While I was helping steward for the inaugural Crickhowell Literary Festival in the first fortnight of October unbeknownst to me the 2015 campaign for Books are My Bag was being launched simultaneously — perhaps not a total coincidence.

#BAMB is, in the initiative’s own words, “a nationwide campaign to celebrate bookshops”, a collaboration between publishers, bookshops and authors to promote these once ubiquitous outlets. “56% of all book buying decisions are made by consumers in a bookshop,” we’re told, but — like so much these days — we must remember to use it or else lose it.

So, why buy books in your local bookshop?