A second-hand bookshop golden age?
A second wind for second-hand books?
This feels unintuitive, but good news, if it's true…
In several posts I have suggested that second-hand bookshops in Britain have, on the available evidence, not reduced in number at any time. This is certainly the case if you include full-scale charity bookshops, but it is also broadly true if you don’t. Indeed, there are more than twice as many now as there were for most of the 20th century.
Mark Valentine's argument is based on listings in the Book Guide, which do, indeed, suggest a dynamic second-hand bookshop market. And he has a theory as to why:
The population of Britain has grown considerably and the stock of second-hand books is, despite pulping and discarding, likely to be accumulative. Further education has also expanded substantially. More readers and more books are likely to lead to more bookshops. Though there are some countervailing influences, such as e-books and online booksellers, there seems to be a stubborn affection for real books and real bookshops.
Indeed. I am annoyed to discover that there are two – two – of them in Penrith, which I completely failed to find and visit last summer.
The Golden Age of Second-Hand Bookshops
In several posts I have suggested that second-hand bookshops in Britain have, on the available evidence, not reduced in number at any…
Mark V
