Whilst the modern high street is full to the brim of sterile multinationals that are wholly indeterminable from one another once you get inside, there are still some shops that retain the air of mysticism they've always held. While penny sweets in paper bags and veg by the pound have all but retired to the great high street in the sky, the bookstore remains as popular and traditional now as it always has been.

There is a certain bewitchment around bookstores that others fail to match. Maybe it's down to the worlds of information, suspense and intrigue that are contained on the pages within its walls, or maybe it's because of the starcross'd  chance meetings favoured in films when they want a suitable place for two bookish types to meet. Either way, the bookshop is more a destination than a shop, and more an institution than a business.

It's this cultural view of the bookshop which has driven its popularity, a feature cemented by the hugely popular TV show Black Books.

Featuring comics Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey and Tamsin Greig, Black Books centred around grouchy bookshop owner Bernard Black and his hostile yet apathetic approach to bookselling. The series was a resounding success and cemented the bookshop's place as a much loved, well needed and sometimes greatly infuriating institutions. It did more for second hand bookshops than any campaign ever could and opened up the nation's eyes to small businesses (most poignantly during an episode when a multi-national bookshop moves in next door).

With TV, film and radio making references to the humble bookshop, it was always certain to win a place in the heart of a nation and even at a time when shops sprout up left, right and centre offering variations on the same, bookshops remain as iconic as ever, their appeal brightened in the light of the others merely taking up space on the modern high street.