Upcoming Events
BA Bookshop Mentoring Scheme with Creative Access
Throughout 2025, the Booksellers Association (BA) collaborated with Creative Access to deliver a mentoring programme designed to support young people seeking to enter—or advance within—the bookselling profession.
The British Book Trade and the Book War of 1906
With Dr Maria Vassilopoulos (University of Wales Press) Maria Vassilopoulos has worked as a bookseller, for The Bookseller magazine and in publishing sales for her whole career, spanning over twenty […]
BRN Bookselling Conference 2026: Spaces of Bookselling
We welcome proposals that engage with all forms of the bookselling space—physical, virtual, historical, social, communal, commercial, and imagined—and encourage transcultural, transnational, and intersectional perspectives.
How Queer Bookshops Changed the World
With A. J. West, author of How Queer Bookshops Changed the World (Oneworld, 2026). A.J.West is a Sunday Times bestselling, multi-award-winning historical fiction novelist and historian. Prior to publication he […]
Posts
- BRN Bookselling Conference 2026: Spaces of Bookselling
“For such a space entails the unexpected. The specifically spatial within time-space is produced by that—sometimes happenstance, sometimes not—arrangement-in-relation-to-each-other that results from the multiplicity of trajectories. In spatial configurations, otherwise unconnected narratives may be brought into contact, or previously connected ones may be wrenched apart. There is always an element of ‘chaos.’ This is the chance of space.” - BA research into the Cultural and Community Value of BookshopsIt has long been the contention of the Booksellers Association (UK and Ireland) that its members – chains and indies – play an outsize role in enriching the cultural lives of their communities.
- StoryBrand, conversations with pioneering booksellersAs a form of qualitative research and learning, StoryBrand, conversations with pioneering booksellers is an hour-long conversation with people who have deep and diverse perspectives on the art and science of bookshop creation. Each vodcast focuses on a different aspect of bookshop innovation, a problem or idea with an attempt to capture perspectives from bookshop… Read more: StoryBrand, conversations with pioneering booksellers
- The Cultural and Community Role of Scotland’s BookshopsThe Booksellers Association launched a new research report on ‘The Cultural and Community Role of Scotland’s Bookshops’ on 19th November, to coincide with Scottish Book Trust’s annual Book Week Scotland. The report spotlights the vital and growing role Scottish bookshops play as engines of local communities and national culture, while considering the barriers and suggested solutions… Read more: The Cultural and Community Role of Scotland’s Bookshops
- Samantha Rayner’s Bookshop BulletinsBookshop Bulletins: Gatherings Substack This year, Samantha has been on sabbatical, visiting some of the UK’s indie bookshops, and gathering information about how they work within their communities, and how they manage their own staff wellbeing. These visits have been recorded via a Substack, which you can find here: https://profbookshops.substack.com/ These have also been reported… Read more: Samantha Rayner’s Bookshop Bulletins
