Photographer Celeste Noche's pictures of bookshops and libraries in Scotland.

Photographer Celeste Noche's pictures of bookshops and libraries in Scotland. In an increasingly digital age, the series documents the importance of the physical book - how people continue to make space for books, and conversely, how books create space for people.

Readers around the world cooed last month when a Welsh bookseller announced he was giving away his shop to a regular customer. It was a lovely story, but as an ex-bookseller of five years, I could only dwell on the harsh realities this unsuspecting man would inherit: slow days, stocktaking and, unavoidably, a few regular oddballs.

You might think of libraries as old fashioned, or irrelevant in the age of the internet. You’d be wrong.

Owner avoids having to close Bookends in Cardigan by raffling it off to customers who spent more than £20

Critics see the Department of Corrections rules as part of a nationwide "war on books."

Sales are falling and critics say the company lacks a direction, sometimes seeming to give priority to sales of gifts and tchotchkes over books.

Writer Philippe Ungar and photographer Franck Bohbot travelled across the Big Apple to meet 50 indie booksellers in their habitats

An essayist looks into the curious past of pathological collectors – and considers her own lifelong urge to hoard ever more volumes

Fifty years ago this spring, the best selling young adult novel of all time was published to adulation and outrage. This was 1967, so youth culture was not exactly new, but something about the plain, emotional voice of The Outsiders did away with the grownups’ interference and spoke directly to teen readers in a new way. The aura surrounding the classic tale of warring adolescent cliques from opposite sides of the tracks is enhanced by the fact that the author was herself a teenager.

Fred Bass, the owner of New York City’s iconic Strand Book Store, died this morning surrounded by his loved ones. He was 89 years old.

The government is ambivalent about them. (Sep 7, 2017)

When online bookselling began to dominate the market in the early 2000s, many were predicting that the bookshop would simply die away. Now, however, Irish independent book shops are not only managing to survive. In fact, they are flourishing. Ahead of Independent Book Shop week, we spoke to several independent booksellers on how they’re surviving in the Amazon age, how they differentiate themselves and the joys of a good book.

Coming soon to a mall near you.

After helping drive many U.S. bookstore chains out of business, Amazon has been opening its own retail stores, starting in Seattle in late 2015. Its first Amazon Books location in New York City opens Thursday morning in Manhattan’s Shops at Columbus Circle, which was previously home to a pretty large — and now closed — Borders Books and Music.

Look for new books by Paula Hawkins, Gabourey Sidibe and Ivanka Trump.

An essayist looks into the curious past of pathological collectors – and considers her own lifelong urge to hoard ever more volumes

Despite a less-than-ideal environment—no breakout bestsellers on the adult fiction side and a lengthy, brutal election cycle that sucked nearly all of the air out of the cultural conversation—unit sales of print books were up 3.3% in 2016 over 2015. Total print unit sales hit 674 million, marking the third-straight year of growth, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 80% of print sales in the U.S.

Christmas trading for the UK book market saw its strongest sales in 10 years, new figures have revealed. Nielsen BookScan reports that a total of £83.3m worth of print books were sold in the run-up to Christmas, which marks the highest since 2007. It is also suggested that sales in the UK print book market last year were up for the second year in a row, The Book Seller reports.