Earlier this year, after gift shopping in the Lanes, I took a bus over to Kemptown to visit one of Brighton’s most established bookshops. With no essays due and the afternoon free, I stepped inside Kemptown Bookshop with no plan but to explore the shop and potentially pick up something new to read. The interior was vibrant, with a diverse range of books lining the shelves; I browsed classics, philosophy, non-fiction, and some new releases.
One of the defining features of independent bookshops is their personalised recommendations, so during my visit I asked for one. We looked over a few books, and I eventually settled on a short dystopian novel called I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I decided to trust the recommendation and bought it without even looking at the back cover. A couple of weeks later, I had finished reading it, and it had become my favourite novel.
I was surprised to later learn that the bookshop might not even have been there for me to visit. The shop, serving readers since 1976, was put up for sale in 2022. Many in the community feared this would mark the end for the shop – that the building would be bought up and redeveloped into expensive flats. Thankfully, however, the bookshop was taken over a couple of months later by Cathy, a local author, and has since been serving both books and coffee to local readers. In an effort to learn more about the bookshop and its place in the community, I scheduled a chat with Cathy and Remony, who run the shop.
Cathy admitted she ‘had no experience in bookselling’ but knew the shop well from visiting as a local customer. Upon asking if she had any plans for the bookshop when taking over, Cathy replied: ‘It was about kind of refreshing what we were selling and giving the place a really good clean, but also about being more a part of the community, so running community events and being more inclusive in terms of the books we stocked.’
Remony, who has been a bookseller since she was 15 and runs a book club for other readers in their twenties, highlighted the important role the shop plays in the community:
‘We’re really close to the hospital, so we find a lot of people who are in and out of the hospital, or those visiting, popping in and finding a real refuge in sitting up in the café or browsing some books. Just a bit of peace, I think, and to be able to chat to us, you know.’
At this point, I recognised that it was Remony who had recommended the book on my earlier visit. Upon telling her, Remony’s face lit up: ‘Oh, that was mine! I’m so glad. It’s fantastic!’
Given the countless book recommendations and trends seen online, I was unsure whether personalised recommendations were still a significant draw for those who visited the shop. They assured me they were.
Cathy explained: ‘We recommend books that we genuinely, as individuals, have loved. I’ve found out that in some bigger bookshops, the staff recommendations are not really what the staff have recommended. There, it’s driven by what the publishers are giving them and whatnot, but for us, it’s actually not a massive sales thing. It’s just like, we’ve loved this book.’
Remony added: ‘I think it’s quite a big thing for us. We’re happy to chat to anyone about books. Not everyone wants that chat, so to have it just up on the wall, a little recommendation, it’s a really nice way to grab something that you know someone else has loved.’
The bookshop clearly plays a significant role in the community. Yet, its survival depends on regularly attracting customers to spend money in-store – a tough sell in the age of Amazon same-day delivery.
Cathy: ‘It’s a really tight-margin business. I think it’s the only product available on the high street where the maximum price you can charge is on the back. We can’t charge more than that, and over the three years since I took over the shop, prices have gone up on everything. It’s a real challenge financially, and of course, people know that they can get books much cheaper online. It is a really hard financial battle every month to make ends meet. Not at Christmas – we love Christmas – but the rest of the year is really tough.’
With Cathy and Remony describing many ways in which the bookshop benefits their community, I had to ask where students and young people fit into the picture, in what way social media had an influence on the bookshop, and whether many students took the trip from campus just to visit.
Cathy: ‘Reading is a slightly isolating thing, isn’t it? You do it on your own, and so actually having things like social media and Goodreads has really allowed people to share their love of books and share what they’re reading. I think it’s definitely impacted how books look. If you look at the covers now compared to, say, 15 or 20 years ago, they’re like works of art. Obviously Kindle and audiobooks are really popular, but I have noticed by talking to some younger customers that people want to read a physical book because they want time away from screens.’ I found myself nodding in agreement, understanding that all too well.
Remony agreed and added, ‘I’ve been here three years, and I would say I’ve seen more young people now than I did before. I think in part that’s to do with the books we’re stocking, the events that we’re doing, but also social media—I mean, BookTok is huge. You know, we’ve got a lot of people coming in saying, “I’ve seen this on BookTok, have you got it?” We also run a book group for people in their twenties. I think we’ve tried really hard to reach that young market because they’re the people you need to keep bookshops going.’
For many students, a trip to an independent bookshop offers a welcome escape from the stresses of university life. The experience of physically browsing the books, looking through the pages, and reading the personal recommendations offers much more than the couple of clicks needed to order a book on Amazon. I can hardly remember any of the book purchases I have made online, and yet I can remember well nearly every trip I have made to an independent bookshop.
To close our discussion, I asked Cathy and Remony to share a recent recommendation. Cathy recommended Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, while Remony recommended The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Given the success of the last recommendation, both titles now sit on my reading list, and I look forward to reading them.
Another article you may enjoy: https://thebadgeronline.com/2025/09/mad-women-and-the-legacy-of-female-insanity-in-literature/
