Bookselling, it’s in the bone
Submitted by Laura Jenkinson  12 August 2010
The Bookshop Blog
At the end of my interview for Blackwell’s, at its famous Broad Street flagship bookshop in historic Oxford, I was asked, “Where do you see yourself in ten years time?”

It was early 2004. I was a few months out of Durham University, with a degree in English Studies with Classics. Straight after graduating I’d almost literally fallen into a four month stint at the Bloomsbury branch of Waterstones, one of the largest academic bookshops in Europe, before I moved to Oxford to become big in publishing. Now I was in Oxford, and the publishing trail had run cold; I was apparently either too inexperienced, or, confusingly, too experienced, to suit any of the roles I’d applied for. I still needed to pay the rent. Bookselling, no matter how insanely poorly-paid, appeared again on my horizon.

I answered the question tactically.
“With my own bookshop.”
Thus I ticked the box, and was led away to begin my bookselling career proper.

This is an interesting story, to read it link here.