A rising tide of returning book-buyers lifts all boats

After 12 long weeks, bookshops re-opened in England last week—and the book-buying public unquestionably chose bookshops. The UK lockdown from 23rd March closed bricks-and-mortar shops across the country, with supermarkets the only physical outlets to buy a book and Amazon dominating online sales. Though Nielsen BookScan were unable to provide figures during lockdown, the chart rankings showed the knock-on effect of no word-of-mouth and no browsing: wall-to-wall brand authors and social media behemoths.