Author: Eben J Muse

Dr Eben J. Muse is a Reader in Bookselling at the School of Arts, Culture(s) and Language at Bangor University. He has been Co-Director of Stephen Colclough Centre for the History and Culture of the Book since 2016. He was raised in a bookstore in Massachusetts which he now owns, and he conducts research into the business and culture of bookstores. He is currently editing the Books & Bookselling strand of the Cambridge Elements Series Publishing and Book Culture and co-director of the Bookselling Research Network.
Cover of RISE Bookselling Industry Insights: Bookshops, censorship and freedom of expression

RISE Insights: Bookshops, censorship and freedom of expression

The European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF) have published their 5th RISE Industry research paper: Bookshops, censorship and Freedom of Expression. This Industry Insight reports on the impact that censorship and attempts to limit free speech through legislative action by local...
Cover of The Cultural Role and Value of England's Independent Bookshops

New BA Report on Cultural Value of Indies in England

The Booksellers Association has released a report on The Cultural Role and Value of England’s Independent Bookshops. It found that Indie bookshops have adapted creatively to challenges like online competition, urban decline, and the pandemic, fostering local culture through events and...

Champions of Literature by @GeorgethePoet

Written and performed exclusively for #IndieBookshopWeek “Champions of Literature” by @GeorgethePoet Filmed at New Beacon Books: https://www.newbeaconbooks.com/ Independent Bookshop Week takes place 15 – 22 June 2024. Find out more about the campaign: https://booksaremybag.com  / booksaremybag https://x.com/booksaremybag  / booksaremybag  
Reviving the High Street: Booksellers Call to Action

Reviving the High Street report

Earlier this week, RISE Bookselling unveiled the campaign on 'Reviving the high street: Booksellers Call to Action', in response to the increasing challenges that booksellers and retailers working across European town centres and high streets are facing. 
The Afterlives of Bookshops. Powerpoint cover page.

SHARP 2023-BRN Panel: The Bookshop as Interface

Bookshops operate as more than just spaces where the commercial retail of books occurs.  They are places of ideas, which encourage us to venture beyond our own experiences and expand imaginative and intellectual horizons.  Indeed, as Martin Latham has claimed, bookshops do this even more successfully than universities: “it seems, indeed, such institutionalized thinking is less likely to be mould-breaking; whereas a bookshop, used open-mindedly enough, uniquely challenges the normative thinking which dulls our reason and clouds our souls (The Bookseller’s Tale, p. 305). This panel looks at some ways the interface of the bookshop has fostered, or is fostering, new ideas, whether in fictionalised accounts of bookshops or histories of actual ones. 
Industry Insights: Culture Vouchers (cover image)

RISE Industry Insights research paper Culture Vouchers

RISE Bookselling (Resilience, Innovation and Sustainability for the Enhancement of Bookselling) have now published the second volume of their Industry Insights series, which examines state-funded cultural voucher schemes currently in place in four different countries across Europe—France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The schemes are launched with the aim of introducing teenagers and young adults to their country’s unique and rich cultural scene, while also supporting cultural and creative industries in the process. You can download a free copy here: https://bit.ly/RISE2023-2.

BYOBooks-Bookshops

To celebrate the coming of winter and the holiday that comes with it, we met on Friday, the 16th of December to talk about books about bookshops. Eben Muse, the author of Fantasies of the Bookstore, started the conversation off by...