It’s #LoveMyIndieBookshopWeek so I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a shoutout to my favourite independent bookshops.

I live in Wales, so how could I not start with a shop from the town of books itself, Hay-on-Wye? If you haven’t visited this sweet little town before and you get the opportunity to go, make sure you do. There aren’t as many bookshops in Hay as there used to be, but the original Booth Books is still going strong. Founded by the King of Hay, Richard Booth, Booth Books is on three levels and sells a mixture of new and second-hand books, with a particularly good children’s section, and has a cafe and cinema. https://www.boothbooks.co.uk/index.htm

We lived in Brecon for several years, and have many happy memories of visiting The Hours Cafe and Bookshop for the monthly storytime they used to hold there. A beautiful selection of books, hand-picked by the owners. https://www.thehoursbrecon.co.uk/

Also in Brecon is Brecon Books, a labyrinth of second-hand books, which I never manage to leave empty handed. https://www.facebook.com/Brecon-Books-100495511730168

In Crickhowell, you’ll find Bookish, a bookshop with lots of lovely booky gifts and a lovely cafe. https://www.book-ish.co.uk/ 

Crickhowell is also the home of Wales’ first zero waste shop, Natural Weight. https://naturalweigh.co.uk/ which I’d really recommend if you’re in the area.

Finally, hidden away in the middle of Carmarthenshire’s countryside on a market garden, and requiring a pre-booking so you have the whole shop to yourself for an hour is The Dragon’s Garden. The shop is small, but crammed full of beautiful books and you can also pick up fairtrade food and drink, gifts and fresh veg. https://dragons-garden.com/

Happy shopping!x

Online sales have become far more important, and some businesses have been offering home deliveries, mystery book parcels, signed copies, and Zoom or Facebook events as a way of standing out of the crowd.

It is more important than ever to shop locally whenever we can, and so I was very pleased to see the exciting announcement made recently that the website bookshop.org has come to the UK!

Bookshop.org is an online bookshop which started in the US and aims to financially support local, independent bookshops. The company actually gives more than 75% of its profit margin away to independent shops, publications and authors.

When you buy from the site, there’s a handy little map to search for a particular bookstore you’d like to support, and they’ll receive the full profit from anything you order – how cool is that?! If you don’t choose an individual shop, the earnings go into a pool which is evenly distributed across bookshops.

If you’re not affiliated with a bookshop, you’ll find a list of ones close to you on your email receipt. I thought this was a great way to encourage people to support those shops which are actually local to them so they can help a business in their own community.

With delusions of being Kathleen Kelly sat behind her counter in the film ‘You’ve Got Mail’ racing through my head, I set up my own ‘bookshop’ on the site, where I can make lists of books I recommend. This can be done by booksellers, authors, bloggers… anyone book-related basically! My shop can be found at:

https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/emmabennet

I’ll be adding more lists and updating them in the coming weeks.

I get a small commission if anything is bought through my store or using a link that I put in a blog article or on social media, and, obviously, your local, independent bookstore will get a percentage too!