This week’s prompt from Top Ten Tuesday is an indie freebie, but I already talked about mostly indie bookshops in a recent post! So I’m going to talk about ten reasons to support indie bookshops.

1. Indie bookshops can be a huge part of their community.
   They rarely just sell books, but often have events, provide a space for meetings, provide local advertising space, etc.
2. The selection isn’t mandated by corporate.
   An independent bookshop can’t be told they “have to” stock gender critical nonsense or stacks upon stacks of the latest bestseller; they can exercise their own judgement.
3. The selection can be as weird and wonderful as the curator wants.
   Not only do they not have to stock things they don’t want to, they can choose to stock only books they personally champion, lesser-known gems, etc. At the end of the day they do need to sell books… but they can afford to have some on the shelves that fit more niche interests.
4. It helps the fight against monopolies.
   Amazon is so powerful because people feel like they can’t get what they need anywhere else. A thriving indie bookshop can be part of a local economy that says no to that.
5. They can specialise.
   Think of some of the bookshops I mentioned like Criminally Good Books (a crime and mystery shop) and Portal Bookshop (LGBT and diverse SF/F). Waterstones is never going to set aside an entire store for a single genre, and while they can get a decent breadth of popular fiction in each genre stocked, the quality of the stock will depend on the booksellers’ knowledge. If you’ve never noticed this, try going to different Waterstones shops: they have similar selections, but not the same. There was one I went to where they clearly had a classic crime aficionado on staff, because I found some real gems. But this is the default at a specialist indie!
6. Indie bookshops can order rare stock.
   Sometimes they have sources that a chain doesn’t or won’t use, like self-publishing platforms.
7. You probably don’t actually need next day delivery.
   This goes to the same point as #4. We don’t actually need instant gratification when it comes to most books. Sure, sometimes you might need a textbook or reference work really quick… but most of the time it’s not necessary, and indie bookshops can often acquire stock pretty fast if you ask them to order.
8. Indie bookshops can stock books from other countries.
   Sometimes when a book has only been released in the US, an indie can import it to the UK, and vice versa! Even if they don’t have a lot of imported books on the shelves (or you don’t know how to tell), it can be worth asking if it’s something they do.
9. Browsing a physical bookstore can be a lot of fun.
   And enlightening! This is true of physical chains as well, of course, but see my earlier points about indie bookshop curation. Browsing a well-curated indie can bring a lot of surprises.
10. More bookshops and more booksellers is always a good thing.
    Even if you also use chains sometimes (I do!) or rely on libraries for most of your reading (they deserve support too!), then it’s great to support the diversity of bookshops and bookselling out there.

I’m probably preaching to the choir here… but sometimes that’s fun!

I will finish by adding that since that aforementioned post recommending specific indies (only two weeks ago, and in fact on the very day I’d posted it), I learned about a new-to-me indie bookshop in Cardiff called Love Stories. You can find it in Castle Arcade, opposite Troutmark Books, the second-hand bookshop I previously recommended. Love Stories is small but has a pretty good selection, and I had a nice chat while I was there too. So consider that one recommended too!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is technically about books with nationalities in the title, but I didn’t have enough on my shelves and prefer to stick to books I know… so instead, you get ten Welsh books and books about Wales!

1. Afonydd, ed. Sian Northey and Ness Owen.
   This is a bilingual poetry collection in which poets contributed a poem in English or Welsh, and the editors arranged translation into the other language. I found it a lovely experience, a respectful one that acknowledges that many Welsh people only speak English thanks to centuries of suppression by the English. The editors also have another collection, A450, which is similarly put together but not a favourite for me. Something about Afonydd resonated just a bit more.
2. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones.
   Didn’t expect that, did you? But if you’ve read the book (rather than watching the Studio Ghibli adaptation), you’ll know that Howl (Howell) is Welsh, and his Welshness is played on multiple times in the story, from his rugby jersey to the “nonsense” song sung by Calcifer (which is of course “Sospan fach“). I love highlighting the Welshness of this book to people who somehow missed it (it isn’t subtle) or only saw the Studio Ghibli version.
3. Welsh Food Stories, by Carwyn Graves.
   I didn’t know much about typically Welsh food other than the best-known standbys: Welsh rarebit, bara brith, Welshcakes, cawl. I enjoyed this book, and laughed a bit at how stereotypically Welsh some of my tastes (like my love of cheese and of sweet, fruity cider) apparently are.
4. Vanished Wales, by Carwyn Jones.
   Has some unexpected gaps, making no mention whatsoever of Capel Celyn (a Welsh village which was forcibly cleared of people to create a reservoir to serve a city in England)… but nonetheless, a fascinating survey of places in Wales that are now gone, some of which I knew about even though I was born after their destruction, because they remain that present to people.
5. Castles of the Welsh Princes, by Paul R. Davis. 
   If you have a fascination with castles, welp, look no further! Note that this one does not discuss the Norman castles built in Wales, so some of the best known Welsh castles aren’t here.
6. The Grey King, by Susan Cooper.
   As a teen, the fact that this book is set in Wales and heavily influenced by the Welsh landscape and Welsh mythology meant a lot. And it’s a lovely story, though I don’t suggest reading it in isolation — start with Over Sea, Under Stone, or if that doesn’t quite work for you to hook you into the world (it’s aimed at a younger audience), skip to The Dark is Rising and then go back to Over Sea, Under Stone if you’re interested in reading more (just read it before Greenwitch).
7. The Owl Service, by Alan Garner.
   This is a retelling of the story of Blodeuwedd that scared the pants off me as a kid. It is genuinely creepy and powerful, and remains really good.
8. Country Dance, by Margiad Evans.
   I read a lot of Welsh fiction in English when I was at university, both because I studied the topic and because the university library had it in copious amounts, but it’s been a long time and many of them are blurry in my mind, so I’ll choose just a couple of books to stand in for all of them — this one because it was the first book I’d read by a Welsh writer while intending to do so. The introduction (by Caitrin Collier) mentioned the way Welsh literature wasn’t valued, the fact that writers like Margiad Evans are barely mentioned outside Wales (and for her, weren’t even mentioned in Wales when she was looking for Welsh writing)… and yep, I’m familiar.
9. Feet in Chains, by Kate Roberts.
   The current translation available is by Katie Gramich, who taught the module on Welsh fiction in English that I took. I don’t think I’ve actually read this translation, but I loved the class, and this book was a revelation. The fact that Welsh soldiers’ families were notified of their deaths in English, a language that none of them spoke and which no one around them spoke, is a fact that clings to my mind ever since.
10. Postcolonialism Revisited, by Kirsti Bohata.
    The book which made me understand that Wales, too, was colonised — and the effects of that on my own life. It is a somewhat technical read, but one which I wish a few more people would attend to, because the utter incomprehension of the effects of colonisation on Wales and the Welsh language online is a regular irritant.

I’ve run out of space to add more, like Glyn Jones’ The Dragon Has Two Tongues, which contains a quotation I’ve said many times: “To me, anyone can be a Welshman who chooses to be so and is prepared to take the consequences.”

But you get the drift!