With an astounding sense of timing, Annabel Townsend signed a lease on a new bookstore venture, one week before the Covid-19 pandemic was declared. Not to be deterred by a mere global crisis, she decided that lockdowns were the perfect opportunity to get people reading. With the world growing ever more strange around it, the fledgling business began providing an essential form of escapism and solace in troubled times-books. Faced with nightmare landladies,...