How independent bookshops help to encourage diverse reading.

I spend a great deal of time travelling. Whether a paperback or a galley on a kindle, a good portion of my time spent of buses and trains to and from work are spent with some sort of story.

Now, London transport isn't the most ideal reading environment. It's noisy and either unbearably warm or arctic. In times where I am distracted, I often find myself peering out the window or (embarrassingly) over the shoulder of the person next to me.

I find that certain titles appear in the hands of readers again and again, but the demographic varies greatly. On any given commute I'll find myself seeing multiple copies of Sapiens. Last year, I'd struck up conversations with a few women on the Victoria Line as we all carried copies of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.

My interest to read comes from a few different sources. Who I follow on Instagram, a fancy cover reveal, or what's on display when visiting my favourite bookshops. But while some titles are given vast marketing budgets, what about those word-of-mouth recommendations? How can such a seemly different group of people be drawn to the same book? Is a paperback in public just as effective in piquing the interest in the person next to you?

To test, I reached out to Pages of Hackney, an independent bookseller in my local borough of Hackney. I have always admired their window displays, especially in passing their Clapton shop where a lot of BAME authors are highlighted (Black, Listed by Jeffrey Boakye and Taking up Space for example!) along with a quote by Audre Lourde 'Poetry is not a luxury'. Their newly opened Cheshire St branch highlights works by women and non-binary writers and so I was curious to uncover more from a bookseller perspective...

Credit : Pages of Hackney

How important is it to stock / promote authors from under-represented groups?

It's really important. 64% of Hackney residents are made up of diverse BAME groups, so this means that unless we include these books/authors in our stock choice, we aren't reflecting a large part of the community our shop is located in. Further more we want to consciously challenge the historic commercial over-representation in publishing, and we don’t want to work in a bookshop that appeals only to a limited section of the community.

How well would you say this has been received?

I started working for Pages 5 years ago and last year we celebrated our 10th anniversary as well as winning the Independent Bookshop of the Year for London, so it’s been a really busy time for us. But it hasn’t just been this year. the last 3-4 years our profits have increased year on year and that’s no coincidence that it has run alongside our growing inclusivity work.

On publishing as a whole

Have there been any stand-out (positive or negative?) book campaigns that spring to mind in the past 12 months?

The Good Immigrant brand has been really a positive force driving diversity in publishing, with the Good Immigrant USA this year also being praised as a much needed antidote to mainstream narratives. This has paved the way for books like Queenie, Black, Listed, Slay In Your Lane, My Sister the Serial Killer, Freshwater, and many more.

Why do you think there has been such a drive to promote diversity in publishing in the past year especially? How do you predict this will continue?

I think that publishers and agents realised they needed to employ a more diverse workforce who have since been working hard representing/commissioning and championing more diverse authors and a lot of those books are coming out now. The current political situation, the mistrust of those in power, of the rise of the right, the #MeToo movement, austerity etc feels like it's resulted in a need for books that challenge those narratives, there's a palpable thirst to read stories and perspectives that are not written by those in power. I really hope it continues.

And finally, about Pages of Hackney

How did you window displays come to be? Can you describe the process?

The window display is important as it is how we are perceived on the street, from the outside. We generally have pretty diverse books in the window because while white middle class residents of Hackney will generally always feel comfortable walking into a bookshop, this isn't always true of some BAME members of the community, which is why the window is a way of showing on street level that we have books for everyone.

A huge thank you to Jo from Pages of Hackney for her time. You can visit them in store in their two branches below:

Clapton

70 Lower Clapton Road
London
E5 0RN

Shoreditch

5 Cheshire Street

London

E2 6ED