SA Booksellers — Bridge Books: new kid on the block
Four months after opening, Bridge Books was already on Bookmark's must-visit list, and the SA Booksellers Association's magazine ran a Q&A with Griffin Shea about how the shop works differently. The answer starts with the shelving: because the store is in downtown Johannesburg, African titles are the default rather than the exception, and around 75 percent of the stock is African.
"We shelve our books backwards compared to many stores."
The interview also covers the origin — the Wits research, the interview with Bridget Impey at Jacana, the twenty books she sent him away with, the backpack that became a suitcase and then a car boot, and the Urban Ocean listing that appeared in his Facebook feed one night. On stocking all the languages of the community, Shea makes the case for children's books in home languages as the best way to get children used to seeing and hearing words.