Reading Is Cool Again – But Why Now?

<div><img src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/68f75fb3180000ce27e8ed5f.png?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" alt="Book clubs are on the rise." data-caption="Book clubs are on the rise." data-credit-link-back="" data-credit="Getty Images" />Book clubs are on the rise.</div><div class="content-list-component text"><p><span style="font-weight:400">“We nearly had a fist fight in here over Pedro Pascal the other day.”</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">I was expecting many things from my conversation with Victoria Bonner, owner of </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/holdfastleeds/?hl=en"><span style="font-weight:400">Hold Fast</span></a><span style="font-weight:400">, a quaint but cool canal barge turned independent bookshop in Leeds Dock, but this was not one of them. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">Pascal, who has his own chapter in Gillian Anderson’s tome of sexual fantasies </span><em><span style="font-weight:400">Want</span></em><span style="font-weight:400">, was the subject of fierce debate among the barge’s shoppers, who had strongly held views on Chilean-American hunk’s appeal. The group only managed to find common ground in their mutual shock that one woman didn’t know who Pascal was.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">“You don’t get that in Morrisons” Bonner chuckles. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">We may think of bookshops and the people who visit them as quiet and considered, but lively debates like this are more common than you’d expect. Bookshops and book clubs are becoming social hubs, especially for young people, as they look for more meaningful, affo