Our Story
Community . Connection . Conscience
It all begins with a dream. Maybe you have a similar one, to start a little bookshop, in a small town by the sea and fill it with beautiful books, tea and conversation.
We are The Bookshop by the Sea, a community-focused bookshop with a mind to bring creatives of all kinds together and offer access to creative writing classes, poetry evenings, live music, children's story times, author talks, art workshops with local artists and more. So far we have reached hundreds as they attend our events!
We bring together both students at the university and local community members to create a warm and welcoming environment where the arts are encouraged, and community is celebrated!
Community
We believe in community! Bringing people together through sharing stories and connecting to creativity. Allowing access to all is at the heart of what we do.
Connection
We believe that as a local bookshop connection is everything. We want to build a Book-Guardian community that can save stories and bring back books worldwide!
Join us.
We do good things and believe you can too. Let’s save independent bookshops.
Conscience
We source everything we can - Locally - Organic -Fair-trade and have a strong conscience towards sustainability and recycling!
After all, half of the books are second-hand and what better way to up-cycle than to share a pre-loved book!
We also support charities as a bookshop
Ethiopia reads
This wonderful organisation helps children access books and the part we support is specifically one man on a donkey going around two villages in Ethiopia, which do not have access by roads, with saddle bags full of books and teaching children to read! He hopes to soon upgrade to a horse. We hope to make that happen.
Find out more here:
https://www.ethiopiareads.org/get-involved/donate/
World Stories
Our owner Freya Blyth worked out in Manila in the Philippines with five local women who were supporting the children in the local slum communities. These children have no access to education, electricity, medical resources, or food. We would like to change so much of that but for now, we are working on our project:
Books to Build - this is all about starting a local library run by these five local women and together so far we have sent enough books to have two shelves of books to further inspire these amazing children.
Find out more here:
Www.Action-worldstories.com
‘I love what we do supporting the community and building a dream bookshop full of conversation and connection around literature.’
Community - Connection -Conscience
Freya Blyth, Bookshop Owner
“I’m living the bookshop dream! I have been a bookseller for over 10 years now- running children’s libraries in Jerusalem and working in bookshops around the world.”
How did you start the Bookshop?
I was running a library in Jerusalem at the start of the pandemic when all international visas were stopped and I had to return to the UK. I wanted to return to the amazing Welsh coastal town of Aberystwyth by the sea, for the sense of community and incredible nature at its doorstep.
Tell us about the community focus?
I found that the community over the pandemic suffered greatly and so I wanted to get back in the way that I know how – as a librarian! Library’s were still shut so I started a pop-up bookshop, doing art workshops, live music and children’s story-times, focused on bringing people back together. I believe passionately in telling each other stories that inspire and the power and connection that creates,
What do books mean to you?
Stories communicate to one another who we are and what we believe in, they can inspire us, challenge us, and they’ve taken me from the tiny town I grew up in in the north of England, around the world, and now back to Wales.
I feel like I’m living the dream most days living in a tiny town by the sea and running a bookshop – isn’t that everyone’s dream?! With a large mug of herbal tea…