Booksellers

As the weather turns and the days shorten, as trees bend low with fruit and blackberries darken the hedges, bookshops are bracing for a bumper crop of their own. September and October are always rich, but this year is exceptional: nearly 600 books will reportedly be published in the UK on 3 September alone.  Read more

Book lovers' passion for words on the printed page has inspired them to donate millions of dollars to help keep their favorite independent shops afloat and workers paid during coronavirus-prompted closures and restrictions.

As the last decade concluded, book publishers breathed a sigh of relief. The 2010s were characterized by a series of Amazon-related shock waves-the growing power of the retail behemoth, the rise of e-books, a related Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit, and the decimation of bookstores both large and small. But publishers had survived.  Read more

James Daunt, the man who will soon try to revive Barnes & Noble, once spent weeks in a noisy, arm-waving debate about the ideal angle of tilt for bookstore shelving. His opponent was an Italian showroom designer who argued, in a series of otherwise congenial meals in some of London's best restaurants, that the shelf should be tilted four degrees.  Read more

In 1991, one year after James Daunt opened his first eponymous bookstore in London, Waterstones unveiled its first U.S. bookstore in Boston. The U.K. chain grew its stateside presence to a modest size, maintaining a foothold in the country until the turn of the millennium.  Read more