Cover toCover

Cover to Cover is, remarkably, the only independent bookshop in Swansea — a city of a quarter of a million people down to a single indie, which tells you how the trade has gone, and how much rests on this one shop on Newton Road in Mumbles. Tim Batcup, who came to it from bookselling and the music trade, took it on in 2016 and has made it far more than its size suggests: a tightly chosen stock heavy on local writing and music, a good second-hand section, a children's corner, and a year-round programme of events that pulls names like Kate Mosse and Cerys Matthews to a seaside suburb. It has been shortlisted for Independent Bookshop of the Year, and deserves the nod. In a place that has lost its other bookshops, Cover to Cover carries the whole responsibility of being the one that reads the city its books. Support it, plainly, or Swansea has none.