Autumn Bookshop of the Quarter 2026 | Topping & Company, York

Please tell us about your bookshop. What makes it special?

It’s been such a pleasure to open our new bookshop in York this June – enough time has just about passed from the lugging in of thousands and thousands of boxes of books that we’ve even started to look back fondly on the pre-opening madness! We’re the largest independent bookshop in the UK, set across three floors in a beautiful building opposite York Minster. One of the greatest joys for us has been bringing life back into a building that has been empty for around five years, and opening up such a historic building fully to the public for the first time in its history.

In terms of our bookselling philosophy, our range of books is at the heart of who we are – and the beauty of opening our largest bookshop yet has been that we aren’t limited by space. Indeed, Duncan spent a year prior to our opening trawling through everything that is currently in print with all the major (and almost all of the smaller) publishers to make sure we have ordered in as many brilliant books for as many different readers as we can fill the shelves with.

We have around 75,000 titles in stock currently – and are constantly striving to improve the breadth of topics that we cover and authors that we stock. For us, a good book should be allowed to sit on the shelf for as long as it needs to find its audience – and more corporate philosophies of ‘stock turnover’ should be resisted when they threaten to have great books returned in favour of more ephemeral trends!

We have tried to conjure experiential spaces: rolling ladders, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, complimentary tea and coffee, and a superb team of booksellers who are deeply passionate about what they do. It is a bookshop that – I hope – you can lose yourself in for hours, and discover books that will open up whole new worlds.

What first inspired you to become a bookseller?

As often happens, neither of us set out to be booksellers – it was a job we fell into, and fell in love with. We were always huge readers – and we found we enjoyed the challenges as well as the joys of bookselling. Be that problem solving, orchestrating unwieldy event programmes (often over 300 events a year!), or the physicality of working long days and late nights on your feet.

Most significantly, for us, the joy comes from working with books (from every publisher imaginable!) – and of constantly discovering more to read – as well as the people that you get to meet, both the most extraordinary authors and the (equally extraordinary) public. We’ve learnt so much from the conversations we’ve had with browsers, the books they’ve introduced us to and pressed into our hands, and the same goes for colleagues. When we were hiring for our new bookshop we were keen to emphasise that most vital trait: curiosity. For someone who is curious about the world, and the people within it, a bookshop is an extraordinary space.

What are your all-time favourite reads and why?

[Duncan]: I adore anything by Anne Carson, although I couldn’t even begin to articulate why she has such a profound effect on me. In brief: her language, her humour and her love of volcanoes. David Mitchell’s novels are a cornerstone for me too; he’s the master of epic, interconnected narratives.

[Saskia]: I have a real fondness for more ‘pulp-y’ Detective Fiction – and the great authors who play with the genre. I’ve recently been enjoying revisiting Chester Himes – I love Percival Everett, who mentioned him in an interview which made me pick Himes’ books up. George Simenon is another favourite, as is Muriel Spark. Short, extraordinary slivers of books.

Bookselling colleagues have turned me onto contemporary authors like Valeria Luiselli – and introduced me to Roberto Bolano who has become one of my favourites.

Who would be your dream bookshop party guests?

Duncan: We both love to cook and host so let’s start by inviting Jess Elliott Dennison, an amazing chef based in Edinburgh who runs a great studio and has published three superb cookbooks. Ali Smith is kind and lovely and great for conversation on art. We always laugh non-stop and have a great time when Andrew O’Hagan drops by so let’s invite him too.

Saskia: Can I invite Hisham Matar? I have a feeling he would be a superb dinner party guest. And Caroline Eden – travel writer & cook, plus a complete joy – the perfect combination!

Who has been your favourite customer/what is your favourite bookshop anecdote?

Saskia: There have been so many over the years. I’ve had people share such intimate, tiny details of their lives when they are buying books; it has felt like the bookshop till can function as a confessional box. A lovely moment that springs to mind: a woman who bought road maps of European countries from me in our Bath bookshop – she told me how she would take them to bed in the evening and ‘read’ them, following the roads with her finger and imaging the landscape. I’ve never forgotten that.

What are your top picks for Autumn 2026 (new publications/old favourites/reissues)?

Duncan: I’m looking forward to Sebastian Barry’s latest novel The Newer World and Alice Oswald’s search for poetry Rhapsody.

Saskia: The new Patrick deWitt Dodge City, Barbara Kingsolver’s Partitia, and Music Against the Light by Yiyun Li. And the new Jeremy Lee cookbook.

What is your favourite Slightly Foxed publication and why?

Duncan: I cherish my copy of Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost. It’s stayed with me since I read it, an odd sort of haunted memoir. In fact, it may be time to revisit it…

Saskia: My latest Slightly Foxed purchase has been the new edition of Toast by Nigel Slater – such a beautiful book that I have coveted for a while. I finally caved!

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