The Booksellers Association (BA) has today revealed initial plans for Bookshop Day, the annual celebration of all high-street bookshops in the UK – taking place on Saturday 12 October 2024. This year’s theme is “Bookshops Making a Difference” and celebrations will include a special spotlight on Glasgow, an exclusive video featuring high-profile authors, a Limited-Edition Bag designed by Angela Harding and much more.

Bookshops are the lifeblood of our high streets and communities, and their presence in our towns and cities has a tangible impact in society. They enhance the customer experience of buying books, making a real difference to readers big and small thanks to their personalised recommendations and expertise. They also make a difference by organising charitable initiatives and collaborating with local charities, food banks and schools. Bookshops are not afraid to do things differently, developing special and unique ways to get books into the hands of readers.
 
Bookshop Day aims to remind customers to choose bookshops, as they are much more than retail spaces for books. With Bookshop Day falling ten weeks before Christmas, the day is also the perfect opportunity for consumers to start their Christmas book-shopping early, and do it on their high street, with their local bookshop.
 
Exciting celebrations are already lined-up for Bookshop Day 2024, with around 1,000 bookshops set to take part. This year’s Books Are My Bag Limited-Edition Bag designed by Angela Harding will be available exclusively from bookshops starting from Bookshop Day. Up and down the country, bookshops will be celebrating with their customers and authors, with events taking place in-store as well as special offers, promotions and exclusives. A special video featuring high-profile authors talking about why they love bookshops and encouraging consumers to choose bookshops will be shared across social media. As this year’s City spotlight, Glasgow will be taken over by eye-catching murals celebrating bookshops, created by local artists.
 
GLASGOW CITY SPOTLIGHT
This Bookshop Day will spotlight Glasgow and its wonderful bookshops. Local artists Jacqueline Briggs and Jack Stamp will work with Jack Arts on two murals with sites on St Enoch Square and Blythewood Street in the city centre.
 
Graduating in Illustration from DJCAD in 2016, Jacqueline Briggs now works from her studio in Wasps Creative Academy, Inverness. She has created a number of public artworks and enjoys exploring socially engaged art across a variety of different mediums and working with underrepresented communities in the Highlands. Inspired by her contrasting Papua New Guinean and Scottish heritage, her interest in people and culture is represented throughout her work particularly through her bold use of colour and humour.
 
Jack Stamp is an illustrator and designer from Edinburgh, with a degree in Illustration and a master’s degree in Comics & Graphic Novels, both from The University of Dundee. His fashion designs have been displayed in the V&A Dundee his illustration work have been included in the Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition, while two of his comics have been made part of Dundee University Comics Collection as part of their Museum Services. He is interested in comic and editorial illustration, graphic poster and book cover design and his work largely involves combining traditional hand drawn illustration, in pencil or ink, with clean digital shapes and bold colours to create striking imagery.
 
BOOKS ARE MY BAG LIMITED-EDITION BAG
Artist, author and illustrator Angela Harding will design this year’s Books Are My Bag Limited-Edition Bag, which will be available exclusively in bookshops from Bookshop Day onwards, while stocks last.
 
Angela’s unique and distinctive style has become recognisable to nature lovers and book lovers alike, gaining her a huge number of fans. For this year’s Limited-Edition Bag, she was inspired by the scenic landscape of Shetland and its iconic otters. Living in the UK’s smallest county, Rutland, Angela Harding works from her garden studio in Wing and her studio in Oakham.
 
Angela joins the likes of artists and illustrators such as Poonam Mistry, Jackie Morris, Dapo Adeola, Charlie Mackesy, Sir Peter Blake, Tracey Emin and Orla Kiely, who have designed previous editions of the bag.
 
CHOOSE BOOKSHOPS VIDEO
To mark Bookshop Day, the Booksellers Association will be releasing a video featuring a number of authors, including household names, debut writers, and illustrators, which will be shared on Books Are My Bag socials channels (@booksaremybag on Instagram, X and Facebook) on Wednesday 9 October at 6pm.
 
CAMPAIGN ARTWORK
This year, the artwork for the Bookshop Day campaign has been commissioned from award-winning illustrator and picture book author Sophy Henn. Holding a Master’s in illustration from the University of Brighton, Sophy is the creator of the much-loved Bad Nana series, the Pom Pom series, the Ted board book series, and the non-fiction titles Lifesize and Lifesize Dinosaurs, among others. Sophy was the World Book Day Illustrator in 2015 and 2016.
 
Emma Bradshaw, Head of Campaigns at the Booksellers Association, said: “This Bookshop Day we’re highlighting the difference that bookshops make to our local areas all year round. They are hugely valuable as retail spaces and, additionally, many bookshops are running programmes to improve literacy, wellbeing, and the cultural landscape of our communities. We want to remind consumers of the value of their local bookshops, and to choose to do their Christmas shopping with them. We’re thrilled to have so many exciting aspects of our plans already confirmed, and look forward to sharing more in the coming months.”
 
For more information, visit the Bookshop Day website. Details of Bookshop Day events taking place across the country can be found on the Books are My Bag Facebook events page.
 
Follow the latest developments for Bookshop Day on social media: #BookshopDay @booksaremybag