For many people, books provided an escape during the Coronavirus pandemic.
And for Emma Hanlett, they've also offered her a different route out of it too - via a van named Cordelia. Emma was part of the team which brought the Lindisfarne Gospels and Magna Carta to Durham in 2013 and 2015 respectively, but she quit her job as a museum curator in 2020 to "explore her options".
After a bit of soul searching, she started Collected Books in April this year both online and from the back of her van. In just five months she's built up enough of a following to open a bookshop in Durham. Specialising in women's words, Emma hopes that she can bring "brilliant writing" to the masses.
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Emma, who is from Oldham near Manchester, feels there is a gap in the market for more women's writing, saying that the literary world is dominated by male authors - despite Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel and Agatha Christie being both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. She said: "The main thing I want to do is showcase the massive world of brilliant writing that's out there.
"Some of it doesn't come to people's attention through prizegiving, it even goes back as far as the texts you read at school. There's an imbalance there and you can end up reading a lot of books by men, and not coming across stuff that is available.
"What I want to do is give readers the opportunity to find that different stuff that they might not find elsewhere. Almost everything we have is written by a woman - though there are some exceptions as we're stocking all the performers at the festival and I'm hoping to build up a section for local and regional authors as well."
The former museum curator says that she's not only passionate about women's writing, but also being northern and representing people who work and write in the area from her new premises on Durham's Riverwalk. And she's delighted to have a bricks and mortar shop too, where people can come in for a cake and coffee, as well as a chat about books.
Emma said: "It's amazing to have a shop, as brilliant as the van was, it was a great experience to have the mobile shop and a really good way to get started. Obviously there are limits trading from a van, not least the weather.
"Books and rain don't really mix and though it's indoors, you have the doors open all the time so when the rain comes down it does tend to come in. I'm just grateful to be inside to be honest!"
With the new shop, Emma will be hanging up the keys to her van business-wise, though she's not ready to part with Cordelia just yet. She added: "I'm afraid the van has gone into retirement.
"Because we were mainly working in Durham, it doesn't do us any good to be trading from a van when we've got a shop to run full time. I think I've got my hands full!"
Emma says that it's an exciting time to be a book lover in Durham, following the opening of LGBTQ+ book specialists BookWyrm in the Durham Indoor Market in July and the upcoming Book Festival, which runs between October 13 and 16. Emma finished: "The response has been really positive, we've had lots of people coming in who are really excited - it feels like quite an exciting time for book lovers, that's the overwhelming response!"
For more information on Collected Books, visit the website.
What is your favourite bookshop in the North East? Let us know!
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