Pengwern Books occupies a shopfront on Fish Street in Shrewsbury, opened by Susan Caroline on 13 October 2004 after she left a job at another bookshop to write her own business plan. The stock is deliberately small and curated rather than exhaustive, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry and a well-regarded children's section, with anything missing available to order. Susan has also founded the Shrewsbury Festival of Literature, which now runs alongside the shop's day-to-day trade. Customers browsing the shelves are offered a chair and a drink rather than being left to search alone. The shop keeps shorter hours than a chain store, open Tuesday to Saturday, which Susan has found suits the kind of considered browsing the shop encourages. Quirky and non-mainstream titles get particular attention on the shelves.
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