Britain’s bookshops reopen
They face a fight for survival. They’re used to that
AT FIRST, THEY are tentative. Hovering about the door of the bookshop in the Suffolk town of Aldeburgh, they wait to be invited in. “Can I look at the cards?” a woman whispers, as if enquiring about contraband. A man spends several minutes forensically scrubbing his hands with sanitiser gel before wrestling on a pair of latex gloves. “I’m going to have to buy something now,” he quips. But once inside, the customers pootle absent-mindedly with no regard for the marked-out route, hunting for that paperback they heard about on the radio, something for the grandkids or just a bloody good yarn. Mary James, who owns the shop with her husband John, smiles indulgently. “People are finding the one-way system quite challenging,” she concedes.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Just browsing”
From the June 20th 2020 edition
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