Read (London) Competitors

Bloomsbury Publishing is a leading independent publishing house with authors who have won the Nobel, Pulitzer and Booker Prizes, and is the originating publisher and custodian of the Harry Potter series. Founded in London in 1986, we now have offices in London, New York, Santa Barbara, New Delhi, Oxford and Sydney. Bloomsbury is the only publishing company to combine general fiction and non-fiction publishing with academic, professional and educational publishing. We bring together the best talent by combining our passionate colleagues and bestselling authors. Through our commitment to quality, growth, digital publishing and international strategy, we’ve become one of the world’s leading independent publishers. Our purpose is to inform, educate, entertain and inspire readers of all ages, championing a life-long love of reading and learning. We aim to help build a reading culture that benefits wider society. Bloomsbury’s success is due to the belief, commitment and hard work of our talented colleagues. We have a positive and vibrant culture where everyone has a sense of belonging and understands their value. Colleagues are supported to reach their highest potential, with wellbeing at the forefront of everything we do. Initiatives including cost of living support, family policies and healthcare enable colleagues to perform at their best at work. We have a particular focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, as well as community outreach and sustainability. Find out more about us at www.bloomsbury.com

WH Smith (also known as WHS or colloquially as Smith's, and formerly W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery. The company was formed by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792 as a news vendor in London. It remained under the ownership of the Smith family for many years and saw large-scale expansion during the 1970s as the company began to diversify into other markets. Following a rejected private equity takeover in 2004, the company began to focus on its core retail business. It was the first retail chain in the world, and was responsible for the creation of the ISBN book identifier. WH Smith is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It celebrated its 225th anniversary in 2017.

With almost 300 bookshops and employing over 3000 booksellers , Waterstones is the leading high street bookseller in the UK and Ireland. Amsterdam and Brussels play host to Waterstones’ European presence, and two further jewels in the bookseller’s crown are London’s Hatchards and Dublin’s legendary bookshop Hodges Figgis. Waterstones has opened several new shops over the last few years and invested in existing locations. The company also achieved a turnaround of fortunes for their online platform, Waterstones.com. In 2018 Waterstones further acquired British bookshop chain Foyles. Good bookselling and bookseller expertise is the driving force behind Waterstones’ bookshops, and every year Waterstones runs thousands of author events across the country from weekly story time sessions and book clubs to author talks and large book signings. One of the biggest events of the year is the prestigious Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, voted for by Waterstones’ expert booksellers. Other notable activity include the Waterstones Book Of The Year announcement and support for the Waterstones Children’s Laureate.