August’s Independent Bookshop of the Month is Book-ish in South Wales (Crickhowell and Abergavenny), winner of the 2024 British Book Award for Independent Bookshop of the Year. We spoke to owner Emma Corfield-Walters.
Tell us the story of your shop.
From being a small child, I have always had a love of books and reading, but my career took me in a very different direction. I was the director of a building surveying company, but it wasn’t my passion; I was feeling more and more like I wanted to get closer to what I loved. So I decided to have a complete life change, and I moved from Brighton back to Wales, and that’s where Book-ish was born. Now Book-ish has grown into a brilliant team – it’s a family of the best people who care about what we do and I’m so proud we were named Independent Bookshop of the Year 2024 at the British Book Awards. At our flagship shop in Crickhowell we’re a bookshop, a café and an events loft – we’re somewhere people come to connect and have conversations. Our second shop in Abergavenny has just turned one year old. So the future is about continuing to build our Book-ish community both on the high street and online.
What are the booksellers reading at the moment?
I’m reading Christ on a Bike by Orla Owen; Hannah is reading a proof copy of Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins by Claire Fayers in preparation for the book launch in our events loft; Rob is reading a new YA book, Fallout by Leslie Parr, which he’ll be taking into schools next term; Loren is reading from the classics shelf – Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier; and Jack is reading a proof copy of Rewitched (due out in September) by Lucy Jane Wood.
What’s your favourite thing about your shop?
The fact that we have become a destination for book lovers. Every day we have people visiting us from all over the world – this morning we’ve already had people from Canada, the US, London and Scotland. We have people that regularly drive a couple of hours to come for a bacon sandwich in our café and to stock up on our recommended reads. My favourite part of all is that so many of our customers become firm friends (quick shout out to Mary in Minnesota, who returns to see us often and to whom we ship a box of our chosen top picks monthly).
Which Faber book is the most popular in your shop?
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s been such a favourite and on our bestseller board for a long time now. People were coming into the shop after finishing it with a ‘book hangover’ and buying it again to give to family and friends. The gorgeous indie edition of the book with the sprayed edges was a huge hit.
Which other local independent business would you love visitors to discover?
It’s impossible to name just one! Crickhowell has a thriving high street of independent businesses and we all support each other. We source the produce for our café and bookshop from our fellow local shops, so visitors will discover them without even realising – the meat in our café is from Cashells across the road, the fish is from Black Mountains Smokery, our neighbour Natural Weigh (a zero-waste shop) supplies many of our grocery items, our special Book-ish coffee blend is from the local company Black Mountain Roast, we get homeware from Webbs, and when authors visit us for events they stay in The Bear Hotel across the road.
Which book do you wish everyone had read?
Addlands by Tom Bullough. It’s so beautifully set in terms of time and place, and the characters just sing from the pages. Yes, it’s set in Wales and has this intense sense of place – but I’ve not chosen it as a ‘local’ book. It captures something universal that reaches further. It deserves to be read by everyone, and everyone would get so much from reading it.
Do you have a favourite type of customer?
I love it when someone comes into Book-ish and doesn’t know what they are looking for. We can help find them the perfect read. It’s about finding the right story for the right person at the right time. We’ve got over 14,000 ideas sitting on our shelves, and we get to talk about them to different people every day.
What would people find surprising about being a bookseller?
That bookselling isn’t traditional shopkeeping – you need to get out from behind the till and get involved with the local community. We do that through author events, schools events, and signings. We do Book-ish pop-ups at local festivals such as Green Man Festival in Crickhowell and the Abergavenny Food Festival. It’s also about being part of the wider bookselling community and the creativity that comes from working with other independent bookshops across the UK, publishers, authors, illustrators and, of course, our customers.
Read more of our interviews with bookshops
July 2024: Pages of Hackney
June 2024: Phlox Books