Bookshop Stories

Episodes

1. Episode 15 | Why a bookfluencer with 200k followers is opening a bookshop: Tilly Fitzgerald, Tilly’s Bookshop (Worthing, West Sussex)

   23 Oct 2026 · 52 min

   What happens when you've built an audience of 200,000 book lovers online, but what you really want is a little bookshop of your own? For six years, Tilly Fitzgerald has been recommending books on social media, helping…

2. Episode 14 | How to build a bookshop for a new generation: Aimée Madill, Phlox Books (London)

   16 Oct 2026 · 1 h 02 min · Explicit

   In early-1980s Belfast, a young couple opened a shop selling art books, Scandinavian design, bespoke furniture and cappuccinos. They called it Phlox. Decades later, their daughter brought the name back to life in East…

3. Episode 13 | Can a bookshop change the reading culture of an entire town?: Richard Drake and Melanie Greenwood, Drake The Bookshop (Stockton-on-Tees)

   9 Oct 2026 · 1 h 13 min · Explicit

   Richard Drake and Melanie Greenwood never planned to become booksellers. Richard was a maths and PE teacher, Mel worked in environmental policy, and Drake The Bookshop began after a visit to a bookshop café in Penrith…

4. Episode 12 | Romance isn’t a trend. But are romance bookshops?: Cassie Simmons, Main Character Books (London)

   2 Oct 2026 · 1 h 02 min

   Romance is booming, and a string of romance-only bookshops are opening across the UK. But is this the beginning of a lasting change in bookselling – or are we watching a bubble form? For Episode 12 of Bookshop…

5. Episode 11 | Meet the accidental bookseller (and accidental author): Shaun Bythell, The Bookshop (Wigtown, Scotland)

   25 Sep 2026 · 1 h 04 min

   Shaun Bythell never particularly wanted a career. After graduating with a law degree, he deliberately avoided anything resembling one, spending his twenties working on gas pipelines, planting trees, building dry-stone…

6. Episode 10 | Can a bookshop replace the pub? Vicki Shenkin Kerr, Bàrd Books (London)

   18 Sep 2026 · 1 h 02 min

   When Vicki Shenkin Kerr opened Bàrd Books on Roman Road in East London, she wanted to create more than somewhere to buy books. Drawing on 20 years working in hospitality, she imagined a neighbourhood space where people…

7. Episode 9 | Can honesty save a bookshop?: Georgia Eckert, Imagined Things (Harrogate, Yorkshire)

   11 Sep 2026 · 1 h 03 min

   What happens when a bookshop owner admits that business is going badly? In 2018, Georgia Eckert closed out a particularly quiet day at Imagined Things, her independent bookshop in Harrogate, having taken just £12.34.…

8. Episode 8 | How do you reinvent a 50-year-old bookshop? Cathy Hayward, Kemptown Bookshop (Brighton)

   4 Sep 2026 · 1 h 05 min

   What do you do when you take over a bookshop that has already survived for half a century? Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2026. It opened in 1976 and, remarkably, Cathy Hayward is…

9. Episode 7 | Should you ever open a bookshop with your mum?: Linda Furniss and James Firth, The Stripey Badger Bookshop (Grassington, Yorkshire)

   28 Aug 2026 · 1 h 00 min

   What happens when your mum's lifelong dream becomes your career? Linda Furniss had wanted to own a bookshop since she was five years old. Her son James Firth had just finished an astrophysics degree and needed a job.…

10. Episode 6 | What it takes to survive 50 years in bookselling: Ron Johns, Falmouth Bookseller, Cornwall

    21 Aug 2026 · 56 min

    What does it take to survive more than 50 years as an independent bookseller? Ron Johns started working in the book trade in 1969. Five years later, armed with £800 borrowed from his dad, he opened his first bookshop…

11. Episode 5 | Can you build a bookshop simply around your own tastes?: Seb Reilly, Plunder (Ramsgate, Kent)

    14 Aug 2026 · 1 h 10 min

    Most businesses start by asking what their customers want. Seb Reilly did the opposite. After leaving what he calls a "proper job", Seb opened Plunder in Ramsgate: a pirate-themed independent bookshop, tearoom and…

12. Bookshop Stories Episode 4 | Can you build a home a long way from home?: Andrea Moreau, Read The Room (Nice, France)

    7 Aug 2026 · 46 min

    What does it take to open an independent English-language bookshop in the South of France? For Andrea Moreau, the answer began with a move from South Africa to Nice to be closer to her grown-up children. Less than two…

13. Bookshop Stories Episode 3 | Can opening a bookshop help you find a new direction?: Jacqui Delbaere, Little Green Bookshop (Herne Bay, Kent)

    23 Jul 2026 · 1 h 00 min · Explicit

    When Jacqui Delbaere opened The Little Green Bookshop in Herne Bay, she wasn't simply fulfilling a lifelong dream of owning a bookshop. She was responding to a moment in life when everything had changed. After a…

14. Bookshop Stories Episode 2 | Can a creative writer make a better bookseller?: Lucy Atkinson, Back of Beyond Books (Sedgefield, County Durham)

    23 Jul 2026 · 56 min

    Lucy Atkinson imagined her future surrounded by books, but not quite like this. After completing a PhD in English and Creative Writing, specialising in historical witchcraft in fiction, Lucy expected to continue…

15. Bookshop Stories Episode 1 | The fourteen-year dream: Emily Partridge and Black Cat Books (Launceston, Cornwall)

    23 Jul 2026 · 52 min

    For fourteen years, Emily Partridge dreamed of opening a bookshop. While working in education, she imagined creating a place where people could browse, discover new authors, sit with a cup of tea and lose themselves…

16. Bookshop Stories – Trailer

    23 Jul 2026 · 3:02 · Trailer

    Bookshop Stories shines a light on the people, businesses, and future of independent bookshops. In each episode, we speak to people who run bookshops around the world about the reality of the business, the role their…