“The Tree House was opened on the back of a crowdfunding campaign and we are a non-profit secondhand bookshop and arts venue. The aim is to keep books accessible, and to bring people together,” says owner Victoria Mier. “We have tables where people can sit and read, a piano and lots of events including gigs. We are the coolest bookshop in the world because we have the coolest patron: musician Warren Ellis of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the Dirty Three. It’s called Tree House, as I loved the idea of the bookshop being like a den, retreat or social hub and nature is important to me. We have a crowdfunding campaign to put a copy of The Lost Words into every primary school in Coventry and Warwickshire.”

Top five sellers

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire JK Rowling
• The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
• My Name Is Leon Kit de Waal

Five recommendations

• Middlemarch George Eliot
“The finest novel in the English language, in my opinion, and by a Warwickshire author.”

• The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane
“There is currently a rich seam of nature writing by fantastic writers, but Macfarlane remains supreme for me and this is my favourite of his books, with its interweaving of nature, literature and beautiful writing.”

• The Sportswriter Richard Ford
“I always thought this would be a blokey sort of book; I couldn’t have been more wrong: it opened me up to the riches of contemporary American fiction.”

• The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell
“These four novels in one are stunning, in terms of the writing and the structure, and repay endless rereadings, which is something I love.”

• The Weather in the Streets Rosamond Lehmann
“I love what Virago and Persephone have done in republishing so many neglected books by women authors of the 20th century. Lehmann is glorious.”

The Tree House Bookshop, 4 The Square, Kenilworth CV8 1EB