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One of Antigua and Barbuda’s most cherished bookshops will close at the end of the year after 25 years of serving readers, students and educators.
The Best of Books, located in St John’s, is set to shut its doors permanently in December 2025. The announcement was made on Monday by manager and shareholder Barbara Arrindell, who cited mounting financial and infrastructural challenges.
Arrindell described the decision as “painful but inevitable”, as the store grapples with declining sales driven by a global shift to digital reading and local issues such as poor city infrastructure, limited accessibility, and inadequate parking.
The educational sector—once the store’s mainstay—has also moved away from printed textbooks, compounding the store’s difficulties.
To mark its final chapter, the store has launched a clearance sale, with most items discounted by at least 35%. Customers spending over EC$200 will receive 50% off, although local titles and special orders are excluded.
Schools and teachers are being urged to make use of the reduced prices in the coming months.
The store will remain open through December, allowing customers time to bid farewell to a long-standing cultural fixture.
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Truly heartbreaking. Best of Books was more than a store — it was a cultural landmark.
So many childhood memories walking through those aisles. This really hurts.
Another victim of the digital age. Still, this one cuts deep.
I bought my first Caribbean novel there. Moments like that stay with you forever.
Truly monumentally heartbreaking. Barbara has kept this institution running on its last legs like Usain Bolt sprinting through an eight hundred meters after just finishing gruelling 100, 200 and 400 meters races back to back to back. I applaud her sticktoitiveness. Unfortunately the loss is going to be more keenly felt by the generations to come. Sure…there are downloaded books that one can read, but how many do we keep to read again. I have educational books that I bought at Best of Books that I am constantly re-reading and learning and re- learning the lessons within those pages.
This new ‘digital’ age has made it maybe cheaper to access the information , but the future losses by not having the tools at hand after a certain amount of time is immeasurable.
Barbara, I wish to applaud you for the ingenuity it took, for you to have launched this business. I do not know if you have had partners, but laud them too, if you did. May you find continued gratification and success in what you choose to do next.
Farewell, Best of Books, you will be missed.
I am actually very saddened to see the closure of a bookstore that has been part of the Antiguan landscape for years. The advent of social media has really changed many things and reading habits was one of them. In my days of going to primary and secondary school, reading was a must. Schools either had libraries or was accommodated by mobile libraries weekly. Students had to take books and read weekly. Today all that done and kids spend more time on social media doing all manner of evil except reading. These days, the vast majority of our students struggle with English because reading has become an endangered species. Reading offers many benefits. It engages the brain, improving memory focus and concentration. It also exposes us to new words and phrases and expands our vocabulary. Sadly, except for salacious information on social media, few persons bother to read.
Very sad news.
She did well to stay so long
Trjly heartbreaking news! I’ve purchased many a tome from Book of Books. The proprietor was always on hand to help out, advise or reorder out of stock books.
Knowledge is power, and Antigua’s greatest writer Jamaica Kincaid was well featured at BOBs.
One book I always keep at hand in my vast collection of 3,000 books is ‘Caribbean Style’ that recreated the beauty of the housing, lifestyle and gardens on islands such as Guadeloupe 🇬🇵, St Bartèlèmy, Nevis. Barbados 🇧🇧, Martinique 🇲🇶 and not forgetting the beautiful parts of our own isles.
It’s a real travesty in this day and age when you hear of bookshops and libraries closing down 🤨
… and in the meantime our youngsters are fixated in pusn-button gaming. So so sad 😔