Smith and Atkin take over Sam Read Bookshop

Grasmere’s independent bookshop Sam Read has been taken over by Will Smith and Polly Atkin following the retirement of Elaine Nelson, who succeeded Margaret and Dan Hughes on their retirement in 2000.

The shop sells books of all genres for adults and children, with special focus on the Lake District, Nature Writing and Poetry. Under Nelson’s stewardship the shop won the 2006 Times/Independent Alliance Competition for Best UK Independent Bookshop, and made The British Book Awards regional shortlist for Independent Bookshop of the Year four years running from 2020. 

Smith and Atkin will be the seventh generation at the helm of Sam Read’s, which was established in Grasmere in 1887. Next month will mark 128 years of continual business from the current premises in Broadgate House.

Smith has worked at Sam Read’s since 2012, as well as reviewing books in Cumbria Life magazine and on BBC Radio Cumbria. Smith is also The Bookseller’s paperback previewer. Before moving to Grasmere in 2010, he worked at Blackwell’s Nottingham Portland branch while studying for his PhD in Canadian literature. He has been a judge for the Costa Book Awards and the Nature Chronicles Essay Prize, and in 2020, he set up an online shop to reach Sam Read’s customers during the lockdown.  

Smith was one of 10 UK booksellers named in a shop floor honour roll by the Booksellers Association last month. Like Read himself, Smith is originally from Suffolk and began his bookselling carer at Ottakar’s in Bury St Edmunds. 

Meanwhile Atkin moved to the village in 2007 and attended Read’s regular book events, as well as Grasmere Book Group. She said that the new owners’ “aim is to be good custodians of the shop and its history, keeping it alive and active for all readers, and taking it forward in the spirit it began".

Smith said: "Some of our customers remember Helen Read, Sam’s daughter, who followed on from her father to run the bookshop until 1950. It’s a unique shop which has added to the vibrancy of the village over generations and we see how much it means to our customers every day.”