'Think of your ideal bookshop, one that has books that you thought you couldn't get any more,' wrote Melanie McDonagh in the Daily Telegraph, 'where the stock is laid out in such a way that a serendipitous encounter is guaranteed, where the staff are knowledgeable and kind to children. There was such a bookshop, in London's Kensington Church Street, until Saturday: the Persephone Bookshop where I spent many a happy half-hour when I should have been at work. Now it's closed. It attributes its demise partly to the dominance of Amazon. Like most book-buyers, I'm a sucker for Amazon and its irresistible one-click buy. But there's a price for that handiness, and it's paid by the little bookshops that are going out of business every week.' However, Persephone Books in Lamb's Conduit Street remains open and flourishing.
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