Monday, June 22, 2015

Indie revival: high street bookshops upbeat about next chapter in story

Amazon, ebooks and supermarkets have taken their toll on independents, with twice as many closing as opening last year, but survivors are leading a fightback

Booka bookshop in Oswestry, Shropshire.
Booka in Oswestry, Shropshire, has confounded sceptics and the wider trend of failing high street bookstores by increasing turnover each year and by becoming a mecca for book lovers. Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian
After a decade of closures, independent booksellers are optimistic they can turn the page on a story of decline as they launch a festival of 24-hour “readathons”, live story-writing and numerous book signings this weekend.

Appearances across the country by authors including Antony Beevor, Jonathan Sacks and Helen Macdonald will mark the ninth Independent Bookshop week, but the shutters are still being pulled down as Amazon, ebooks and supermarkets take their toll.

Last year almost twice as many bookshops closed down as new ones opened. There are 939 independents left in the UK and Ireland, compared with more than 1,500 a decade ago, according to the latest count by the Booksellers Association.
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