Balancing the books: how Waterstones came back from the dead
The chain of booksellers has announced its first profit in years – thanks in part to a bold decision to run each branch like a local bookshop
Late on Thursday afternoon, would-be wizards across the UK dropped what they were doing to join the professors of Hogwarts for Harry Potter night. At 6pm in the basement of Waterstones’ six-storey London Piccadilly building, staff were scurrying around with bowls of jellybeans and bottles of raspberry lemonade, but the Harrys and Hermiones were nowhere to be seen.
A couple of elderly customers looked faintly disgruntled to find their favourite section shut for a private party. Two young sisters, Alex, 11, and eight-year-old Polly, fidgeted by the closed door clutching a box of quidditch balls, while Yang, a 22-year-old physics student from Korea, appeared baffled.
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