Sep 14, 2023
Sir Tim Waterstone revolutionized
bookselling in Britain and changed the country's cultural
landscape. He also wrote a memoir,
called The Face Pressed Against a
Window (Atlantic, 2019). We met at The Garrick Club in
London to talk about the book, and about how he accomplished what
he accomplished.
Topics covered in our conversation include Tim's troubled
relationship with his father, his eight children, the creative
strategy behind growing the Waterstones empire (starting in 1982);
an epiphany in Cambridge’s Heffers Bookshop; Waterstones' "happy"
family; W.H. Smith, James Daunt, author support, a combative
attitude; offering a huge range of titles for sale and staying open
longer hours; Miss Santoro's bookshop in Crowborough; seeing a
market and making accessible an unprecedented selection of
literature; the brilliance of the John Sandoe Bookshop in Chelsea;
the "perfect stock, perfect staff, perfect control" mantra,
bookstores as literary festivals, and the importance of book sales
per square foot.