Diary - 9 March 2017 | The Spectator

Oh dear. Usually writers who contribute to these diaries start with something like, ‘To Paris. To launch my novel at Shakespeare and Company.’ Well, I went instead to Penarth, which is a charming seaside suburb of Cardiff, and got a right royal welcome. I told the customers of Griffin Books (and Book-ish in Crickhowell and Cover to Cover in Mumbles) that I forbade them to buy books from Amazon. If they didn’t support their independent bookshops, they would lose them. And bookshops are vital for community health. Think what Daunt’s did for Marylebone High Street; started its transformation from a non-street to a destination street, no less.

Speaking of Daunt’s, do you realise that their business rates are about to double? Baroness Rebuck has asked in the House of Lords that independent bookshops be given special community status as far as business rates are concerned. With literacy levels at the shameful level that they are in this country — I’m banging another drum here, as a trustee of the National Literacy Trust — we need every scrap of assistance for reading to be put back on the cool agenda.