Comment from the book world in December 2004

'Yet the high streets and shopping centres of Great Britain are filled with bookshops of a quality that would have been unimaginable only twenty years ago. We are spoiled for bookshops, there is no doubt about it. The chains have more branches in more locations. They are open all year round, often seven days a week, sometimes late into the evening. Independents are better than they have ever been. But they are only there to reap the retail whirlwind in the twelve weeks before Christmas, when even people who never buy books buy books, when most of the shopping population make their annual pilgrimage to a bookshop. Hence getting it wrong looms large in the sweat-soaked nightmares of the retail executive. But nobody should worry too much. Shoppers will pile into the bookshops regardless of any qualms some booksellers might have about this year's range of seasonal bestsellers. They will come in droves. They always do. Wait and see.'

David Blow in Publishing News