In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money.

CUSTOMER: If I were to, say... meet the love of my life in this bookshop, what section do you think they would be standing in?

It was, in many ways, her dream bookshop. Not least because all the books had already been read.
Books that had already been read were the best.

…secondhand bookstores have pilgrims. The words out of print are a call to arms for those who seek a Holy Grail made of paper and ink.

I still think that going in on that Friday afternoon and spending that money was one of the happiest experiences of my life.

These days, we've got booksellers in cities, in deserts, and in the middle of a rain forest; we've got travelling bookshops, and bookshops underground. We've got bookshops in barns, in caravans and in converted Victorian railway stations. We've even got booksellers selling books in the middle of a war.

Are bookshops still relevant? They certainly are.

All bookshops are full of stories, and stories want to be heard.