Bookshop Displays: Summer 2024
By Chloe Brown, Laila Hulatt, Faith Manalili and Megan Levick
We’re sharing our current favourite bookshop displays and delving into the titles under the spotlight at the moment. We explore the creative and innovative ways that our favourite bookshops are encouraging their customers to read, from showcasing their book club picks to giving summer reading recommendations.
Waterstones
69 Saddler Street, Durham, DH1 3NP
Looking at northern bookshop displays we can see that this Durham bookshop is celebrating both the England men’s team’s Euro 2024 final match and the Lionesses’ success in qualifying for Euro 2025. Booksellers have curated a selection of children's books focusing on the exciting sporting events of the summer and important past events and have enhanced the display with the wonderful addition of football Jellycat toys. The books include Football is for Everyone by Rico Hinson-King, vibrantly illustrated by Nick Sharratt, and Roar by footballer Beth Mead with bestselling children's author Matt Oldfield, which is an inspirational guide to pursuing passions by dreaming big.
WHSmith
WHSmith’s current displays promote their Book of the Moment and their Richard and Judy Book Club.
The July Book of the Moment has been awarded to The Whispers by Ashley Audrain. WHSmith describes the new read as a “captivating new novel from the author of the explosive Sunday Times bestseller, The Push.” These displays are perfect for letting customers in on this summer’s ‘it’ book.
WHSmith’s summer edition of their Richard and Judy Book Club also includes a great range of gripping reads. The book club, led by married celebrity couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, was originally a segment on the Channel 4 TV programme Richard & Judy. Now their recommendations make up the exclusive WHSmith book club. This is a regular display in the bookshops, which encourages readers to try books which they may not have otherwise thought to read. These books are half price if bought on their own. However, they are also available in a six book bundle for £29.94.
Titles include the newest missing person thriller by Nicci French, Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?, The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende, The Edge by David Baldacci, Our Holiday by Louise Candlish, The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas and Sisters under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris. Their website – richardandjudy.co.uk – even includes dual reviews by the couple.
Foyles
107 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0DT
74-75 Lower Ground Floor, The Arcade, Westfield Stratford City, London, E20 1EH
If you’re looking for something to read during the summer holidays, Foyles have extensive displays online and in their physical stores.
On their website, you can find their guide to July 2024 in books, sectioned into fiction and poetry, crime and thriller, children’s fiction, science fiction, fantasy and horror and more. In addition, they have an even more specific list outlining their Top Ten Reads for July.
Foyles’ physical shops also offer monthly recommendations that span different genres. In the central shop on the bustling Charing Cross Road, the three most popular displays this month are the biographical novel The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut, the sci-fi novel Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, a thriller which won the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year 2023. In the shop in Westfield Stratford City, the books of the month are the mysterious literary fiction novel Kala by Colin Walsh, the fantasy thriller Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs and the non-fiction book Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard.
Waterstones
12 College Lane, Liverpool, L1 3DL
In celebration of the arrival of the warmer months, Waterstones in Liverpool is highlighting their top reading picks for the season with a curated selection of summer-inspired titles.
Their window display showcases an inviting and vibrant collection of books, including the Japanese best-selling novel Butter by Asako Yuzuki alongside Emily Henry’s Funny Story and Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time, a notable pick which has recently been shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The shelf also features a range of non-fiction titles, including books on cloudspotting and wild swimming.
The brightly illustrated covers on display evoke the spirit of summertime and are guaranteed to make ideal company on a plane or train journey, at the beach or in the garden whilst you soak up the sunshine!
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