27th June 2025
Our expert
Will Smith Will is co-owner of Sam Read Bookseller, an independent bookshop in Grasmere that has served the Lake District for more than 130 years. He has more than two decades of experience in bookselling with previous roles at Blackwell’s and Ottakar’s. Will has been a judge for the Nero Book Awards, Costa Book Awards and the Nature Chronicles Prize, writes book reviews for Cumbria Life magazine and regularly appears on BBC Radio Cumbria.
Paperback Preview September
Previews
Golden oldies: a new lease of life for classic texts
Classic fiction titles enjoy a second moment in the sun thanks to TikTok and several exciting reissue series from Vintage and Penguin Michael Joseph
A
s our bookshop celebrat e s Indep e ndent Bookshop Week hot on the heels of
The Bookseller’s Northern Powerhouse analysis, I have again been thinking about what we sell in our shop and why it matters. While we sell a fair share of national bestsellers, about 80% of our book sales are spread over the thousands of titles that do not trouble the Top 50. One browser, who memorably berated their partner for “not finishing the last Marcus Aurelius they bought”, demonstrated how a writer’s trajectory ebbs and flows; I’m inclined to think that the spread of sales bookshops make are essential for seeding conversations around myriad books and supporting what might
become the next word of mouth hit. My colleague Abi recently raved about Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men, (Vintage) which, though published 30 years ago, has TikTok to thank for renewed attention. Who is to say which book will experience that kind of amplification next? I was delighted by Daniel Handler’s memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else? (Oneworld), which is this month’s Book of the Month for many reasons, but particularly because he suggested he wanted other people to read the (often obscure) books he loved so that he had more people to talk to about them. I am resolving to think less about charts and sales figures and more about the joy of sharing a book that will resonate with a customer.
Books
Paperback Preview
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