Day 13 - East Sussex Coastline

Today I visited Hastings, St Leonards, and Eastbourne. These seaside towns are suffering the effects of austerity - cuts to public services and welfare benefits.  Some of the bookshops had closed down. Some will close soon as owners don't earn enough live on, and they will lose benefits under the  Universal Tax Credit rules.

Someone working in house conveyancing in Brighton also told me that house prices are starting to fall, "because of Brexit".

Hastings

80. Printed Matter Bookshop is at 185 Queens Road, five minutes walk from Hastings train station. Owner Lee has run it for two years since leaving a prison resettlement scheme in London where he worked with vulnerable adults. Changes to welfare benefits affected his scheme so Lee started the bookshop.

The shop is the size of a small office. It is caters for local people's interests. This part of East Sussex is a radical area so it has lots of left wing political books, some children's books and some fiction. Titles are very engaging but the range is limited. The books are new.

Books are not selling well in Hastings. Lee's lease is up for renewal next June. He may not renew, depending on trade.

81. Bookbuster is at 39 Queens Road. This sells secondhand and remaindered stock. It's about the size of a narrowboat. It has a good range including left wing politics and esoteric spiritual books, along with fiction and classics. The shop is carpeted and it is easy to browse. Tim, the owner, is friendly. He doesn't need much prompting to share his views about the failings of the political classes.

Tim has run the shop for six years. He has noticed a fall in sales since The Works opened opposite him, which also sells remainder books. Tim too may eventually have to close the shop as a consequence of benefit changes.

82. Albion Bookshop is at 34 George Street, five minutes walk from Queens Road. Many shops in George Street open at 11am. Albion Bookshop opens around 11:30 as the owner has to get the books out and he has a limp.

Usually I estimate a bookshop size by count paces across the floor. This shop didn't seem to have a floor.

It was less like a bookshop; more like a crime scene.

There were some islands of order within the scene. There were books on transport, esoteric religions, fiction , the Second World War and the Third Reich. I suspect the owner needs help from a curator.

83. The Hare and Hawthorn Bookshop is a 51, George Street. It also opens at 11am, or slightly after. This has been going for a year. It started as a bookbinders and bookshop, but dropped the bookbinding to give more space and time to the bookshop.

The bookshop is quite small and spacious. It's about the size of a narrowboat. At the back of the shop are cards, calligraphy pens, quill pens and gifts. The owner said this helps bring in customers.

The shop was a local bookshop and seemed quite popular with customers. I asked him why he'd called it "Hare and Hawthorn". He didn't know. He thought it sounded nice.

St Leonards On Sea

St Leonards is about ten minutes walk from Hastings, along the sea. It has a busy town centre. It is also suffering from financial problems. 

84. The Corner Bookshop is between White Rock and Schwerte Way. It is on the way from Hastings to St Leonards. It sells secondhand books.  Unfortunately Wednesday is the day it's closed and today is Wednesday.

85. The Book Jungle was at 24, North Street. Like The Corner Bookshop, it was also closed but for different reasons:

86. The Scarlet Pimpernel "They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere" (from Baroness Emmuska Orczy). The Scarlet Pimpernel is actually at 25 London Road in St Leonards. He's a disgruntled French guy who doesn't like internet sales. I asked what brought him to England twenty years ago to open a bookshop. He said it was a long story. Given that his short story about internet sales took an hour, I didn't want to pursue the long story.

Mr Pimpernel owns this antiquarian bookshop. He does a lot of trade on the internet. Books are well catalogued and stacked high on two floors, totalling about four narrowboats in size.

Books were priced on an antiquarian scale, so is expensive to those who treat books as reading things. 

Mr Pimpernel been collecting books for many years. He says you have to wait a long time for books to become more valuable. Although he was probably past retirement age he had no intention of retiring soon. When he wasn't disgrunting, he was quite entertaining.

Eastbourne

87. Camilla's Bookshop is at 57 Grove Road. When I entered this shop most of my childhood books flashed before my eyes. This is not because I had died. Most of my childhood books were on the shelves and flashing before my eyes. It is absolutely packed with books. I have not seen a greater collection of secondhand books.

Books are on three large floors, totalling around six narrowboats. There were another two floors that were not open to the public but were filled with books to be sold on the internet. The shop has been going since 1987. It is well curated and books are cheaper than they should be. There are over one million books in the shop I was told. The range of topics covered was vast. I saw maths, science and engineering books I thought I'd never see again.

Being so big I asked the shopkeeper if anyone had ever been locked in overnight by mistake. Yes, he said. It has sometimes happened and the police complain. Locked in a shop overnight with a million books to read, at least the customer would leave a little bit older and a little bit wiser.

88. The Cookshelf was at 2, North Street. It sold cookery books. It went out of business on 9th April 2019.

Brighton

I shall carry on with Brighton and Lewes tomorrow, but today I visited one bookshop in Brighton.

89. Magazine Brighton is at 22 Trafalgar Street. It was set up to sell magazines and to provide an outlet to students who want to sell magazines. It also seems to have some books.

It was the size of a small office. It is quite popular with students. It is an example of a shop being a useful community resource and succeeding because it's more than a shop. The items were very attractive and yes, I did end up buying a magazine about books. 

Day 12 - Travel to Brighton

Today I travelled to Brighton. For the next two days I shall visit bookshops in East Sussex.

I read today in the Cambs Times that Burrows Bookshop in Ely is due to close. I reported this on 23rd September, on Day 1 of my challenge.  This blog publishes pre-breaking news!

Day 11 - Closed on Mondays

Today I returned to London to visit bookshops in North and South London. I used the overground train between Highbury & Islington and New Cross. This took me through some poor neighbourhoods.

I am running out of shops to visit in London. I'd only planned six bookshops today. Three of them close on Mondays, which seems to be a London bookshop thing.

75. Holloway Road Stationers at 357 Holloway Road is five minutes walk from Holloway Road Tube Station. It has sold both stationery and books for forty years. In the past eight years it has given less shelf space to books because of falling demand. Profit margins are higher on stationery than books.

The shop is still the main local bookshop in the area. It has books on education, puzzles, fiction, literature, and a miscellaneous selection based on what customers have requested.

The shop was quite busy when I was there. He was friendly to customers who came in for various items and passed the time of day by discussing which bodily organ they'd recently had lopped off.

Kieren, the owner, has the bookshop lease for ten years but he is due to retire in five.


76. Ink@84 is at 84, Highbury Park and is ten minutes walk from Arsenal underground. It is a bookshop with a cafe. It has only been open for three and a half years and is the idea of author Betsy Tobin who manages it with Tessa Shaw. Betsy's books are available in the shop.

The bookshop is about two narrowboats in size and arranged into subject areas. It feels like a relaxing local bookshop inside. There's a good children's section. It also has a licence to kill, with a range of beers, wines and light refreshments when they put on events.

The shop had visitors drinking coffee and discussing books during my visit.


77. New Beacon Books is at 76 Stroud Green Road, close to Finsbury Park Tube Station. It sells books by Afro-Caribbean writers, only not on a Monday. I was surprised to see so many wigs for sale  in Finsbury Park.

78. Ripley and Lambert at 542 Kingsland, near Dalston Junction overground station. It sounds like a firm of solicitors, in which case it would be open on Mondays. But it isn't; it is a bookshop selling books about films and it is closed on Mondays.

79. The Word Bookshop at 374 New Cross Road is ten minutes from New Cross and New Cross Gate overland lines. It sounds like a Christian Bookshop. "We get calls from people who're annoyed because we're not a Christian Bookshop", admitted the owner of this left-wing, radical academic bookshop. He has wondered about changing the name.

The shop is in a Goldsmith's College building with a Goodyear Tyres sign hanging over it. It is very small yet it uses its space well. It provides course books to Goldsmith's students at the start of the academic year, and is also a local bookshop. It has a good range of children's books, graphic novels, and books by local authors. Their range of left-wing books is particularly attractive.

The shop has been open for three years. It runs a scheme where students can read and re-sell books they bought from the shop. This helps keep prices down for them.

The shop is a out of the way in South London. The unusual book selection make this shop worth a visit.

Day 10 - Lincoln

The most interesting booksellers I have met are in Lincoln. They are a talkative bunch. Many are elderly and their stories are more interesting than their books. Only outlines are given here for reasons of privacy.

If you arrive by train to Lincoln you need to take a slight turn to the left as you exit the station and walk up High Street. Most bookshops are off this street or the one it leads onto, called Steep Hill. The name is incorrect. It is a Very Steep Hill.

Central Market is a pedestrianised area to the right near the bottom of High Street. It has three bookstalls in it.

68. Unicorn Tree Books is at units 35-40 in Central Market. The owner used to work for SPCK books. She started Unicorn Tree thirteen years ago, originally selling fiction. Then the Christian bookshop in Lincoln closed. she now uses half of the space for Christian Lifestyle and prayer books, and bibles. Prices are good.

The bookshop is small but popular. The name is strange.


69. Full Circle Books is at the opposite end of the market to Unicorn Tree Books. It has a small selection of reasonably priced pulp fiction books.

It's been running for 33 years and is full-time. He also repairs watches and fits straps. Books are cheap. Worth a visit for escapist fiction.

70. Shane Chapman has a stall for Rare and 1st Edition books. He has about 800 books on display in a cube shape with magazines underneath.

Books are military, aviation or transport. The transport books are half price at the moment, and they seem good value.

Mr Chapman has been selling books for 21 years but feels the rare books market has declined a lot over the years. He now runs the shop out of personal reasons rather than to corner the Rare Books market. He is welcoming and very easy to talk to.

71. Westgate Antiques is at 24, Westgate. Steep Hill leads into Bailgate, off which is Westgate. It is twenty minutes walk from the train station due to the hill.

Westgate Antiques is run by Anne and her husband, who started it when he retired. It is a converted house which smelt damp due to lack of heating. Both are now in their eighties and it will stop trading when they get too old.

Westgate is open Fridays and Saturdays. The owners don't advertise it as they don't want too many customers.

One room is filled with books. The curation was Avant Garde. Books are stacked so high and close together that you can't see what they are. Even if you could, you could not get them out of the pile.

The books I sampled were more expensive than on the market.

72. LIndum Books is at 4 Bailgate. Its green front stands out. It looks like an archetypal bookshop.

The bookshop was too popular for its size. It couldn't hold more than two customers downstairs at a time, or three if unusually thin. The layout of the bookshop also created bottlenecks. There was a constant stream of people into the shop. The owner was very friendly and due to her popularity I was unable to speak to her.

Books were new and secondhand. Books were engaging and classified in traditional subjects with a "miscellaneous" section for oddments. There were dyslexic-friendly books in the children's section. The shop was small (a narrowboat sized) so it didn't have a great variety. Book prices seemed average.

73. Jews Court Bookshop is at 2-3 Steep Hill. It is well worth a visit if you're interested in things ancient or literary.

It is run by the Lincolnshire Society for Archeology and History, staffed by volunteers. Many books have been donated by the Society and reflect the members themselves, well-preserved, and idiosyncratic. The books are often surprisingly cheap. The range of books is of course limited to history and literature. There is an extensive collection of books stored away for events.

The Society also publishes books.

74. The Arboretum Bookshop is at 123 Monks Road, about 10 minutes walk to the east of the marketplace. The shop is a converted house. If it seems closed try pushing open the door. The owner hasn't replaced many of the broken fluorescent lights. She's waiting until they've all gone and will replace them together.

The owner has been collecting books from auctions since she was young. Eventually she had too many books for her house and so swapped it with the 123 Monks Road twenty-five years ago, which had just ceased trading as a freezer business. People also donate unwanted books.

Books are not curated so much as presented to the public as a piece of conceptual art. Some books face spine inwards so only page leaves can be seen. The owner says she knows where subjects are, but titles are not visible so this cannot be verified. The only certainty is that there are a lot of books in a space just bigger than a narrowboat. It it were a narrowboat, it would sink due to the weight of books. It also smells damp.

Book prices are standard for the area: about £2 for a paperback. The owner is elderly and I suspect she may retire before long.

Day 9 - Stamford

Today's visit was limited due to IT problems.

Stamford is a historic town with many beautiful timber-framed buildings. It is a designated conservation area. It has three independent bookshops.

65. Walkers Bookshop  serves as a local bookshop at 10, High Street. It opened in 1978 and has a sibling in Oakham.

Books are on the first floor up the creaky stairs of the timber-framed building. The first floor is long and thin with a red carpet to muffle the creaks. It is about 1.5 narrowboats in size. Due to its shape it was quiet in spite of being busy. It benefits from a high street location.

The shop has a small section for most subject areas and large sections for children and local history. It also has a rockable rocking horse and comfy chairs to read pre-publication books. Nice idea.

Books were laid out traditionally. Unusually, I wasn't inspired to buy any of the books. It might benefit from different curation.

66. St Paul's Street Bookshop is at 9, St Paul's Street, just after the High Street. It is an antiquarian bookshop in a small and beautiful building.

It was on two floors, no more than one narrowboat in size. The owner at the front desk was too busy and didn't want to  talk to customers. Fortunately, he didn't have any. Photographs of books or the building weren't allowed.

Books were all reasonably priced. The shop specialised in military, aviation, motor sport and topography.

67. Robert Humm & Co is a railway bookshop at 59, Scotgate.

Described as "Britain's largest railway bookshop" it is one of the few such bookshops remaining. Mr Humm the owner has run it for 25 years. He is now 74 years old and there is no-one interested in trains to take over, so the shop may terminate when he retires.

Most customers buy online so the shop was quiet. It is about 2.5 narrowboats in size and covers the train history, design and timetables comprehensively. Books are reasonably priced.

There are many bound copies of magazines. Mr Humm has many thousands of unbound magazines at home that are duplicates and nobody wants. They are destined for the recycle bin.

The shop has a few books on buses, lorries and boats. I couldn't find anything about narrowboats.

Day 8 - Norwich

The ancient city of Norwich is suffering a little from closed shops and financial woes, but it is still a welcoming, friendly city. The pace of life is gentle. It is too easy to call into cafes, and pubs and to lose an hour or two. This makes the job of a bookshop blogger very, very difficult. Fortunately the city centre is quite small and walkable. It has an active market 6 days a week.

Norwich is great for secondhand books and first-hand writers. It has a National Centre for Writing and was awarded Unesco City of Literature  in 2012.

57. JR and RK Ellis at 53 St Giles Street is a bookshop where you can buy secondhand books cheaper than anywhere else in Norwich. 30 years ago I could go in through the front door, and at the end on the right would be social science and philosophy. Today I can go in and the subjects are still in the same place, maybe even the same books are there too. They may be a pound more expensive though.

Ellis' has been running for over sixty years. The shop is in two separate sections, each a large room. Overall it's about the size of a narrowboat.

JR Ellis died about two years ago and his son has now taken over. He is a friendly, helpful and chatty man with a background in aeronautical engineering. His loyal fan-base give him books for free.

Mr Ellis used to have three market stalls and benefited from passing trade, but stalls were expensive. His shop is about five minutes away from the market so people need to make the effort to get to it. It is worth the effort.

58. City Bookshop on Davey Steps is very close to the market and was busy when I visited early in the morning. It opened in 2010 and is about 8 narrowboats in size. The owner has been in the book trade since the 1980. It has new, remaindered, secondhand and antiquarian books. They vary from £1 to a lot of money. Expensive ones are often advertised online. Staff are helpful.

It is easy to browse without being interrupted, and you may find a bargain. Unsold books sell for £1. I was tempted to buy an encyclopaedia for £1. There were a lot of books about trains that I expect will eventually be put into the bargain zone.

59. The Book Hive at 53 London Street has been oven for ten human years, which makes it new in Norwich years. The building is old, rickety, enjoyable, and bigger than it looks. It's about 1.5 narrowboats in size.

The Book Hive has "whimsical, alternative curation" meaning there is no subject curation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The books are engaging and randomness is stimulating. For browsing it is fun. For attention deficit disorder it isn't. If you need a specific book it is annoying.

There is a large section upstairs for children's books.

The owner of Book Hive is a trained actor/writer from the National Theatre. The bookshop also has a publishing company, Propolis.

60. Jarrolds Bookshop at 1-11 London Street is within the Jarrolds department store. Jarrolds opened in Norwich in 1823, which in Norwich terms makes it quite settled. It used to be on the ground floor but was renovated  in 2013 and dropped to the lower ground floor. It occupies about 10 narrowboats of space. It is "intentionally old fashioned". To me it is a small clone of Waterstones Bookshop, so there was little point in taking photographs. There were a few older people either looking through the books or unable to find the exit.

61. Dormouse Bookshop is at 29 Elm Hill , a pleasant little crypt of a shop on a cobbled street. It has been in existence for 26 years but only at its current location for four years. The name was a random piece of inspiration by Mrs Dormouse.

The bookshop is small, less than a narrowboat in size. It has a nice feel to it.

The range of books focuses on fiction and the humanities. There was a nice collection of old children's annuals but no science books were visible.

62. Undercover Books is in the Flea Market at 23/25 Magdalen Street. Here is a typical flea:

Undercover books has been running for nine human years, so it is new for Norwich. It started specialising in crime novels and collectibles, but now has a few books on most topics. It makes more money at outside events than amongst other fleas in the market. The market is slightly away from the centre so there is little passing trade.

The floor coverage is quite big at 3.5 narrowboats. The book layout is pleasantly chaotic. Items are in subject order. Nigel the owner is very helpful and chatty.

62. Tombland Bookshop is at 8 Tombland has the largest collection of antiquarian and secondhand books in Norwich. It has been around for thirty human years, so in Norwich terms it is starting to settle in. There are apparently five thousand books available online. Mrs Tombland was very engaging and helpful.

The shop is about three narrowboats in size, which isn't huge. It has a comprehensive selection.

It is easy to spend a long time in this shop. Books are reasonably priced but not as cheap as in Ellis' shop. You could find a gem of a book in here. It is a listed timber-framed building owned by Tombland Bookshop. Upstairs is lovely.

Tombland Bookshop is about ten minutes walk from the market. It is worth ten minutes walk.

63. Stall 18 on the market may be a bookshop, or it may be a leather shop. It opens around 12pm, maybe later or not at all, depending on the weather.

The owner may have been running the shop for about twelve years. Books filled about three bookcases when I visited. The owner didn't know how many books he had in stock, or where they came from. Or where they went, or what categories he had. Life's a mystery.

Books were arranged whimsically. They seemed slightly expensive.

64. The Movie Shop is at 11 St Gregorys Alley a few minutes walk from the Market. It has lots of movie paraphernalia, with a lot of books upstairs. The range is good for anything film-related. It also has literature classics.

The building is old and creaky. It had a slight musty smell upstairs, like damp rented student accommodation, office-sized.

Prices varied from very cheap to what seemed expensive. Soft-backed were £4, hard-backed about £10. I would have talked to the owner but he sounded too fierce.