated. “We then top up the donations using our trade discount, so that every £100 raised equates to almost £150 worth of books,” she adds. The bookshop is working with schools including Drapers Mills Primary Academy, Northdown Primary School and Cliſtonville Primary School, among others. It stocks titles falling under “general inter- est” with a comprehensive poetry selection and nature writing collection—“the later very much reflecting my own personal interests,” Wilkins says. Books that have flown off the shelves include the Margate-set Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee (Simon & Schuster), which is the shop’s all-time bestselling title, closely followed by Daisy Buchanan’s Insatiable (Sphere), which made its monthly top 10 consistently in 2021.


The competition in the local area is scarce. Children’s specialist Tales of Moon Lane is the closest independent, in Ramsgate, followed by Whitstable’s Harbour Books and The Hastings Bookshop further along the coast. “All these represent a precious and wonderful communit I am hugely grateful to have close by,” Wilkins says.


She lives in the flat above the shop, and has plans to continue hosting events on the premises, though has been holding back from approaching this full-throtle. “It’s a completely new area to me, and also we are still mostly in Covid-world, but we do have an upstairs space which would lend itself well to events,” she says. “I currently hire it out as a writers’ room. We have had a few small events in our small shop space, so, for instance, Robin Ince might be perched on the stairs reading to an audience huddled at his feet—and that works. It’s a totally different atmosphere than if we had a large, purpose- built room.”


Anticipated bestsellers


Dancing Ledge Derek Jarman Vintage reissue, 3rd March


Woman, Eating Claire Kohda Virago, 23rd March


Young Mungo Douglas Stuart Picador, 14th April


Looking to Sea Lily Le Brun Hodder & Stoughton, 23rd June


TheBookseller.com


Independent Bookshop Top 20 1 To Paradise


Title


2 Unsettled Ground 3 Mrs England


4 Islands of Abandonment 5 The Thursday Murder Club 6 Piranesi 7 Recovery


8 Entangled Life 9 The City of Tears 10 Luster


11 Wintering 12 No One Is Talking About This 14 Hamnet


15 Small Pleasures 16 Ariadne


19 Shuggie Bain 20 Fall


Author


Imprint


Hanya Yanagihara Picador Claire Fuller Fig Tree Stacey Halls Manilla Press Cal Flyn William Collins Richard Osman Penguin Susanna Clarke Bloomsbury Gavin Francis Wellcome Coll... Merlin Sheldrake Vintage


ISBN (+978) ASP 1529077476 0241457467 1838772888 0008329808 0241988268 1526622433 1800810488 1784708276


Kate Mosse Pan 1509806898 Raven Leilani Picador Katherine May Rider


Patricia Lockwood Bloomsbury


13 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn... Taylor Jenkins Reid Simon & Schuster Maggie O’Farrell Tinder Press Clare Chambers Weidenfeld Jennifer Saint Wildfire Matt Haig Canongate James Nestor Penguin Life Douglas Stuart Picador John Preston Penguin


17 The Midnight Library 18 Breath


1529036008 1846045998 1526629777 1398515697 1472223821 1474613903 1472273901 1786892737 0241289129 1529019292 0241388686


£19.88 £8.85 £8.97 £9.99 £8.90 £8.99 £5.06


£10.96 £8.95 £9.99 £9.99 £8.97 £8.97 £9.00 £8.99 £8.93 £8.93 £9.99 £8.88 £9.99


Week ending 29th January 2022. Unless otherwise stated, charts use data from Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market, representing print book sales through around 6,500 retailers. Any title discounted by more than 74.5% is ineligible for inclusion.


From the shop floor


Afrori Books, Brighton Owner Carolynn Bain right


and her team are working alongside Brighton’s The Feminist Bookshop to put together Brighton Book Festival 2022. The event aims to bring together big names in literature alongside emerging authors, “demonstrating that it is possible to create festivals where marginalised authors are not an afterthought or a tick-box,” Bain says. Next month, the shop will also use funds raised by a local school to run a weekly anti-racist club for seven to 11-year-olds.


Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill, London Owner Sanchita Basu de Sarkar has just launched a “hugely popular” graphic novel club, and is celebrating with an author signing tomorrow (Saturday 5th February) of Eve Wersocki Morris’ début The Bird Singers.


The Open Book, Richmond A planning application that


threatened the viability of The Open Book on King Street has


been withdrawn, after almost 500 people—including local authors Michael Frayn and Sir David Attenborough—objected to development plans.


Two indies forced to close The bookselling community


lost two indies this week. Sam Carr, one of The Bookseller’s Bookshop Heroes for 2021, is


“heartbroken” at being forced to close The Snug Bookshop in Bridgewater, Somerset, follow- ing longstanding problems with the premises and a damaged roof. Owned by William and Ger Kinsella, Dublin’s largest indie Chapters Bookshop also closed its doors this week, after 40 years’ trading.


15


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