FREMANTLE city council has offered a “sweetener” to a potential buyer of New Edition Bookshop, which may have helped fend off closure.

Intrigue about the fate of the port’s favourite bookshop has been worthy of a Michael Connelly thriller recently (Google suggests “new edition bookshop for sale” when you start typing the name, an indication of the traffic that query’s generated), but owner James Calligaro confirmed to the Herald this week he’s negotiating with a “prospective buyer”.

“New Edition Bookshop is not closing,” he said.

And while his response is more note than novella, local authors and editors will cheer. They were so concerned about the rumoured closure that David Whish-Wilson organised a bunch of them to lobby the council to intervene. They even offered to help with publicity and other chores if it could keep the bookstore’s doors open.

Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt told the Herald that while the sale was still being negotiated he couldn’t reveal the council’s sweetener, but it fitted into its initiative aimed at protecting the city’s retail diversity.

by BRENDAN FOSTER