Reading has never been so cool and many bookshops are bucking the current high street trends and thriving. Today we hear the fantastic news that Waterstones is to open two new books and they’ll be trading in time for Christmas.
It’s a grim time for retailers with many proclaiming the high street ‘dead on its feet’ so the news that two new stores are opening is absolutely fantastic, especially as it’s bookshops in particular who are suffering from the effects of online trade and the digital revolution.
The first of the shops will be based in Westfield in London and will be the first Waterstones to open in the capital since the Tottenham Court Road shop opened three years ago. Westfield has been without a bookshop since Foyles closed its doors in the White City shopping centre in 2015 and locals will surely be thrilled.
The second shop will open in Wokingham in the town’s new Peach Place development and will bring the first bookshop to the historic town since indie bookshop Bookends closed.
It’s great news for Waterstones and follows on from the news that the company is purchasing Foyles bookshops from the Foyles family, showing that one bookshop chain is at least bucking the trend. The news comes at the same time as we hear about WH Smith closing six loss-making high street stores citing challenging conditions on the high street.
It just shows it’s not all doom and gloom on the high street and while Waterstones is a large brand, we list several branches and hundreds of indie bookshops in our UK bookshop section over in our shop directory.
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