Bookshops of London

‘YOU CAN’T GET A CUP OF TEA BIG ENOUGH OR A BOOK LONG ENOUGH TO SUIT ME’—C.S. Lewis

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Yes, that’s Jay Leno, pursuing one of his favorite hobbies at Motor Books. Tucked between Charing Cross Road and St. Martin’s Lane, Cecil Court has been a book lover’s paradise for nearly a century. First editions, anyone?[/caption]

Shopping in general is not my cuppa tea, but lead me to a bookshop and I am in seventh heaven. I dote on bookshops and never leave one without a book or two in hand. Alas, it is getting ever more difficult these days for independent bookshops especially to compete with online chains and new alternatives to hard copy books. But it is very satisfying that many of my favorite London bookshops, some of which are also publishers, are still in business and continue to do a terrific job of serving their in-store and online customers.

Books for Cooks

With its cheerful red façade, welcoming front door sign of a chef holding a covered dish and the delicious aromas that greet anyone entering its premises, this unique shop is very much a part of London’s Notting Hill neighborhood. Floor to ceiling shelves and table displays overflow with books devoted to food and cooking. At the back of the shop, an intimate test kitchen turns out three-course lunches that are served, first-come, first-served, at 12 noon each day for a modest price. On the first floor, Books for Cooks offers cooking classes and demonstrations throughout the year, and waiting lists quickly form for many of these events. In addition, every 18 months or so, the shop publishes its own cookbook with recipes for many of the dishes tested in its kitchen. Its new book, Volume 9, will be in print this spring. This delightful shop was founded in 1983 at a time when the world still made fun of British cooking. With celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey, and Michelin-star restaurants, though, food is no longer a joke in this country (though old reputations are hard to rebuild). Books for Cooks is a special shop with a very helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Foyles

Charing Cross used to be the location of one bookstore after another. While some such shops still remain, the street is not the mecca for book lovers that it once was. However, Foyles continues on, thanks in part to the fact that it owns the freehold for its location, and that its owners finally brought the store into the 21st century. A few years ago, Foyles renovated its five floors and reorganized its confusing system for displaying books. A favorite with so many people for decades, today the store is brighter and more inviting than ever, and the books are easy to find. Its face lift has become a beacon for book lovers seeking a particular title and for those curious pedestrians passing-by who frequently discover the joy of the written word at one of the best stocked bookshops in London. Ray’s Jazz Shop, which used to be on nearby Shaftesbury Avenue, is now ensconced on Foyles’ fifth floor. Foyles is an empire in itself, with several branches in central London including one of its newest at the recently redesigned and renovated St. Pancras International train station.

French’s Theatre Bookshop

Originally founded in 1830 as a theater publisher, French’s Theatre Bookshop followed in 1840. While it has had a number of London locations, French’s is now situated on a pretty corner just north of lovely Fitzroy Square in London’s Fitzrovia neighborhood. The shop windows are beautifully adorned with theater programs and play texts, and there is an excitement entering the shop equivalent to showing up for an opening night. Samuel French, with additional offices in Hollywood, New York and Toronto, still publishes materials on theater, books theater reservations and continues to be a major source for books on the subject. The shop gets a great number of requests and the more obscure ones are usually directed to Martin Phillips, the in-house expert and theater sleuth. Recently, the grandchildren of a couple about to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary approached French’s Theatre Bookshop in search of the music from the first play, a forgotten production, that their grandparents had attended together more than 50 years ago. I don’t know what the play was, but I am told that French’s was able to deliver the goods.

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The oldest bookshop in London, Hatchards has been a fixture on Piccadilly since 1801. Flanking its name over the doorway are the Royal Warrants.[/caption]

Hatchards
Founded in 1797 by John Hatchard, Hatchards is London’s oldest bookstore. Hatchards has been at its present location on Piccadilly since 1801, with Fortnum and Mason, the oldest London department store, dating from 1707, as its neighbor. While Hatchards is now owned by Waterstone’s, it retains its unique atmosphere and aura, with a collection of Royal Warrants displayed over the front door. Through the centuries, writers have flocked to Hatchards, and the shop rightly boasts that Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde were good customers in their times. Authors still come to Hatchards today to sign their books; in any given week, the shop windows advertise upcoming appearances by well-known names.

High Stakes

The green color of this shop’s façade reminds me of the color of U.S. dollars, and rightly so, as this is London’s only bookstore devoted to gambling. High Stakes is part of Oldcastle Books Ltd., a company that has published gambling-related books since the late 1980s. John Newton, the manager, told me that the company was often asked to obtain other gambling books for customers. When the loft at the original offices of Oldcastle Books began to creak with the weight of the volumes stored there, in 1998 the retail outlet was opened on Great Ormond Street. The fact that this street, also home to Great Ormond Street Hospital, is somewhat off the beaten path of tourist London adds to the shop’s charm. Ion Mills, the owner and publisher of Oldcastle Books and High Stakes Publishing, says that books on horse racing used to be the most popular items, but since poker has gained a television audience, these days books and materials pertaining to poker have become the best selling items. The most important thing about High Stakes, according to its manager, is that readers know that it is “Europe’s leading online and retail gambling bookshop and we can get any UK gambling book in print and help find copies of those that are now unavailable.” When you’re finished shopping at High Stakes, do stop into The Espresso Room just a few doors down. This shoe-box size café offers delicious coffee.

John Sandoe Books

With its classic black-and-white design on its paper bags and bookmarks, this shop occupies premises on a quiet street just off Chelsea’s King’s Road, close to Sloane Square. Without doubt this is my husband Richard’s favorite London bookshop; he never ceases to be impressed with its staff. They seem to know every book ever published and what to recommend when they are approached for a book on any subject. Opened in 1957 by John Sandoe, the shop was taken over by two employees and a customer when Sandoe retired in 1989. According to Johnny de Falbe, one of the owners, the shop “aims to be a stable source from which book lovers around the world can depend on getting the books and advice they need over a period of years, and we focus on the books, not marketing, fancy business strategies, price or profile.” The shop’s customers feel they have some connection with John Sandoe Books, and the people who work there feel they have the same with their customers. Its three floors are crowded from floor to ceiling with books, but Johnny de Falbe or one of the other staff members will always know exactly where to find the book you want.

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As in French’s Theatre Bookshop, most of London’s specialty bookstores provide comfortable areas where customers can, of all things, read.[/caption]

London Review Bookshop

This shop already had a long list of subscribers to the fortnightly London Review of Books when Alan Bennett, Britain’s treasured playwright, cut the ribbon to open the store just up the road from the British Museum in May 2003. Partly owned by the respected literary-political journal, the shop is beautifully done in polished wood with comfortable sofas and chairs set out to invite customers to linger and enjoy the books. Drawing from the devoted readers of the journal, the shop hosts regular events, including author discussions, to attract both new and old customers to its doors. The shop stocks the type of books that are reviewed in the newsletter, including volumes on politics, biographies, philosophy, poetry and literary novels. This bookshop has the feel of a private library, and customers are encouraged to sit and read. A year or two ago, the Cake Shop Café was added; it has become a favorite haunt of writers, publishers and customers. Few seem able to resist its wide selection of teas and coffees as well as its fig tart or popular blueberry tea cake. It is one of London’s newer bookshops and, in an era when independent book sellers are closing their doors, it is a very welcome addition for people who resist electronic reading material for the joy of feeling the hard copy in their hands. It is easy to spend hours and hours here.

Motor Books

“Anything that has a motor” is the way Tom Gethings describes his store’s catalogue and stock. This is the only bookshop in London selling only books on this subject. Motor Books may very well be the oldest motoring bookshop in the world, having been in business since the early 1950s. Many of its titles cannot be found anywhere else in the country. Though his hair is white, Gethings is boyish in appearance and absolutely passionate about Motor Books, which until several years ago was two separate shops, around the corner on St. Martin’s Lane. Escalating rents and a desire to combine the shops led to the present location on Cecil Court where it seems to have been forever. Cecil Court is a narrow pedestrian alley that runs east-west between St. Martin’s Lane and Charing Cross Road. The Cecil family, for which it is named, were the original owners of the street and remain the landlord today. The street has been a well-known mecca for rare, secondhand and specialized books since before World War I. Motor Books is one of more than 20 such bookshops on Cecil Court, including the Italian Bookshop (the only one of its kind in the United Kingdom); Marchpane, which focuses on first edition children’s books; and Watkins Books, which emphasizes books on the esoteric and the occult. The shop is in original, unrestored condition after all these years and packed full of books and DVDs to satisfy the most demanding enthusiast.

Persephone Books

This bookshop and publisher has the most attractive and affordable books in London. Each book is published with light gray covers and specially patterned inside jackets with matching bookmarks and sold at the same price of £10 no matter the size of the volume. Persephone reprints neglected books, mostly novels by women authors, with an emphasis on the early to mid-20th century. What an unexpected treat to find the novels of Dorothy Whipple, an author resurrected by Persephone, with its new publication of several novels and short stories she wrote in the 1930s and ’40s. Persephone recently added a second shop on winding Kensington Church Street in West London.

Primrose Hill Books

After a walk through beautiful Regent’s Park, which contains the famous London Zoo, cross the road and climb to the top of Primrose Hill for outstanding views of the city and beyond. Descend and stroll about Regent’s Park Road for a visit to this delightful bookstore which has been in business for more than 20 years. The trolleys outside its door containing dozens of second-hand books beckon you to stop. Within is a comfortable shop with an excellent selection of volumes and courteous, friendly, helpful service.

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On Long Acre, near Covent Garden, Stanfords may be the world’s most famous travel bookstore—the gold standard for travel books, maps and dreams.[/caption]

Stanfords

London has several good travel bookshops, but Stanfords has been synonymous with travel and maps ever since Edward Stanford, a cartographer and printer, started the business in 1852. The flagship store has been at its present Covent Garden location since 1901. While The Travel Bookshop, across from Books for Cooks in Notting Hill, and Daunt’s on Marylebone High Street can hold their own in travel books, it is Stanfords that sets the bar for any upcoming journeys. On my recent visit to the store, two ladies in the queue at the cash register confirmed what I was already thinking—that Stanfords is “by far the best travel bookshop in London and probably beyond.” It is an outstanding source of maps, and customers can often be seen peering over large maps spread across tabletops on the first floor. The basement floor is covered with a gigantic A- Z map to help customers find their way around the city. Stanfords is the main source for books on any destination, along with various useful travel items. I continue to pack a terrific travel alarm clock purchased at Stanfords some years ago. This is the store to go to when travel is on your agenda.

These favorite bookshops are just the tip of the iceberg, as many of London’s museums have great bookshops and the area around the British Museum has a number of secondhand and rare book stores. Also, the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank has a particularly good shop with a large theater collection on its ground floor. Outside the National Theatre, the outdoor bookstalls beneath the Waterloo Bridge are a nice place to browse those books you didn’t know you wanted and find one at a bargain price. These outdoor stalls, offering an eclectic mix of books, are open most afternoons but shut down as night falls.
The bookshops of London present an opportunity to walk streets and explore neighborhoods that you might otherwise miss. They offer peaceful places to browse, mingle with Londoners and to bring home a delicious book that will be a good read to accompany one’s afternoon tea.

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At Notting Hill’s Books for Cooks, culinary enthusiasts can not only travel the world of food, but also have lunch cooked in the shop’s demonstration kitchen.[/caption]

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Just Browsing

Books for Cooks
4 Blenheim Crescent
www.booksforcooks.com

Foyles
113-119 Charing Cross Road
www.foyles.co.uk

French’s Theatre Bookshop
52 Fitzroy Street
www.samuelfrenchlondon.co.uk.

Hatchards
187 Piccadilly
www.hatchards.co.uk

High Stakes
21 Great Ormond Street
www.highstakes.co.uk

John Sandoe Books
10 Blacklands Terrace
www.johnsandoe.com

London Review Bookshop
14 Bury Place
www.lrbshop.co.uk

Motor Books
13/15 Cecil Court
www.motorbooks.co.uk

Persephone Books
59 Lamb’s Conduit Street
www.persephonebooks.co.uk

Primrose Hill Books
134 Regents Park Road
www.primrosehillbooks.com

Stanfords
12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden
www.stanfords.co.uk

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Many shops feature book signings and opportunities to meet authors.[/caption]