Support our bookshops before they’re all gone
The other day, a plaintive message on Twitter caught my eye. It was from the owner of Imagined Things bookshop in Harrogate. “We only took £12.34 today… if anyone was thinking about buying a book, now would be a great time! Things have been tough recently – today, the worst day ever. A card, a book, anything makes a huge difference to a small business like ours. We’d be very grateful for your support.”
The response was as overwhelming as it was heart-warming. Georgia Duffy, the owner of Imagined Things, says her request was retweeted 4,400 times and she has been inundated with offers of support.
“I sent a book to America,” she says, “and had a donation from someone in Berlin. I even had a guy say: ‘I don’t need a book right now, but here’s a fiver for being awesome’.” One woman asked for some books to make her three-year-old laugh and sent £20, while other people have submitted lists of authors they like and asked for a random selection by them, or just to be surprised.
Georgia’s bookshop got off to a good start when it opened a year ago, but recently sales
have fallen off a cliff. She emphasises the importance of Booksellers for Business Rates, a campaign which aims to alleviate the pressure on high-street bookshops by giving them cultural exemption from business rates. “It’s just fairer, so that we can compete with online retailers.”
Having recently done a book tour of the US, speaking at 10 wonderful, independent stores from Boston to Pasadena, I can vouch for the invaluable role a good bookshop plays in its community. But tackling business rates is just one part of the remedy.
I reckon Georgia Duffy’s touching appeal jogged people into feeling guilty. And so we should, those of us who love books but not quite enough to visit a bookshop and make a purchase.
As with churches, we take bookshops for granted and will sorely miss them when they’re gone. I’ll be doing an event at Imagined Things in September, once the “astounded and snowed under” Georgia has had time to recover. If you live near Harrogate, please come along and help save a very precious endangered species.