Books a class issue

While I agree with much of what Tiffany Jenkins has to say regarding the cultural value of saving bookshops from being replaced by Kindles (Perspective, 17 September), I can’t help thinking there is a class element to the issue.

When record shops were going out of business due to downloading, most of the media, although sympathetic, put it down to a mixture of progress and a sign of the times. Then, when DVD rental shops began to disappear it was barely reported.

These shops tended to be used by young people and those ­outwith the middle classes but gave the same communal ­experience for music and films that Tiffany Jenkins identifies in bookshops.

However, bookshops are a middle-class preserve and over the past few days newspapers and broadcasters have been full of earnest entreaties to save them and therefore rescue our way of life from falling into barbarism.

Could it be that if we had all done a bit more to save outlets of culture that were under threat in the past, we might not now be facing the demise of independent bookshops today?

Gavin Fleming

Grassmarket

Edinburgh