Book Fans Will Be All Over the Paper Moon

Published on: 21 Aug, 2025
Updated on: 23 Aug, 2025

By Alice Fowler

After a gap of over 20 years, Guildford has a new independent bookshop, Paper Moon. The shop in Jeffries Passage is the creation of young booksellers Hannah Richardson and Jack Mountford who – in a heart-warming twist surely worthy of a novel – met and fell in love while working at Lionsheart Bookshop in Woking.

“Since we met, we’ve always talked about opening a bookshop together,” Hannah says. “We just needed to find the right space for us. Guildford is the perfect town, it’s a very literary place, with so many book clubs, poetry nights and writers popping in. The support so far has been overwhelming.”

Guildford’s last indie bookshop, Thomas Thorp, closed in January 2003, with co-owner John Thorp telling the Surrey Advertiser: “We just aren’t getting enough customers any more.”

So what’s changed? “There’s been a massive resurgence in reading since Covid,” Hannah says. “Everyone’s wanting physical books at the moment. Our goal is for anyone to come in here, and find a book they want to read.”

In the window, a signed copy of Nicola Sturgeon’s recently published memoir, Frankly.

The shop reflects Hannah and Jack’s own tastes, with Jack’s choices (literary fiction and classics) on one side, and Hannah’s (fantasy and sci-fi, with a dash of historical fiction) on the other. In the window, a signed copy of Nicola Sturgeon’s recently published memoir, Frankly, sits next to Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene: neatly summing up the bookshop’s blend of new and classic titles.

What will customers find here that’s different from the town’s other booksellers, Waterstones and WH Smith – not forgetting Oxfam Books as well?

“What we bring is more the personal experience and community aspect,” Hannah says. “Our plan is to listen to what people want and tailor what we offer to Guildford. We’ve already had lots of librarians and book clubs coming in to chat to us.”

Hannah Richardson: “We just needed to find the right space for us. Guildford is the perfect town, it’s a very literary place…”

From Saturday (August 23rd) the shop’s first floor will open, housing children’s, teen and young adult titles, as well as manga and non-fiction. This upper floor will also host book clubs, author signings and events.

From September 1, locally based psychological thriller author Kathryn Croft will attempt a world-first literary challenge: writing a full-length, 80,000-word novel in a week, while sitting in the shop’s front window. A ‘local author shelf’ with books by authors based in and around Guildford, is planned as well.

Guildford’s new independent bookshop is in Jeffries Passage

Sandwiched between a nail lounge and an empty unit, Paper Moon is proving that Jeffries Passage – with its central location linking the High Street with North Street – can generate healthy footfall. With plenty of customers browsing and buying, I ask the shop’s top titles, in the two weeks since it opened?

What the bookshop owners are reading.

On the fiction side, Hannah says, best-sellers are Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi, and The Safekeep by Dutch author Yael van der Wouden, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025. In non-fiction, On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe is selling well.

Talking of coffee – doesn’t every self-respecting indie bookshop need a café?

“That’s the eventual plan,” Hannah concedes with a smile. “If we do well, we’d love to have space for that as well.”