October’s Independent Bookshop of the Month is Sam Read Bookseller in Grasmere, Cumbria – probably the oldest bookshop in the north of England. We spoke to Will about being the custodian of a long and storied bookselling history.
Tell us the story of your shop.
We’re probably the oldest bookshop in the north of England. Sam Read began bookselling in Grasmere in 1887 and moved to the current location in 1895. Sam was remembered fondly for his ‘courtesy and help to all comers’. Since Sam’s daughter Helen retired in 1950, the bookshop has been run by five owners. Each generation has become a fixture in village life with our longstanding customers often regaling us with tales of them (some still recall Helen Read). Margaret Hughes ran the shop with her husband Dan from 1968 until 2000 and always enthused about books, running courses in bookselling and taking dancing lessons to waltz with Allen Lane at a Bookseller’s Association conference. Elaine Nelson took over in 2000 and modernised the shop, winning the 2006 Times/Independent Alliance Competition for Best UK Independent Bookshop. I’ve worked at the shop for over a decade, and seen the pressures of austerity, online bookselling and pandemic life. In October 2023, I took over the shop with my partner Polly and we’ve been really encouraged by the loyalty of our customers and are looking forward to bringing the joy of Sam Read’s to new generations.
What are the booksellers reading at the moment?
I feel like we’re all eclectic in our reading habits, which is probably an advisable thing for booksellers. I’m reading Teju Cole’s latest novel Tremor, which is brilliant on art and history and Gabby Hutchinson Crouch’s new historical fantasy novel Cursed Under London, which is brilliant on dragons and unearthly beings. Kim is reading Ben Myers’s The Perfect Golden Circle, Clover Stroud’s The Giant on the Skyline and Celia Paul’s Letters to Gwen John. Abi has just finished Jacqueline Wilson’s new novel Think Again and is currently reading Miriam Lacroix’s How It Works Out. Polly has just finished reading an amazing new novel by Katie Hale called The Edge of Solitude, (signed copies available from Sam Read), which is queer clifi that imagines the outcome of our current inaction on climate change and what cancel culture might look like in a climate apocalypse. Next on the heap for Polly is Andrés N. Ordorica’s How We Named The Stars.
‘We are custodians of a very long history. It’s wonderful to sell E. M. Forster’s work knowing he used to send letters care of Read’s bookshop.’
What’s your favourite thing about your shop?
The feeling of being custodians of a very long history is key and influences some of our core stock (it’s wonderful to sell E. M. Forster’s work knowing he used to send letters care of Read’s bookshop). We’ve become known for having a wide selection of contemporary poetry and nature writing, but romance and curious non-fiction are staples for us too. Being a village bookshop, visitors are often surprised at the balance of classics and books they hadn’t realised had been published yet. We’re incredibly lucky to be able to work with books in such a beautiful landscape and you’ll often catch us sharing photographs on social media which span rainbows, glorious changes of weather, wildlife and that time they replaced the bench opposite the shop.
Which Faber book is the most popular in your shop?
Distinctly local memoir Helen Rebanks’s The Farmer’s Wife has been incredibly popular, aided by Eleanor Crow’s wonderful illustrations of farm life. A close second would be Seamus Heaney’s selection of little-known local author William Wordsworth’s poetry in the poet-to-poet series. Joint second-place would be the better-known poet, Zaffar Kunial, whose first two collections have connections to the time he spent living in the village. We’re loving Mollie Ray’s new graphic novel Giant and we always do well with Lucy M. Boston’s The Children of Green Knowe which is partly inspired by Boston’s visit to Cumbria’s Levens Hall when she was a child (we’re looking forward to the 70th anniversary collector’s edition).
Which other local independent business would you love visitors to discover?
Our ultimate day out would involve two local businesses. We’d first head to Grasmere Gingerbread to fill our pockets with the local delicacy which has been sold at Church cottage since the mid 19th century and then wander down to Faeryland Grasmere to enjoy a unique blend of tea in the beautiful tea garden by the lake (and maybe rent a boat on the lake from them for the full experience).
Which book do you wish everyone had read?
So tough! My own bias is towards Canadian writing so I’d always want people to read Dionne Brand’s poetry. Brand’s Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems includes the iconic early collection No Language Is Neutral. Favourite novels would be Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility and children’s classic Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones. In non-fiction, although we’re all in favour of fells here, we’d want everyone to read Noreen Masud’s A Flat Place for its deeply evocative portrait of interconnectivity of people and places.
‘Children from the village primary school are regulars and some definitely want our jobs. I loved when someone browsed with their cat happily in their backpack and there is a local child who comes by with her parrot in a backpack.’
Do you have a favourite type of customer?
We love all our customers equally but it’s brilliant helping someone find a book which you know will resonate strongly. In fact, it’s brilliant helping people find books full stop, like when you can point to lesser known works by favourite authors or recommend interesting reads drawing on our bookish knowledge. Children from the village primary school are regulars and some definitely want our jobs. I loved when someone browsed with their cat happily in their backpack and there is a local child who comes by with her parrot in a backpack. Not all book browsing animals travel in backpacks – we also have good bookshop dog clientele with their paws firmly on the ground. We love how international our customer base is, which has increased since the Lake District’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. We’re a bit of a local hub too and we have a great mix of locals dispensing village gossip and regular visitors telling us of their travels.
What would people find surprising about being a bookseller?
The amount of lifting and carrying. The potential for cardboard cuts from boxes. Polly was slightly taken aback to have to leap up from behind the desk and shepherd a lamb back under a gate twice this spring, which they did not expect to be part of the job description. Kim found a toad in the children’s section the day after Halloween. The range of general questions we receive that seem to have little to do with books, such as ‘do you sell ducks?’, ‘is there ‘owt in Keswick?’ or ‘do you have a lake here?’. We spend a surprising amount of time coaxing birds, bees and woodwasps back out into the wild. Behind the scenes can also be a frightening miscellany of book promotions gone by. We can’t be the only bookshop who still retains a plastic goat’s skull in their staff toilet.
You can visit Sam Read Bookseller at Broadgate House, Grasmere, England LA229SY, or order from them online at samreadbooks.co.uk.
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Read more of our interviews with bookshops
September 2024: Sherlock & Pages
August 2024: Book-ish
July 2024: Pages of Hackney