Episode 14 | How to build a bookshop for a new generation: Aimée Madill, Phlox Books (London)
· 1 h 02 min · Explicit
Episode Episode 14 | How to build a bookshop for a new generation: Aimée Madill, Phlox Books (London)
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 London.
In this episode of Bookshop Stories, Tom Idle meets Aimée Madill, owner of Phlox Books on Francis Road in Leyton, to discover how she's created a new generation of the family business.
Aimée talks about growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, losing her mother, working at the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, and opening Phlox before her 30th birthday. We also explore her extraordinary work programming literary and cultural events at Wilderness and Latitude festivals, the art of recommending books, and what makes a great bookseller.
It's a conversation about family, creativity, curiosity and how a good idea can find a completely new life decades after it first appeared.
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Bookshop Stories goes behind the shelves of independent bookshops to meet the people who run them and explore the realities of bookselling, running a small business and keeping independent bookshops alive.
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