Sarah Anderson and Martin Latham at Hatchards

Martin Latham, Waterstones’ longest serving bookseller and author of The Bookseller’s Tale, and Sarah Anderson, founder of the Travel Bookshop (now the Notting Hill Bookshop) and author of The Lost Art of Silence, discussed all matters bookselling at Hatchards Piccadilly.

Their discussion ranged over, among other matters, lovely authors (Michael Palin, Dervla Murphy), complicated ones (Jonathan Raban, Bruce Chatwin), and unpleasant ones (no names); bookshops as places of cultural significance; the making of the film Notting Hill (Hugh Grant worked in a specially built replica of the Travel Bookshop); selling erotica to Francis Bacon; the ending of price maintenance; and the resurgence of bookselling independents.