In early-1980s Belfast, a young couple opened a shop selling art books, Scandinavian design, bespoke furniture and cappuccinos. They called it Phlox. Decades later, their daughter brought the name back to life in East London.

In this episode of Bookshop Stories, Tom Idle meets Aimée Madill, owner of Phlox Books on Francis Road in Leyton, to discover how she's created a new generation of the family business.

Aimée talks about growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, losing her mother, working at the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, and opening Phlox before her 30th birthday. We also explore her extraordinary work programming literary and cultural events at Wilderness and Latitude festivals, the art of recommending books, and what makes a great bookseller.

It's a conversation about family, creativity, curiosity and how a good idea can find a completely new life decades after it first appeared.

Follow Bookshop Stories

Bookshop Stories goes behind the shelves of independent bookshops to meet the people who run them and explore the realities of bookselling, running a small business and keeping independent bookshops alive.

Follow Bookshop Stories on Instagram for photographs and stories from each shop, and subscribe to the Bookshop Stories Substack for the articles accompanying every episode.

You can also browse books recommended by guests throughout the series at the Bookshop Stories Bookshop.org storefront. Buying through the storefront supports independent bookshops, while also providing a small commission that helps support Bookshop Stories.

Richard Drake and Melanie Greenwood never planned to become booksellers. Richard was a maths and PE teacher, Mel worked in environmental policy, and Drake The Bookshop began after a visit to a bookshop café in Penrith planted an idea that refused to go away.

Eleven years later, their independent bookshop has become part of the fabric of Stockton-on-Tees.

In this episode of Bookshop Stories, Richard and Mel talk about building Drake from a tiny start-up space into the bookshop it is today, surviving some incredibly difficult years for Stockton town centre, and creating a shop shaped by the people who use it.

But our conversation also explores a bigger question: who gets to think of themselves as a reader?

We talk about why children stop reading, whether adults sometimes take the pleasure out of books, the impact of bringing authors into local schools, and why Richard and Mel want more people in Stockton not only to read, but to feel that reading belongs to them.

It’s a conversation about books, education, belonging and the relationship between an independent bookshop and the town outside its door.

Bookshop Stories goes behind the shelves of independent bookshops to meet the people who run them and explore the realities of bookselling, running a small business and keeping independent bookshops alive.

Follow Bookshop Stories on ⁠Instagram⁠ for photographs and stories from each shop, and subscribe to the Bookshop Stories ⁠Substack⁠ for the articles accompanying every episode.

You can also browse books recommended by guests throughout the series at the Bookshop Stories ⁠Bookshop.org⁠ storefront. Buying through the storefront supports independent bookshops, while also providing a small commission that helps support Bookshop Stories.

Romance is booming, and a string of romance-only bookshops are opening across the UK. But is this the beginning of a lasting change in bookselling – or are we watching a bubble form?

For Episode 12 of Bookshop Stories, Tom meets Cassie Simmons, founder of Main Character Books, the romance specialist in London’s Spitalfields Market.

Cassie’s route into bookselling was far from conventional. A former patent lawyer who spent years building a successful legal career, she eventually walked away from it to create the kind of physical space she felt romance readers were missing.

They talk about the lingering snobbery around romance, the influence of BookTok, why readers increasingly want physical communities as well as online ones, and what a specialist bookshop can offer that even the biggest general bookseller cannot.

But with the number of romance bookshops growing rapidly, Cassie is also refreshingly candid about the risks. Does the huge value of the romance publishing market really translate into viable independent bookshops? How much specialisation is too much? And what happens when everybody else spots the same opportunity?

Plus: book tourism, “trophy copies”, the realities of running a shop in central London, the strange requests Cassie receives from brands – and Smut Club, Main Character’s wildly popular open-mic night.

It’s a conversation about romance, community and what happens when an online reading phenomenon becomes a bricks-and-mortar business. You’re gonna love it.

Follow Bookshop Stories

Bookshop Stories goes behind the shelves of independent bookshops to meet the people who run them and explore the realities of bookselling, running a small business and keeping independent bookshops alive.

Follow Bookshop Stories on Instagram for photographs and stories from each shop, and subscribe to the Bookshop Stories Substack for the articles accompanying every episode.

You can also browse books recommended by guests throughout the series at the Bookshop Stories Bookshop.org storefront. Buying through the storefront supports independent bookshops, while also providing a small commission that helps support Bookshop Stories.