Bookshop Heroes 2025: The 14 indie retailers leading the way
The Bookseller’s 2025 Bookshop Heroes are revealed, with many of the retailers combining innovation on the shop floor and online with tapping into their local communities.
Big issues will face the attendees of this year’s Booksellers Association Conference (21st-22nd September), including the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, business rates pressures and wider macro-level governmental policy changes. But, plus ça change, non? Booksellers seem to be perpetually challenged, and perpetually find ways to innovate out of difficulties.
To throw a spotlight on a way some on the shop floor are thriving in the current climate, we have selected a baker’s dozen (technically – it is 13 entries but 14 people) of independent booksellers from across the UK and Ireland to be our 2025 Bookshop Heroes. Perhaps the most interesting thing is how new to the game some of these 14 bookshop owners and managers are. The majority (eight) of the 2025 Heroes opened their businesses since January 2021; one (Elaine Sinclair of Milngavie’s Daydreams Bookshop) will have only just celebrated her shop’s first anniversary when this list is published. Incidentally, several of these post-2021 newbies have said that they benefited from the BA’s Introduction to Bookselling course, and that it has been more accessible since the pandemic as it has been run over Zoom.
There has been a repeat of a theme that has been running through Heroes lists of the past few years: those who have come from other walks of life into the books game. That includes former lawyer Sinclair, ex-travel conglomerate senior executive Amanda Truman and music festival founder Jenny Moore. There are some long-serving hands too, not least Louisa Earls, who has been steering Dublin’s iconic Books Upstairs since 2015, but has had the shop in her blood for far longer: her father Maurice co-founded it nearly 50 years ago.
But whether newcomer or established veteran, the through-line of the 2025 Bookshop Heroes is commitment to their communities and a constant search for fresh ideas to keep 21st-century bookselling relevant. Long may they reign.
Bookshop Heroes 2025
Lily Baron, Book Space Cardiff
Cardiff
Prior to launching Book Space Cardiff last year, owner Lily Baron cut her teeth working at Paris’ iconic Shakespeare & Co aged 19, and later had a three-year spell at Bristol indie Max Minervas. A move into film and TV production took her to Cardiff, and when a gap opened in her work schedule, she decided to pursue her dream of opening a bookshop. Book Space has hit the ground running since its June 2024 debut, quickly becoming a favourite of long-standing locals and the student community of the Welsh capital’s Cathays neighbourhood, helped by its lively events programme, which includes books clubs and its wildly popular monthly open-mic poetry nights.
Helen Cockburn & Irene Humphrey, Green Pastures Bookshop
Dereham
Helen Cockburn and Irene Humphrey, the co-managers of mid-Norfolk Christian specialists Green Pastures Bookshop, are coming into this autumn on a high: at the beginning of September they and their team bagged the Bookshop of the Year gong at the Christian Resources Together Conference, an annual UK-wide event for Christian retailers. The award saluted Green Pastures’ in-store nous, thoughtful recommendations and encyclopedic staff knowledge, but also its tireless schedule of pop-up shops which it runs across Norfolk and Suffolk. Though the climate can be challenging for its sector (it is the last remaining specialist indie Christian shop in Norfolk and Suffolk), Green Pastures is thriving, helped by a recent refresh of its shop frontage.
Ross Denby, Pages N’ Pixels
Halifax
There was no missing Pages N’ Pixels launch in summer 2021 as owner Ross Denby orchestrated a cosplay weekend, with Darth Vader and Storm Troopers roaming Halifax’s iconic Piece Hall – and Denby himself was decked out in a full Loki costume. Ever since, Pages N’ Pixels has become a West Yorkshire focal point for comics, Manga and gaming fans, building a loyal following among superfans and graphic novel newbies alike. Engaging content across its social media platforms has meant that Pages N’ Pixels has a presence far beyond its four walls, which has been used cannily by Denby to promote the shop’s upcoming move to larger premises.
Louisa Earls, Books Upstairs
Dublin
Books Upstairs is Dublin’s oldest continuously-run indie and arguably the most famous in a city chock-full with brilliant bookshops. Its purple patch over the past decade is in no small part down to Louisa Earls, who joined the family firm in 2015 (her father Maurice co-founded the shop in 1978). In the past decade, she helped orchestrate the move to its current premises on D’Olier Street, expanded the stock range, reinvented its events programme and built a now-thriving digital arm, while still retaining its long-held outsized footprint on Ireland’s literary scene. The hard work has paid off, with longlistings for the An Post Bookshop of the Year award, and Earls being named the 2025 O’Brien Press Bookseller of the Year.
Nadia Jones, South London Gallery Bookshop
Camberwell
Former Foyles stalwart Nadia Jones has been the bookshop, editions and retail manager for Camberwell’s South London Gallery (SLG) for five years. In that time she has done much to energise the bookshop offering in its contemporary art, design and art theory space (along with exhibition tie-ins), champion independent literature and align to SLG’s tireless community outreach work. Jones has also been at the fore of changing how SLG’s retail space operates, ramping up the events programme, focusing on working with local suppliers and maker/creators previously under-represented in the industry, and working on sustainability to reduce SLG’s carbon footprint.
Bronwynne Malone, Hubb16
New Ross, Co Wexford
Manager Brownwynne Malone joined Hubb16 fresh from university just as the shop launched in 2021, and has helped build the indie into a lynchpin of the New Ross high street. Deep community links have been forged in Hubb16’s four years by the general books and lifestyle store – part of Hubb16’s business is a homewares range – aided by its events programme. The shop’s Instagram game is energetic to say the least, and was no doubt part of the reason it was longlisted for the 2024 An Post Bookshop of the Year. While locals’ needs come first, the shop astutely leans into the picturesque and historic New Ross’ tourist trade.
Ren McGuicken, PaperxClips
Belfast
Many bookshops these days have hybrid businesses, but West Belfast’s PaperxClips – run by co-owners Ren McGuicken and Fern Fitzpatrick – perhaps has a unique take, with a trans-owned LGBTQ+-focused bookshop, coffee bar and barber. McGuicken runs PaperxClips’ book side, a curation of queer lit with an emphasis on local writers. The momentum of the splashly opening in 2022, helped by a canny social media campaign and pre-launch pop-up at Lush, has never stopped and the space has become a queer-community touchstone, helped by recurring events such as a writing club, the Laugh Hole stand-up comedy nights and the Sad Dyke Poetry open mics.
Jenny Moore, How Brave Is the Wren
Birmingham
The birth of Jenny Moore’s two daughters a little over a decade ago led the music professional (she co-founded live events company Capsule and the Supersonic festival) to change gears for a career in children’s bookselling. How Brave is the Wren was first kickstarted as a travelling bookshop in a remodelled caravan which Moore would bring to festivals and market days. Post-pandemic, she added permanent premises in the Kings Heath area of her native Birmingham, which widened the stock while still retaining its curated range of picture books and small-press gems. The miles still get put on the caravan, though, as Moore continues to tour festivals and visit schools.
Tom Owen, Gay on Wye
Hay-on-Wye
If there was a Nibbie for the most clever, smile-inducing bookshop names, Tom Owen’s Gay on Wye would be in the running. Owen founded his indie in 2023 – which very quickly made its mark in a town not short on competition – with a mission statement of making it “more than just a commercial venture; it is a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s history, struggles and achievements”. Gay on Wye stocks queer literature across fiction, non-fiction and zines with a playful, welcoming vibe. Owen leans into Hay’s festival season with numerous readings in-store and last year ably orchestrated a move to bigger, better premises.
Natasha Radford, Chicken and Frog
Brentwood
Former teacher Natasha Radford and her husband Jim opened children’s specialist Chicken and Frog in 2012, a dream the duo had harboured since the 1990s. It immediately embedded itself in the Brentford community, helped by successful regular events such as creative writing workshops, fine motor skills tuition and the Adults Reading Kids’ Books Club. As might be expected from a former educator, a big part of Chicken and Frog’s business is its outreach to local schools. Radford’s PhD was on the representation of autism in picture books and that is reflected in the bookshop’s ethos with its Special Educational Needs/Autistic Spectrum Condition-friendly approach, which includes a recently-opened neurodiversity room.
Elaine Sinclair, Daydreams Bookshop
Milngavie
Never mind running, Elaine Sinclair hit the ground sprinting after opening Daydreams Bookshop in the Glasgow suburb of Milngavie in 2024: her store snared the National Book Tokens Newcomer of the Year prize within just four months of trading. Sinclair made the move into bookselling from a successful law career, with the idea for Daydreams coming out of the Bonnie Wee Book Club (BWBC), which she launched in 2021. BWBC is now a cornerstone of Daydreams’ busy events schedule, which includes signings from the great and the good (Julia Donaldson, Len Pennie) as well as more community-focused activities (a monthly kids’ story time/yoga session).
Courtney Terwilliger, The Enchanted Spine
Online
American transplant Courtney Terwilliger used her lifelong interest in fantasy and Young Adult to launch her subscription box and romantasy specialist online shop, The Enchanted Spine (TES), a little over a year ago. Even in a crowded sub-box scene, TES has come out of the gate roaring with a huge amount of interest in “latest releases, hidden gems and timeless classics” contained in its monthly and quarterly Enchanted Crates. A sprightly social media presence has helped pull in the punters – and enabled the indie to go toe-to-toe with the sub-box behemoths – helping TES to deliver on its motto: “We don’t just sell books. We deliver obsessions.”
Amanda Truman, Truman Books
Leeds
Former Londoner Amanda Truman had two big life changes in 2021: moving to Yorkshire and ditching a globe-trotting senior career with travel company Leisure Pass to complete a long-held dream of opening a bookshop. Although a pandemic year might not have been an ideal time to open a business, Truman Books established itself as a community anchor in the arty Leeds suburb of Farsley – and very quickly, with queues down the street at launch. The momentum has been kept up with astute stock curation and regular events – tickets for the monthly Truman Book Club Social sell out within hours – and this October, Truman will co-host the fourth edition of the Farsley Literature Festival.
