Bookshops and their future

Two weeks ago I spent a week in Mallorca including a visit to Palma. Lovely city and a great place to linger.

What struck me walking round was the number of bookshops. Coming from Nottingham where a decent bookshop is becoming harder to find (Waterstone's aside), it amazed me that in a side street in the old city, I found not one, not two but three separate bookshops plus a shop selling regional food which had a substantial book section.

And I hadn't even been round the main shopping centre so I have no idea how many I would have found there. Given that Palma has about the same population as Nottingham, it made me really sad that we seemed to have lost that popping into a bookshop habit, corralled as we are by Amazon and the supermarkets.

Is it any better in your area?