More books are being sold, thanks to a broadening of outlets and the superstores. But the personality is being wrung out of the business, and we’re increasingly buying a narrower range of book. “According to a recent Bookseller, gamely surveying the trends of 2002, the range of titles sold in the high street fell by 5 per cent last year – from about 437,000 to just over 417,000. At the same time the number of different ISBNs assigned to fiction fell by 1,000, while – perhaps the most sinister figure of all – ‘frontlist’ sales accounted for nearly 44 per cent of total revenue. We may be buying more books, but they are increasingly the same books, sold by shops that are differentiated only by the sign on the door.”