Bookseller concedes dominance of ebooks, but aims to be king of what it does best with flagship store in London
Light streams down from rooftop windows on to a spacious white-walled atrium catching the edge of a 1930s dancefloor like a spotlight. It's a huge change of scene for Foyles, London's temple of books, which was once famed for dark forbidding bookshelves and a payment system so arcane that many visitors chose to steal rather than buy their favoured paperback.
The bookstore may be moving less than 100 metres down the street to the former St Martins School of Arts building, but after 85 years in its labyrinthine premises on Charing Cross Road it marks a significant step in the revival of a cultural institution.
Former boss Christina Foyle put the bookshop at the heart of the literary world from the 1930s, by hosting lunches attended by famous authors and a string of prime ministers – but her eccentricities nearly killed the business off. When she handed over the reins to her nephew Christopher Foyle six days before she died in 1999 he found a business in meltdown. Sales were dropping by 20% a year as the store had shunned modern technology. The accounting system was based on three people entering items in ledgers by hand.
Foyle, who has turned the business into a profitable mini-chain with the opening of seven smaller stores, admits the family's investment in a swanky new main store is a leap of faith as the printed word comes under attack from digital alternatives and bookshops struggle in the face of Amazon's domination.
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The bookstore may be moving less than 100 metres down the street to the former St Martins School of Arts building, but after 85 years in its labyrinthine premises on Charing Cross Road it marks a significant step in the revival of a cultural institution.
Former boss Christina Foyle put the bookshop at the heart of the literary world from the 1930s, by hosting lunches attended by famous authors and a string of prime ministers – but her eccentricities nearly killed the business off. When she handed over the reins to her nephew Christopher Foyle six days before she died in 1999 he found a business in meltdown. Sales were dropping by 20% a year as the store had shunned modern technology. The accounting system was based on three people entering items in ledgers by hand.
Foyle, who has turned the business into a profitable mini-chain with the opening of seven smaller stores, admits the family's investment in a swanky new main store is a leap of faith as the printed word comes under attack from digital alternatives and bookshops struggle in the face of Amazon's domination.
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