On one way, the story of Simply Books reads like the ultimate guide to how not to open a bookshop, which is probably why they are so successful. If we thought too much about what following our dreams really entails, none of us would ever quit or day job.

But quit their day job they did; first Andrew, and then Sue.

“I’d always had this ridiculous pipedream about running a bookshop (with a cafe!) ever since visiting Barnes & Noble in Boston in about 1978”, says Andrew on the bookshop’s website. “I got somewhat diverted by a career in the education service in Manchester (for 20 odd years).”

The bookshop in Bramhall came up for sale, and the crazy dream of running a bookshop suddenly started to seem almost … possible. They made the decision, did the numbers, talked to the current owner, negotiated, and then … the owner sold it to someone else.

“Out of the blue, the owner calls and tells us that it’s been sold to someone else. It was quite a miserable weekend”, Andrew says. Mentally, they’d already made the decision to start a bookshop. So why not … do it anyway? From scratch. With another bookshop in town already. “We believed in the bookshop we wanted to create. So we did it.”

The plan at first was for Sue to keep her job within the education sector and not be involved in the day-to-day running of the shop. But as she explains on the website: “Over the summer before we opened I got hooked! Designing the shop with a blank piece of paper was brilliant, managing the builders not so much fun but good practice for keeping Andrew in line!”

And what a shop it is. Not only is the bookshop itself charming; full of little personal touches and details. But the things they do with local schools are impressive, including local awards, decided by school kids, bookgroups and author events.

They also have a large space reserved for the books that the staff themselves love, so when I asked Andrew for a recommendation it wasn’t that difficult.

“Let’s just go to my shelf over here. This might actually be the best book I’ve ever read. I recommend it to everyone; we’ve sold almost one a week for years.”

Which is, I think, a good testiment to the power of the booksellers’ recommendations.