Bookshop Day: A Love Affair with Bookshops
“Bookshops bring people together throughout the year, every year. This Bookshop Day, we want to remind consumers that their local bookshop is more than a retail space. It’s a place that creates and facilitates conversation; it’s a safe space for people who may feel lonely or marginalised; it’s a place to gather with friends, to meet authors, for children to listen to stories, and occasionally even a place to spark romance.”
- Emma Bradshaw, Head of Campaigns at the BA
For many readers, bookshops are a kind of love affair. They involve desire - the endless choices of books - that can’t ever be fully satiated. They involve obsession - with a beloved author or book. And they involve loyalty - to a trusted bookseller or bookshop. We might imagine that, from the clustered shelves of a bookshop visited, Eros (or Cupid as the Romans referred to him) is casting down silvery arrows, striking absent-minded readers as they browse stacks of books, quietly falling in love with words and characters.
A nationwide celebration of all bookshops in the United Kingdom, Bookshop Day, held this year on October 14th, exists to shine a light on the cultural importance of bookshops, and the vital role they play as community hubs that bring people together to help foster a lifetime love of reading.
Far from simply being a retail space, bookshops and the booksellers who power them have a tangible impact on society – bringing people together for events and book clubs, collaborating with local charities, food banks and schools, and providing a safe and welcoming space for their communities. And it is the knowledgeable, passionate, and dedicated booksellers who make the experience of whiling away the hours in a beautiful bookshop even more special – they are quite simply the experts, curators, community champions, bibliotherapists, and even matchmakers of the book world.
“Whenever I enter a local bookshop I know something is going to happen. It will involve a book, of course. But it will also involve a ritual of a kind, a process of choosing. I’ll leave with something I didn’t have before and that is exciting.”
Griffin Books
In celebration of this year’s Bookshop Day and its theme of bringing people together, we spoke to Griffin Books – an independent bookshop located in the lovely coastal town of Penarth, just outside Cardiff – about the many ways in which their bookshop acts as a warm, welcoming, and inspiring hub for their community.
Griffin Books opened their doors in September 2014 and, in 2023, they were named Independent Bookshop of the Year at the British Book Awards. In addition to selling and recommending books to their wonderful loyal customers, they also host a busy programme of school and author events, bringing some of the biggest names and most exciting debut authors from across the UK and beyond to Penarth, including Maggie O’Farrell, the Rev Richard Coles, Bonnie Garmus, and Diana Evans, to name only a few.
“‘Celebratory events like Bookshop Day help to raise the profile of individual bookshops, particularly independents. We hope it will encourage people to support their high street and venture into their local indie bookshop, possibly for the first time, to discover their next favourite read.’ ”
As a small and supportive bookshop, the team have a lot of fun behind the scenes in the shop and when setting up for events. Only adding to the community feel of the shop is the fact that all members live locally, and each team member knows their regular customers really well – they even buy stock in with a specific customer’s reading tastes in mind – and there is even a mother/daughter bookselling duo on their team!
In addition to the day-to-day running of the shop, Griffin Books’ Book Clubs have been a wonderful example of books bringing people together. They have become so popular that they now run six community Book Clubs for adults, children and teens. The adult book clubs have been a way for newcomers to the town to meet other like-minded people, and members often meet up for coffees and cinema trips between meetings. Their Teen Book Club has been running for just over a year, comprising a lively bunch of 12-15 year olds from a range of backgrounds. The group have become firm friends over the last year (possibly explaining the ‘liveliness’ of their sessions!) and are regularly in touch with each other outside of the group to recommend books, chat about their love of musicals, and generally just enjoy each other's company.
