Family-owned specialist bookseller earns national recognition while still taking orders overnight and hosting clubs on the shop floor
On the High Street, Red Lion Books makes its living the old way that still works: selling books face to face, recommending the next title, ordering what is not on the shelf, and turning regulars into a community that keeps coming back. It is not a gift shop with a bookshelf. Stock, advice, events and clubs are the core of the business.
Peter and Sarah Donaldson opened the shop in 1978 after briefly weighing a different life as organic market gardeners. Pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture settled the argument. They started in the old stables of the Red Lion Hotel, in what is now the Red Lion Walk area, then moved in 1986 to larger premises at 125 High Street so they could hold more stock. A basement conversion followed in 1989. The limited company behind the trading name, Red Lion Books Limited, remains active at that address.
How the shop earns money is straightforward. Customers buy new titles in store, place orders for next-day collection from a catalogue of more than 400,000 titles, pick up signed and sprayed editions, and use gift vouchers and subscriptions. Local buyers can have books delivered on foot or by bicycle. The team also supports self-published and local authors who meet its stocking criteria, and it sells into book clubs with group discounts. Author talks, soirees, workshops and clubs are not side shows. They bring people through the door, move stock, and keep the shop visible in a retail climate that has removed many of its former neighbours.
Who it serves has widened with the decades. Parents still find Sarah Donaldson’s carefully curated children’s section. Younger readers have pushed YA sales higher after the category was given its own space and after social media drove demand. Adults use the shop for nature, history, politics and fiction, and for the quieter service of tracking down hard-to-find titles. Manager Jo Coldwell, who founded Appetite Book Club in 2007 and joined the bookselling team in the mid-2010s, now runs day-to-day decisions on stock and events with the Donaldsons’ trust. Staff recommendations, blind-date-with-a-book packages and specialist clubs (including children’s groups and a young-adult Cocoa Book Club) turn browsing into a habit.
Adaptation has been steady rather than flashy. The Donaldsons stayed hands-on while high-street giants came and went. Coldwell has said the shop has outlived Woolworths, Debenhams and many other bookshops, and that it is one of the last independent new-book outlets left in the town centre. Online affiliation and email ordering sit alongside the physical shelves. Events have grown into a calendar that mixes craft workshops, writing groups, bookshop yoga and major author launches. In late 2026 the programme includes Mel Giedroyc talking about her novel The Comeback, a midnight celebration for the sixth ACOTAR novel, and regular soirees where authors host rather than simply sign.
Recognition has followed the work. The shop won East of England Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2021 and again in 2025. In 2026 it is a finalist for Independent Bookshop of the Year at the British Book Awards (East of England category), alongside other regional independents. The owners’ response was characteristically dry and collegiate: they congratulated fellow booksellers “fighting the good fight against Bezos” and said they were thrilled to be on the shortlist.
For local readers the practical point is simple. If you want a new hardback tomorrow, a signed edition, a children’s recommendation that is not an algorithm, or a club that discusses books over supper, this is where that service still exists in town. Peter Donaldson has long argued, through the Booksellers Association and as a trustee of the Essex Book Festival since 2011, that bricks-and-mortar shops help keep communities strong. Red Lion Books is the working proof on one High Street frontage: nearly fifty years of stock, staff knowledge and events, still trading as an active specialist retailer.
