Brick and Mortar: The Future of the Physical BookshopBrick and Mortar: The Future of the Physical Bookshop

About eight months ago, an article appeared in Intelligent Life addressing the difficulties faced by physical bookshops in the era of the screen: “In Britain, the number of independent bookshops fell by a third [down to 987] between 2005 and the end of 2013… in America, it fell from 2,400 to 1,900 between 2002 and 2011.” The article concluded that in order to weather the storm wrought by ebook titans like Amazon, the basic bookshop model would have to be updated. While this might be more difficult in smaller independent bookstores, the larger chains—Barnes and Noble in America and Waterstones in Britain—might...