Frost has been looking at independent bookshops recently and has come across the gorgeous, thriving award winning White Rose BookCafé in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. As evidence of its success this remarkable bookshop has just celebrated its 22nd birthday.
This bookshop is just perfect with its huge range of books, and a great little café with an outside terrace. We didn’t make it to the terrace but sank into a sofa and enjoyed homemade cakes, and wished we’d been there for a light lunch too. My mum would have loved the tea but would have given the FREE WiFi indoors & out a miss. She didn’t hold with these new fangled wotnots. Her daughter does though.
You can browse to your heart’s content without being hustled, there are book signings, most recently with local author Julian Norton who has brought out another book in the Yorkshire Vet series – Through the Seasons, which Frost Magazine will be including in a roundup very soon.
They have a whole wall of cards, you know, the sort that you laugh out loud at, so those were bought to bring home. As well as books, there were prints, toys, maps, diaries, calendars and a miscellany of other gifts.
Independent bookshops have to be pro-active in order to survive these days, and the White Rose BookCafé owned and managed by friendly and knowledgeable Caroline Nicholls is certainly that. They organise a host of book related events every month, such as their Bloomin’ Words Cabaret evenings, and regular storytime for children every week. There is a loyalty card schemes for books and the coffee bar to gain offers and discounts, and they issue a monthly e-news.
As we left we were totally glum to be missing Gervaise Phinn’s visit. His books are hilarious.
Anyone thinking of running a bookshop should take a trip to the White Rose BookCafé, and certainly anyone in search of cards, books or cakes – beat a path there too. Thirsk is well worth a look too, not to mention The World of James Herriot Museum.
http://www.whiterosebooks.com/
https://www.facebook.com/WhiteRoseBooks/
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/news0142/pins/
https://www.instagram.com/whiterosebookcafe/
White Rose BookCafe
79-81 Market Place, Thirsk, North Yorkshire YO7 1ET – Tel: 01845 524353
Regional Shortlisted 2017, 2016, 2015 & Independent Bookseller North 2014
Certificate of Merit in the Parliamentary Shop of the Year 2010
Milly Adams latest book is The Waterways Girls pub Arrow in pb. £5.99