'Bookshops are an integral part of our communities'

Hazel Broadfoot says booksellers are better than "online algorithms" at finding a good read for customers

“People were predicting the death of the physical book some years ago, and it hasn’t happened."

That's the view of Dulwich Village Books owner Hazel Broadfoot, who told BBC London that despite competition from online retailers, physical stores remained an "integral part of the community".

Figures from the Booksellers Association revealed a slight drop in the number of stores in 2023 compared with the year before but the overall trend has seen rise in the past decade.

Vida Adamczewski, who works at Review Bookshop in Peckham, south London, said they were still attracting customers from across the generations.

'More and more professional'

“Books are certainly where a lot of people go to relax and to kind of escape the stresses, the everyday stresses of life," she told BBC London.

Ms Broadfoot said the industry had seen a lot of changes over the past three decades with the likes of Amazon entering the market and readers turning to e-books.

She said the number of bookshops, both independent and chain, had declined in that time but there had been a resurgence in recent years.

"Since Covid, it started going back up again, and booksellers have got more and more professional and are much better at demonstrating their skills as opposed to online algorithms,” she said.

Vida Adamczewsk says being a bookseller can be "therapeutic"

The personal touch is something readers are yearning for, according to Ms Adamczewski.

“A big part of the job is making recommendations and having conversations with the customers to work out exactly what they’re looking for,” she said.

“There’s a kind of therapeutic element to being a bookseller. You spend a lot of time listening to people, understanding them, and forming that kind of relationship.”

Ms Broadfoot said it was this that made booksellers "really skilled" at finding the books their customers wanted to read.

Ms Broadfoot says physical books remain attractive to every generation

The Booksellers Association, an industry representative body, had 1,894 member stores across the UK and Ireland in 1995, according to its figures.

In 2017, the number had dipped to 868 but rose to 1,063 member stores in 2023.

Authors are taking part in events in stores across London and the UK to mark Bookshop Day.

Emma Bradshaw, head of campaigns at the Booksellers Association, said: "Bookshop Day highlights what a difference local bookshops make to the their high street."