Times may be tough on the high street but the bookseller Waterstones is enjoying strong sales as younger adults embrace reading as an escape from their screens and as online competition eases.
“People have come back to reading and buying books in bookshops as we have made a place which is an enjoyable and effective way to buy books,” says James Daunt, the CEO of the British retailer, which has 320 UK bookshops and owns the Foyles, Hatchards and Blackwell’s names, and whose parent group also owns Barnes & Noble, the US’s largest bookstore chain.
