Sam Read Bookseller

Bookshop, sun on fells beyond, blue sky above

Weekend bookshop sunshine in Grasmere and new books flooding onto the bookshelves.

Sun on the bookshop window and the fells beyond Broadgate

Fresh bursts of blue sky and weekend sunshine across the bookshop window.

Bright sunshine on the bookshop, and the fells beyond, also reflecting on the windows into the street.

Friday afternoon bookshop, sunshine!

Book stack on low dry stone wall with shop with lit windows in front of snow-capped fells at dusk: Still Smitten: Short-Form Comics About Long-Term Love, Love In Exile, No & Other Love Stories, Heated Rivalry,The Romantic Poets, 44 Poems on Being With Each Other, Love Poems,Writers & Lovers, Stories for Lovers, In Love With Love.

setting sun lighting snow on fell tops behind the shop

However you feel about Valentine’s day we are aflame with books to fall in love with/by, and will always help you find "the one".

As the sun lit the snow on the tops pink at shop closing this afternoon, we put together this little stack of #RecommendedReads on love and loving. #BookSky #Valentines

Snow on the fells in Grasmere. A winter view down Broadgate with Sam Read's on the corner in the centre.

A dusting of snow on the fells beyond the bookshop hustle and bustle.

Just to be clear, none of us have exhumed their ex's corpse, not even in the name of literature in a DG Rosetti kind of way.

Mike Craven wearing a smart woollen pea coat and glasses on his head, signing The Final Vow and poe backlist in the bookshop

Mike Craven outside shop window wearing blue wool coat and red and white beanie hat, holding up paperback of The Final Vow.

Celebrating paperback publication day for @mwcraven.bsky.social's #TheFinalVow with a visit and signing. Catch your signed Final Vows and selected backlist on the shelves whilst you can! #ChooseBookshops #IndieBookshops #CumbriaCulture #CumbriaCrime #BookSky

Sam Read Bookseller Online Shop

An eclectic longlist for the 2026 Women's Prize for non-fiction! @womensprize.bsky.social Take a look at the titles here... www.samreadbooks.co.uk/shop/women-s...

A stack of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights in three editions. On top is the latest film tie-in edition, followed by a Penguin English Library paperback and a Vintage Collectors Classic

A top (withens) amount of Emily Brontë's #WutheringHeights selling from the bookshelves at present. Moody, passionate, and that's just the booksellers...

Herdwick sheep outside the bookshop with Heaton Cooper Studio and Silver Howe beyond.

Always great to see so many browsers out and about in Grasmere this time of the year.

A stack of books on a wall with blue sky and fells beyond... 📚Grace Murray, Blank Canvas (Fig Tree) 📚Camille Bordas, One Sun Only (Serpent’s Tail) 📚Elaine Garvey, The Wardrobe Department (Canongate) 📚Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author (Gollancz) 📚Eowyn Ivey, Black Woods, Blue Sky (Tinder Press) 📚Kiyoshi Shigematsu, The Blanket Cats (Maclehose) tr. Jesse Kirkwood 📚Claire Lynch, A Family Matter (Vintage) 📚Aria Aber, Good Girl (Bloomsbury) 📚Ragnar Jonasson, The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer (Penguin) 📚Fredrik Backman, My Friends (Simon and Schuster) tr. Neil Smith 📚Various Authors, Stories for Lovers (British Library).

New paperback fiction on the bookshop table right now...

The bookshop seen from the back of Moss Parrock with Butharlyp How and fells beyond. Blue sky above.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, Grasmere is bathed in sunshine from dry stone wall to jackdaw wing.

Brightly lit bookshop windows and Broadgate House with dark sky and a hint of light blue beyond

A last glimpse of light in the Grasmere sky for 2025. Wishing you all a happy new year and we'll see you back in the bookshop on Friday 2nd January 2026 (doors open at 10am!)

A stack of books on the bookshop table, with bookshelves beyond. Top 20 books are: 1. Rory Stewart, Middleland (Jonathan Cape) 2. Polly Atkin, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson) - in hardback 3. Esther Rutter, All Before Me (Granta) 4. David Nicholls, You Are Here (Sceptre) 5. Stephen G Rae, Folklore of the Lake District (Folklore Press) 6. James Rebanks, The Place of Tides (Penguin) 7. William Wordsworth, Selected Poems (Macmillan Collector's Library) 8. Robert Macfarlane, Is A River Alive? (Hamish Hamilton) 9. Alfred Wainwright, Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells: 70th Anniversary Edition Box Set (Quarto/Alfred Wainwright Books & Memorabilia) 10. Polly Atkin, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson) - in paperback 11. Sarah Hall, Helm (Faber) 12. Jack Cornish, The Lost Paths (Penguin) 13. Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky (Penguin) 14. Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker (The Borough Press) 15. Tom Chesshyre, Lost in the Lakes (Summersdale) 16. Samantha Harvey, Orbital (Vintage) 17. Kim Tillyer, Beginner's Guide to Cyanotype (Search Press) 18. Tiffany Francis-Baker, Concise Foraging Guide (Bloomsbury Wildlife) 19. Simon Armitage and Beth Munro (illustr.), Dwell (Faber)
 20. Ellie Wood, The Hotel at the Heart of the Lakes (HarperNorth)

Our 20 top selling books at Sam Read's for 2025 look like this! Top 5 were:
1. Rory Stewart, Middleland
2. Polly Atkin, The Company of Owls HB
3. Esther Rutter, All Before Me
4. David Nicholls, You Are Here
5. Stephen G Rae, Folklore of the Lake District

Sunshine on the bookshop on College Street, and on Easedale Road and Helm Crag

Sunshine over Loughrigg, seen from Stock Lane

Sunshine on Silver Howe and on bare winter trees

Morning sunshine in Grasmere on the third day of Christmas. Here for all your bookish wants and needs until 5pm.

Blue Sky and winter trees in sunshine

Swathed in sunshine in Grasmere on a calm and clear Christmas Eve

A view of the bookshop in the dark with dark blue sky and shadows of fells beyond a lit-up Broadgate House, with street lights and windows aglow.

⭐🎄We're open on Christmas Eve until 5pm. From 4pm you can join in the carols on Moss Parrock and drift in for your last minute presents. After that, we'll be back open again on Saturday 27th December at 10am!🎄⭐

A momentary quiet/collector's item. Bustle commenced soon after.

Much needed sunshine on the bookshop corner on these short winter days.

Bright bookshop windows reflected on the wet road. Outline of a fell and street lamp beyond.

The bookshop's lighted windows and the bustle of Christmas book buying

broadgate, grasmere in bright winter afternoon sun, with the bookshop in the centre, and sunlit fells behind.

The extraordinary sight of sun on bookshop!

Heron beside a stream with rushes behind. Two ducks in front, one giving a stern gaze to camera.

Your bookshop-adjacent Grasmere heron content for today. Some ducks seemed to take a dim view of this.

Last year’s standout from my @samreadbookseller.bsky.social haul was @herdyshepherd.bsky.social #ThePlaceOfTides. This year’s is #TheCompanyOfOwls. We all DO need lights to follow. Thank you @pollyrowena.bsky.social

Name Dropping - books by people I've met. I've met so many lovely writers and artists through working at Sam Read's Bookseller in Grasmere, it's a real highlight of the job.

I made a booklist on @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social about some lovely people I've met (many through my job at @samreadbookseller.bsky.social ) and their beautiful books.

A man in a camo jacket stands in the bookshop, holding up The Company of Owls by Polly Atkin while a tawny owl sitting on his shoulder sit above the book, looking pensively out.

We don't condone favouritism, but if there was a more exciting bookshop encounter than @witchmountain.bsky.social had today when Bert the tawny owl and his domesticated humans came into the shop for their winter visit, pray do tell.

We wonder what the tawny owls who live across the street thought?

great selection!

Perfect day in Lakes yesterday. Shopping at Hawkshead Xmas market. Food at Chester’s by the River, then booking at @samreadbookseller.bsky.social

In our algorithm-hammered world, what a delight to step into a proper, independent bookshop with a niche request ("Have you got a pictorial guide to cow breeds, simple as a Dorling Kindersley book, but for adults?") and get an unfazed, helpful and successful response. @samreadbookseller.bsky.social

Blue sky above the bookshop with light and cloud and on the fells beyond. Looking down Broadgate from next to Moss Parrock in Grasmere.

Squeezing out some of the last, and best, of the late autumn sunshine in Grasmere.