'We could wipe the floor with Manchester': The bookshop fighting to boost Birmingham's literary scene

And why Waterstones treats readers like 'dumb dumbs'

By Dan Cave

“Our shop is basically just off the page of a Joel Lane novel,” laughs Clive Judd, co-owner of Digbeth’s Voce Books with his wife Maria Lomunno Judd. I’m not au fait with Lane’s work, but many in the city adore him for folding Birmingham’s hideyholes and industrial feel into his fictional worlds. Voce Books recently celebrated the author’s wo…