I've never written about bookshops! How very remiss. Especially considering that I was recently moaning about
the death of the book.
Remember what happened to Our Price? Imagine what would it be like if you could never go into a bookshop again. If your browsing experience was confined to searching on Amazon. Bah...
I picked up this lovely map today, which is also a lovely website - a
map of all the independent bookshops in London. Interestingly, the pins showing indie bookshops also represent places you might actually like to live in London. You could probably write a thesis on the correlation of these two things.
Below are some of my favourites.
East: Freedom Bookshopdown Angel Alley, Whitechapel
Anarchists! That is all.
The Broadway BookshopTiny but pretty bookshop in Broadway Market. Also sells local artists' work and has a little cubby hole under the stairs with interesting old books.
North: When we were doing the Freud exhibition we used to meet around the corner from the museum in the Camden Arts Centre, their bookshop is packed full of beautiful art and design works.
A moment's remembrance of the long-gone beloved Compendium books in Camden High Street, everything an indie bookshop should be, a portal to alternative, radical ideas & grownup life.
CentralI still love the enormous Waterstones (formerly Dillons) on
Gower Street. Especially the secondhand section upstairs. There's a little corner seat with cushions where you can sit and read, or just look out the window at the passing scene in Bloomsbury. Criminally they have piled it up with boxes of books at the moment, tsk.
SkoobThis is a cavernous second-hand place tucked away downstairs at the back of the Brunswick Centre. It is awesomely awesome. Lost hours in there. They also buy your books.
Gosh! Comics and graphic novels and the best selection of the most beautiful children's picture books ever. They moved from Holborn to Berwick Street. It is quite dangerous in there.
Plus all of the secondhand places along Charing Cross Road and the expensive but lovely rare books in Cecil Court.
WestLutyens and Rubenstein
This is a beautiful shop in Notting Hill, with an art gallery downstairs. When I walked in I immediately saw 3 books I had been looking for and wanting, always a good sign. They also give you a nice cloth bag with their design on.
Where are your favourites? They don't have to be in London, clearly.