Still Afloat
Still Afloat
Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh
Lovely. "LONDON — The two men who run London’s only floating bookstore, Word on the Water, are living proof that there really is something you can do in life with an English lit degree, other than teach English literature.
The store — a 50-foot-long canalboat stuffed to its bulkheads and overflowing onto the towpath with books — has a permanent berth on the Regent’s Canal, around the corner from the British Library. This comes after years of its owners staying one step ahead of eviction from the canals, by relocating fortnightly.
It is doing so well that Paddy Screech, 51, an Oxford-educated Cornishman with a close-trimmed beard and a soft-spoken manner, and Jonathan Privett, 52, a gaptoothed Yorkshireman who has trouble staying still for long (except with a book), finally took their dream vacations this year.
Mr. Screech, who describes himself as “Buddhish,” meaning sort of Buddhist, went to Laos. Mr. Privett, once nicknamed the “Sidewalk Professor,” went to Paris and New York, in part to check out the street bookstall scene.
The store’s prosperity probably has been helped by a book business that has been doing remarkably well in Britain. Sales of physical books increased 8 percent last year, while e-books continued a significant decline. By comparison, book sales in America have remained flat for years now.
“Books have been considered on the verge of obsolete and so have canals,” Mr. Screech said. “But these are things people always liked. The canals survived because of that, and so will books and bookstores.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal-bookstore.html
Originally shared by Kam-Yung Soh
Lovely. "LONDON — The two men who run London’s only floating bookstore, Word on the Water, are living proof that there really is something you can do in life with an English lit degree, other than teach English literature.
The store — a 50-foot-long canalboat stuffed to its bulkheads and overflowing onto the towpath with books — has a permanent berth on the Regent’s Canal, around the corner from the British Library. This comes after years of its owners staying one step ahead of eviction from the canals, by relocating fortnightly.
It is doing so well that Paddy Screech, 51, an Oxford-educated Cornishman with a close-trimmed beard and a soft-spoken manner, and Jonathan Privett, 52, a gaptoothed Yorkshireman who has trouble staying still for long (except with a book), finally took their dream vacations this year.
Mr. Screech, who describes himself as “Buddhish,” meaning sort of Buddhist, went to Laos. Mr. Privett, once nicknamed the “Sidewalk Professor,” went to Paris and New York, in part to check out the street bookstall scene.
The store’s prosperity probably has been helped by a book business that has been doing remarkably well in Britain. Sales of physical books increased 8 percent last year, while e-books continued a significant decline. By comparison, book sales in America have remained flat for years now.
“Books have been considered on the verge of obsolete and so have canals,” Mr. Screech said. “But these are things people always liked. The canals survived because of that, and so will books and bookstores.”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal-bookstore.html
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