Brighton’s bookshops continue disappearing. After the sad loss of PS Brighton in 2017, Brighton Books has also gone from Kensington Gardens. And, late last year, Colin Page books quit the Lanes.
One of the things I loved about Brighton were the bookshops – enough that I sometimes sneaked away from school to spend a day searching them. Wax Factor continues to offer an amazing stock (and an often-tempting window display) and I hope it keeps going for many years yet. But these are hard times for second hand bookshops, finding themselves hammered by Amazon and charity bookshops, both of whom have a strong advantage in terms of tax.
- A past post on the lost bookshops of Brighton
- Old post on another lost Brighton bookshop
I visited Brighton on my birthday to see how it had changed since my childhood. The answer was beggars, beer and second-hand tosh. In my youth, there must have been beggars but they had the common decency not to go up to people and say, ‘I need change.’ What would the tourist think?
I lived in Hove Actually; no need to believe in beggars or change.