HeyJaredMy Bookshop Backstory by Tom Rowley
On quitting a secure, well-paid job I love to start my own bookshop
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 26, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 4, 2026
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Get it while it’s Thresh: the new Yarros<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="269.07363420427555" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0f0o!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fad7760
Reading is dead. Long live the bookshop. (opens the original)
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EARLIER THIS WEEK, I hosted an enjoyable discussion at Backstory with Times columnist James Marriott about his newly published polemic. Enjoyable, that is, even though having a conversation about his treatise — The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society — in a bookshop was a little like inviting an abattoir manager to convene a panel on veganism.Marriott reckons that we are facing “a post-literate future that resemb
Jay Rayner, Jonathan Coe (opens the original)
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WE’VE BEEN LUCKY to host a very long list of excellent authors at Backstory, starting with Marina Hyde and Craig Brown in our opening month. But this autumn’s line-up, with no fewer than 23 events, has to be one of our best yet. Denise has corralled, cajoled and perhaps corrupted an array of big names as well as some brilliant less well-known voices into hopping on the northern line to Balham.Here, for the first time, is the full line-up, including return visits for Jay Rayner, Jonathan Coe and
Headline here (opens the original)
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Bank holiday: open all hoursWe’re open as usual this bank holiday weekend, so pop in from 9am-6pm today and 10am-6pm Sunday and Monday. And, of course, we’re always open online…WE’VE HAD SOME SUCCESS recently with a slim hardback book that makes me smile every time a customer brings it to the counter. It is called The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances, which I reckon is the best title w
‘Do you have a pocket guide to pigeon watching?’ (opens the original)
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