New chapter as bookshop returns to Malton, just in time for a celebration

In the thriving centre of Malton, a new chapter begins today – just in time for the nationwide Bookshop Day at the weekend – as a former bar within sight of the Market Place is turned over to literature.

There has not been a bookshop in Malton since the drift online began, but Liz Kemp, a shopkeeper’s daughter originally from Bramham, had convinced herself that a postscript was due.

The gift shop she had run next door for the last three years had stocked a small selection of non-fiction titles targeted at visitors drawn to the town’s renowned artisan food suppliers, but, she said, “there was a hunger for more, and when the bar next door became vacant we took the plunge”.

That was before the pandemic, but as the months passed it became clear that the increased flood space would allow not only more stock but also more space between customers.

“We’re moving next door into a space that’s four times as big, with a dedicated bookshop in what used to be a function room at the back of the bar. It means we can stock about 2,500 books instead of four or five hundred,” she said.

Ms Kemp, who also runs a gift shop in Whitby, had long wanted “a proper bookshop”.

“I’ve lived in the area for 20 years and for a long time the town was quite sad. Setting up a business would have been quite precarious. So I started with a gift shop because that seemed safer than just doing books – but with visitors now coming to Malton for the food, there is clearly now a renewed confidence and an appetite for more.”

At the beginning of the year, the Booksellers Association, which represents 890 small retailers, was able to report that

Christmas trading had been up at two-thirds of them.

Times have been harder since – and many of the events planned for Saturday’s Bookshop Day are online rather than in person – but Emma Bradshaw, the association’s head of campaigns, said there were causes for optimism.

“We’ve spoken to hundreds of bookshops over the past six months who have been blown away by the support from their customers,” she said.

Ironically, it had been websites that have been their salvation, with many having set up online shops to fulfil orders during the enforced closure, the organisation added.

Among the celebrity events planned for the weekend is an online conversation between Emma Freud and the Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman, to promote Ms Winkleman’s debut book.

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James Mitchinson