Indie Bookshops: Don’t let them dwindle to the Kindle

In the UK alone, the number of independent bookshops has dwindled considerably. That said, in the last three or four years, new ones have encouragingly begun to pop up here and there. In light of this, in such a digitally driven age, Prose wanted to give something back to the stores that we adore so much. We start with David’s Bookshop in Hertfordshire.

We met with Paul Wallace, the owner of David’s Bookshop. The shop itself is well known and has been in Letchworth Garden City now for 52 years, where they pride themselves on stocking the most comprehensive range of items for many miles. With over 50,000 books on two floors, and a wide range of maps, you can happily while away hour upon hour there. The rather enchanted second hand book department covers two floors, with everything from low cost paperbacks to antiquarian and collectors' volumes. In addition, they have a café there where customers are invited to browse over a tea of coffee and a slice of cake. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

We asked how Paul felt about the decline of Indie Bookshops in Britain.

“Statistics say that the number of independent bookshops on the high street has fallen below a thousand. In that nine-hundred-and-something number, over three hundred of those are Christian bookshops, so in fact the number of independent stores offering a wide range of genres number in the six hundreds. There are new bookshops opening all the time, but unfortunately, they’re closing at a faster rate. We have the record shop here as well, and they number only in the three hundreds at the moment, although they are on the increase.”

Read the rest of the feature on blog.theprose.com later today - 6pm GMT/10am PST