From David Sexton in the Evening Standard:
This weekend, an independent is opening in Hackney — not in gentrified Stokie but at 70 Lower Clapton Road, among the fast-food shops and tyre-replacement depots, in murder mile. The premises were once the local post office — until the postmaster was shot dead there in a robbery. Then it became Mickey's Barber Salon. Now it has been elegantly converted into something like a perfect small bookshop under the name Pages of Hackney. It has that special sense of being like a personal library, a living room that happens also to have a cash register, as one independent bookshop fan once described it.
And here's what it looks look from the outside – a truly welcome addition to the small number of dedicated bookshops in my borough that lie within easy reach of my home. This one – like the children-centred Book Box in Chatsworth Road – is just a short walk away.
I'm not a purist about bookshops: I've no deep-dyed objection to the chain outlets that inhabit the smarter parts of the capital. But an independent has a freedom to stock things that the machine outlets increasingly lack. And I can only admire the enterprise and optimism of the people opening Pages of Hackney and publicly pledge – yes, here and now, people – to regularly spend my money there.
Perhaps the shop will become a beacon for other bookshop-starved parts of the capital and, in due course, earn a place on this role of honour.
