Our local indie bookshop is about to

change hands. For an awful, heart-stopping moment yesterday I thought the owner was going to tell me that the shop was closing. It is always a possibility in this uncertain economic climate. I am well aware that one of the things that keeps this one going is the relationship the owner has built up with schools over the years but even that is changing.
The owner has held launches for local authors published by small local presses and even, once or twice, self-published authors she has deemed worthy of attention. I have mentioned elsewhere the poetry group, the book discussion group, the embroidery group and the knitting group. There is also the story-telling for the small children. It is all very different from deciding to open a shop, stock it with some books and try to sell them. Bookselling does not work like that any more - if it ever did.
Things will change. The manager of the shop is leaving, not because she must but because she has decided she needs a change of direction - her decision was the final nudge the owner was waiting for before she sought to sell it. I will miss her too - and our discussions over the "Thought for the Day". I have provided many of those over the years, not always intentionally.
We do not always agree.
Yesterday the knitting group finally saw the finished the rug that will be raffled off for the Fred Hollows Foundation. It is one part of the community service that the bookshop does. The cost to the bookshop is actually nothing more than a bit of space once a month. We borrow the chairs from the centre management, clear a space and knit. People come in to see what we are doing.
Sometimes they stay and buy a book.
Does the new owner want all this to continue? I put this question to the current owner as she said "things will change". Oh yes, she told me, some things will not change. It sounds good to me.