Mar 01 2022
The UK’s largest book chain, Waterstones, has acquired the country’s largest independent bookseller, Blackwell’s, ending 143 years of family ownership and signalling a further concentration of the bookselling industry.
The acquisition by Waterstones will see Blackwell’s ultimately fall under the umbrella of the £38.4bn US hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, which in 2019 also purchased the largest US bookseller, Barnes & Noble.
The acquisition will be viewed by some as a regrettable end to the family ownership of a cherished independent and academic bookseller. To others, it will be heralded as a turbo-boost for real-world bookshops in the battle for dominance with their online rival Amazon.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
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