Day 2 - Bloomsbury

Today I decided to visit the bookshops around the British Museum, Covent Garden and Leicester Square in London. I worked in this district twenty years ago so I already knew quite a lot of the bookshops. Many bookshops in this area are antiquarian or specialist. No matter how bizarre your hobbies or views you will find a bookshop in London specialising in your interests, providing you're not normal.  

I needed a convenient way to measure bookshop size. I don't like square things like square feet or square metres. They aren't intuitive and you spend your life multiplying things. A good sized living room is about 14 feet by 14 feet. But who wants to think about 196 square feet? That's about 200 square feet, or two square centipedes. I've never found a square centipede on my boat, so I don't know what that looks like. 

I much prefer using a narrowboat as a unit of measure. A standard narrowboat is about 56 feet by 7 feet and you know it's big enough to live on. Narrowboats have length and width, so there is no confusion regarding squares. So today I used a standard narrowboat as a way to measure bookshops. It worked very well. 

10. Atlantis Bookshop on Museum Street has been selling new and secondhand books on magic and paganism for 97 years. The staff are very knowledgeable and helpful. The lady in the shop asked if I needed any help as I paced across the room. I said I was trying to work out how many narrowboats I could fit in her shop, and she was OK with that. 

Atlantis Bookshop is about half a narrowboat or an average square living room, which means the range of titles is really limited. 

The woman in the shop pointed out that there are no editions of the same book on the shelves, which is a good point.

The downstairs had been turned into a shrine room which was very relaxing and peaceful:

Atlantis bookshop also has a website but it doesn't sell items online. 

11. Stanford Bookshop in Covent Garden specialised in maps and travel. Ironically, it was quite hard to find because it was tucked down a back-street. 

It was relaxed and quite large inside so browsing was easy. The ground floor had gift titles which had no travel connection at all and were tempting to buy:

Downstairs had lots and lots of maps and travel guides. 

The size of the shop was perfect for me. Each floor was about eight narrowboats side by side. I could walk across it in about 18 paces, which was comfortable. Stanford's also has a website 

12. London Book Review in Bury Place was new to me. It has been going for 17 years and stocks the books shown in the London Book Review periodical. Titles stocked are therefore new releases. 

 The bookshop was small (3NB spread over two floors).

13 I stumbled upon the Oxfam Bookshop in Bloomsbury by accident. It was really small, cramped but well stocked with customers. I like these bookshops that charge a standard £3 for good quality academic books - I think many students must be grateful for their presence even though academic books can quickly go out of date.

The range of books in this store wasn't great. I realised that 3 narrowboats is just not big enough for a generalist academic bookshop like this one. You can, however, buy books from Oxfam online and ask for them to be delivered to your nearest store. 

Interlude. 

At this point I went for a break. I went to the Plough pub for a drink. On the subject of size, their toilet was actually too small to enter without removing a leg at the knee:

14. Next I went to Foyles on Charing Cross Road. Twenty years ago Foyles would have every academic book that was currently in print, and it was therefore huge. It was tempting to look for unavailable books in the bookshop that has everything and therefore to feel smug. It still is huge, but its academic range doesn't seem so complete. It has also opened its doors to more popular books. 

Providing you have the legs to climb 4 flights of stairs, it is easy to spend a lot of time in Foyles. It is organised but not too clinical. If they cover a topic they'll have two bookcases of books and not just two shelves. It had a lot of customers. 

So how many narrowboats could I fit into this mammoth of a bookshop? About 128. That's a marina's worth of boats. This shows how big it is compared to Atlantis bookshop. 

From Foyles I went to the really small antiquarian bookshops down Charing Cross Road. 

15 Quinto & Francis Edwards was very small (less than 1NB) and had a poor selection of antiquarian books:

16. Henry Pordes was slightly bigger, but still a bit small as a generalist bookshop. It had a good selection of Art are Architecture books, and literature:

17. Any Amount Of Books was a misnomer for a bookshop.  Given its size constraints it needed about Half The Amount Of Books.

The Bookshops in Cecil Court off Charing Cross Road shrunk the small sizes even smaller, whilst increasing the book prices. Many bookshops had signed first editions. 

18. Goldsboro Books was one example. 

19. The bookshop next to it, Peter Ellis, was too small to enter.  It specialised in Illustrated History and literature. 

20. Then finally I came to a bookshop that broke the rules. Tenderbooks was incredible. Tenderbooks was small like the rest, had hardly any books in it, but the books were really interesting! Teaching for People Who Prefer Not To Teach should be a classic, as should Just Another Asshole. They were very readable books. 

Downstairs was more like an art gallery than a bookshop, and the books were equally good. Tenderbooks has a website.

I concluded that size matters in bookshops, but it's not the most important ingredient. 

21 Watkins Books, still in Cecil Court is another esoteric bookshop, on two floors and covers subjects I didn't know existed. 

22. Finally in Cecil Court, I visited Pleasures of Past Times. This very small shop is probably best visited online Everything is locked away in the shop. There are books on psychedelic drugs, old copies of Penthouse magazine, vinyl records, punk stuff, and everything that used to be exciting and on the edge of decency. It was a fascinating shop. The small terrier dog kept order. 

Ely and Cambridge - Day 1

My feet ache and my legs hurt more than I expected. It’s tiring walking around bookshops all day. 

I thought I’d start in Ely where I live. I like Ely. It is the 5th smallest city in England and its cathedral was built in 1083. It is so small and old that I think it is a scale model of a real city. 11th century builders had a dry run  at building a pretend city, making a few mistakes before building proper cities in Norwich and Cambridge. It’s inhabitants are friendly and intelligent and it is natural to find a few bookshops in Ely. 

1. Topping my list of booksellers to visit was Topping & Co on the high street in Ely. It was opened in 2002 by Robert & Louise Topping. Robert had previously worked for Waterstones. It has stores in Bath, Edinborough, St Andrews and Ely.

Toppings is a remarkably big bookshop hidden behind a small shop-front. It hides It has 3 floors of books and extends a long way back.

It covers all subject areas but has perhaps most books on history and travel. Staff are friendly and knowledgeable. It organises many guest speakers throughout the year. The shop is relaxed, and with tables and classical music in the background it is easy to settle down and start reading undisturbed. After walking up two flights of steep stairs to the top I was particularly pleased to be offered a free cup of good quality free coffee and a biscuit. 

Topping has a website but it doesn't sell books online.

2. The Works, technically a bookshop, is also on the high street. The Works provides low-priced, educational and remaindered books that make ideal presents. In Ely, their offering is limited. However, you can order books online and get them delivered to the local store. 

I like The Works because their books present information very clearly and you can’t get them anywhere else. Hang on… if it’s a remaindered bookshop then the books should have appeared elsewhere first! I asked one of the shop assistants why I’d never seen their books in other bookshops. He didn’t know. I suspect that their books are commissioned to be small-print and only sold to The Works. That's just a hunch. Their website doesn't explain this anomaly.

The Works is popular. I have never been into one of their shops that is empty,

but I’ve been into many empty bookshops.

3. Burrows Bookshop in High Street Passage is a bookshop that was empty. It is a very small bookshop run by Burrows Newsagent that specialised in children’s and local history books. It does not match its website in range.

In fact it felt like a bookshop that was closing down. Rumour is that it is closing down. I asked Burrows Newsagent when it is closing down but was told it isn’t closing down. It’s lease is up for review. When is it’s lease up for review? Soon. How Soon? Soon. These replies suggest it will be closing down as soon as Burrows has worked out the press release.

4. Octagon Books is approximately at 1 Lynn Road, entered via Cloisters Antiques. It is owned by the chatty and friendly Barry Lonsdale. Octagon Books is Ely’s only dedicated secondhand bookshop and has been running for over 20 years. It mainly has books on transport and gardening. There aren’t many books and being a secondhand bookshop it depends on what’s available at the time. The books fill a couple of small rooms.

More impressive than the bookshop is the vinyl and CD collection in the basement of Cloisters Antiques, organised by Mike Langham from Andy’s Records which sadly closed in 2003. Flicking through the records is truly nostalgic for anyone who remembers the 1960s, 1970s or 80s. Being in a basement it feels so authentic!

Cambridge

Cambridge is a full-sized city. Given its size, it doesn't seem to have many bookshops. Being a university city, its bookshops tend to be more academic. I visited its two secondhand bookshops and three other bookshops in the city centre. 

5. Sarah Key Books is an antiquarian bookshop in St Edwards Passage. It has antiquarian books and specialises in children’s books. It is very, very small on the ground floor. When I arrived there was also a tall man in the bookshop which effectively meant nobody else could enter. When he left and I entered I had to take care not to knock into books when I turned round. Fortunately I’m used to confined spaces because I live on a narrowboat.

The bookshop is said to be haunted. It also specialised in children’s books. I asked the man at the till if it was cruel to children to put their books into a haunted house. He confirmed that he actually never had children in the bookshop. He said it was because they didn’t have any money. I suspect the wicked witch who lived on the top floor might have been the real reason.

Upstairs was bigger than downstairs. It was filled with children’s hardback classics from a time when children seemed to live in a world of fiction before the internet was invented. There were Just William books at £30 each, Jennings books at about the same price, Billy Bunter first editions for around £75, and Enid Blyton’s books for £5. Her books were noticeably cheaper than other books. Perhaps her writing style doesn’t suit modern readers. 

Anyone who is nostalgic for classic childhood books would really enjoy visiting this bookseller.

6. David’s Bookshop is about two minutes walk away from Sarah Key Books. It is larger, but when I visited it had about ten people in it which made it hard to get round. Upstairs it sells modern books; downstairs it has antiquarian books.

The upstairs was limited and uninspiring. Downstairs was amazing, not because of the range but because some of the books were pristine and first-editions of classics like Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy.

It was the place for book collectors who would treat each book as a sacred text, and enter the square room with a humble bow of respect as if taking part in a masonic ritual. The books were expensive but not overpriced for antiquarian books. Here is their website.

7. Cambridge University Press Bookshop in Trinity Street was described as a ‘showroom’ for Cambridge University Press. They only sold CUP books, except for a few works of classical literature. It was very relaxing and people were reading academic books. Classical music played in the background. They had a good range of books but they were all academic in nature. If you wanted to delve into academic material on a particular subject it was good. Some of the titles were quite catchy, such as “Learn to Write Badly: how to succeed in the Social Sciences”. I was nearly tempted to start dipping into the Communication Disorders Workbook. 

CUP bookshop sells itself as the oldest bookshop in England. This doesn’t make it a good bookshop. Nearly all of the current CUP published stock is available in this shop. Now that's more interesting.

8. Heffers in Trinity Street is big. At first I didn’t like it, but now I’ve visited it for this challenge I am starting to like it. It has a vast range of books and is very browsable. It started in 1870’s I was told, as an academic bookshop but has since moved into more popular titles. The shelf width per topic does favour academic books. There are no books on diesel locomotive design or caring for your Great Dane dog that I could see, for instance. They have a section graphic novels though, and quite a lot of jigsaws and games. I wouldn’t have expected jigsaws in a bookshop.

Heffers, or Blackwells to use its married name, is present on many university campuses. There is no doubt that Heffers is a successful bookshop. I left with a book I didn’t know I wanted, and felt good about it.

9. Waterstones is on Sydney Street in Cambridge, and is present in most large cities in the UK. Founded by Tim Waterstone in 1982 it has over 280 stores. 

When you’ve visited one Waterstones you feel like you’ve visited all of them. They have a certain feel about them. They offer a comprehensive range of titles and if you want to explore a subject it’s the one place you can go and be quite certain you’ll find a relevant book. They are spacious and usually have a cafe. Compared to other bookshops I’ve visited, Waterstones feels a bit commercial and clinical. The displays are arranged perfectly and the books don’t feel as browsable. Perhaps that’s because you have to walk up three flights of stairs and through a big building to get to the section you want. Perhaps it is because I find slightly chaotic books grab attention better than books in neat rows.

Tomorrow, legs willing, I'll visit London.

Campaign for Real Bookshops

The Bookshop Challenge begins very soon. There will be photos, and interviews. There will be high drama (how long before I get lost?) and there will be suspense (will the camera on my phone work?).

Even though I have planned every day of the event I still don’t know if I will manage to visit 150 bookshops in 20 working days. The challenge is made harder because I agreed to visit only one shop if the bookseller is part of chain. In the case of Waterstones for instance I’ll visit the one in Cambridge but not the other 282 branches in other cities. Their dominance means many cities have a Waterstones but little else. I wonder if there’s a need for a vibrant Campaign for Real Bookshops, similar to to the Campaign for Real Ale? Books are My Bag promotes independent bookshops, but it’s certainly not a pressure group. People support it by using their bags with large orange words saying, “Books are my bag”. This makes no sense to me. It’s a bag, yet it says “Books are my bag” which is wrong. Your bag is your bag, a book is not your bag. But as your bag has words on it does that make it a book? If so the plot needs some serious rework. Am I missing something? Maybe it should say ‘Booksellers are my bag”? If you’re promoting booksellers or anything else literary, shouldn’t your message be really good and clear? This is the problem I have with this campaign.

I shall spend many days in London, which is brimming with specialist bookshops. I shall venture into: a bookshop on a boat, transport bookshops, gay bookshops, political bookshops, cartoon bookshops, and at least one erotic bookshop. I’ll be curious to know if that shop has a section on diesel locomotives.

If I find enough unlisted secondhand bookshops on my tours I may reach my target. At the moment have no idea if I will, or how this particular story will end.

What makes a good bookshop?

At the moment I’m trying to decide what makes a ‘good’ bookshop. Opening hours, clear layout, and facilities are important. I’m also creating a measure for the subject range. I’m preparing a list of books to look for as a bookshop activity pack. Here is my list so far:

1. Books by Isaac Asimov, (thank you Ed in Suffolk!)
2. A fantasy/science fiction section
3. A book on Existential therapy (thank you Emma in Bristol)
4. A university-level book on abnormal psychology
5. A book about diesel train carriages and a section on Transport (for Mark in Didcott)
6. Val Thomas’ book, A Witch’s Kitchen, and details of her forthcoming book (Previous book sellers seemed to think Val is an American Author. This Val lives in Norwich)
7. Anything by Angela Wigglesworth (Angela in Lewes)
8. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (one of my favourites)
9. M Grieve - A Modern Herbal (only about 100 years out of date)
10. Books to help children cope with emotional issues

Any other suggestions to broaden the range would be appreciated.

About the challenge

I love bookshops. I’ve always loved books. Books are the answer to an inquisitive mind. As a youngster I would read lots, including dictionaries, encyclopaediae, books on space travel, science fiction, the sciences, the pseudosciences, philosophies and religions, and comedy transcripts. Whenever I developed a new passion or pursuit, the first step was to buy a book on the subject. No; that was my second step. My first step was to walk into a bookshop. 

During the 1970s I lived in Norwich, a city with many bookshops. There are still a lot of bookshops in Norwich, but many towns and cities suffered bookshop blight when eReaders became fashionable. Between 2005 and 2012 the number of bookshops halved according to The Telegraph (Bookshop Numbers Halve In Just Seven Years). Digital books,  cheaper and easier to buy than their hard-backed cousins, and online shopping killed the footfall in physical shops. Today this is changing. In recent years bookshop numbers have started to increase again, according to The Guardian (Independent Bookshops Grow For Second Year After 20 Year Decline). So which bookshops are left? What are they like? Which ones are the must-visit bookshops?

I am fortunate to have a month’s holiday. I have set myself a task of visiting 150 bookshops in 20 days to see which I would recommend to friends. I shall take photographs and hope to speak to staff. I shall report progress on this blog. This is my Bookshop Challenge and I’m very excited.

150 bookshops is quite a high target. Effectively I aim to view about 8-10 bookshops a day, and allow time for travelling. I shall focus on places with many bookshops in a small area. I will travel by public transport - at least I can read whilst on the train or bus. As I exhaust places with many bookshops I’ll be spending more travel time to see fewer and fewer bookshops. I don’t know if I will succeed.

The Challenge starts on September 23rd 2019