Penny Blood's Black Book - My Independent Guide to London » Bookshops

Book Mongers

Penny Blood — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:32:27 +0000

I found Book Mongers totally by accident when I was looking for Brixton Village. Brixton has many great places, give it time and no doubt it will be what Shoreditch has become, although I think it has a few years in it yet. Book Mongers is the sort of place that anyone who has a passion for books will instantly love. It has a good selection of new and old books all arranged into categories, film, sci-fi, poets, literature, travel, male American writers, female American writers, they are very specific! The shelves are piled high and tight and stacked up on the floor, there just isn’t enough space for all their stock. It’s just a book geeks dream with a little sofa at the back to browse before you buy with every conceivable space covered in pictures or stuffed with books on every subject.

Book Mongers, 439 Coldharbour Lane, London, SW9 8LN
0207 738 4225
Monday – Saturday 10.30am – 6.30pm

Daunt Books

Penny Blood — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:34:33 +0000

The Daunt Books flagship store is one of the most glorious bookshops you will ever see. It mimics a beautiful old library from one of England’s palaces and reminds me of Lord Groan’s personal library in Gormenghast. Here they don’t arrange books by alphabetical order but by country as it’s primarily a travel bookshop, so you will find Japanese authors alongside guide books on Japan. This is good when I’m going through a phase like the time I was into everything Mexican. As great as Amazon is, it’s only good if you know what you want or which topic. The best thing about book shops is that you can browse through the covers and see something that you would never have thought of buying and it feels so good to pick up a book too. Charity shops are also a great source for good books but it’s totally random although you will usually find most of Bill Bryson’s books and I’ve already read all of them. Daunt books is just a pleasure to visit, like my all time favourite Shakespeare and Co. in Paris it’s just a nice place to kill time.

http://www.dauntbooks.co.uk/

Daunt Books, 83 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4QW
020 7224 2295
Monday – Saturday 9.00 – 7.30 Sunday 11.00 – 6.00

Jambala Bookshop

Penny Blood — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:27:47 +0000

Jambala is a most welcoming little shop, chockablock full of books with shelves crammed to bursting and piles stacked up in every spare corner I can never walk by without sticking my head in and having a look around, no doubt finding a well loved JD Salinger or such like. It’s run by the London Buddhist Centre but I’m assured within minutes that they aren’t about to start preaching to me, they would just like it if I came in and had a look around. Jambala is part of a little community of shops in the area that work together to support each other, including the Gallery Café and a great little second hand shop, Ayoka both on neighboring Old Ford Road. Browsing second hand bookshops is one of my favourite pastimes, I have found some of my favourite books this way, usually great novels that have been long forgotten. As the only way to find anything in the usual chaos of second hand shops is to methodically go through every title, I have discovered many great authors this way, such as my all time favourite Tom Wolfe, there is just no way you can pick up a book titled “The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby” and put it back down now is there?

www.jambala-bookshop.blogspot.com/

Jambala, 247 Globe Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 0JD
020 8709 9976
Monday – Saturday 9am-6pm

John Sandoe

Penny Blood — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 08:21:38 +0000

I hate to admit it but I don’t buy books from bookshops anymore. Why bother when you can get them online for half the price. I know, I’m a contributor to the reason shops like John Sandoe go out of business. That all being said I do believe it’s better to recycle products and that includes books. There’s no need to re-print books, we should just all share, a giant library in cyberspace. Nonetheless I still love book shops and John Sandoe is one of my favourites. It’s crammed to the rafters and the uneven floor boards and a rickety old staircase are a small nod to Shakespeare and Co. in Paris. It’s been around since 1957, has lots of character and it is nice sometimes to browse though books looking at the covers and seeing what jumps out at you rather than all your recommendations being chosen by algorithms. John Sandoe is one of the few places of its kind left and I hope it survives because it would be tragic if it was turned into a Le Pain Quotidien.

http://www.johnsandoe.com/

John Sandoe, 10 Blacklands Terrace, London, SW3 2SR
020 7589 9473
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 9.30am – 5.30pm
Sunday 12.00pm – 6.00pm

Daunt Books

Koenig Books

Penny Blood — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:46:36 +0000

Koenig books hosts a collection of joyfully pretentious art books with beautiful covers and artistically out of focus photographs. It does have a huge selection though so if you do have £50 to burn on a book you will look through once then leave around to use as a coaster you will no doubt find something here. The basement houses all their less glamorous art books (the ones not published by Phaidon or Taschen), collections of titles on each main stream artist and artistic movement which art students buy to plagiarize in their 3rd year thesis. Main reason I go is that the owner has a pet pug which is sooo cute.

Koenig Books, 80 Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square, London WC2H 0BF
020 7240 8190

Magma

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:50:58 +0000

Magma is one of those lovely bookshops which sells all those fatuous yet inspiring graphics books and expensive documentary dvd’s about fashion designers, plus every arty magazine in circulation, literally floor to ceiling, with guys who dress like members of Blur standing around with an open book looking into space, mouth slightly open as they’ve just found some inspiration from the latest publication of LOWDOWN for their first year project, as everyone knows all art students have absolutely no idea what they are doing. However student loans are the reason shops like this exist.

http://www.magmabooks.com/

Magma, 8 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9RY
020 7240 8498
Monday – Saturday 10am-7pm Sunday 12pm-6pm

Magma, 117-119 Clerkenwell Rd, London, EC1R 5BY
020 7242 9503
Monday – Saturday 10am-7pm Sunday 12pm-6pm

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Claire Rouen Books

Penny Blood — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:49:36 +0000

Tucked away up a narrow flight of stairs above the Soho bookshop on Charing Cross road is a little designer bookshop specialising in fashion and art books, many of which are hard to find. It’s also home to a vast collection of glossy magazines that, let’s be honest no one ever really reads but our world would be poorer without them. For such a tiny space I have never seen such a vast collection, none of which have unsightly 20% off stickers on them, they are all full price and therefore displayed adoringly yey! The owner’s camp little pug is a fixture not to be missed either.

http://www.clairederouenbooks.com/claire_de_rouen_books.html

Claire Rouen Books, 1st level, 121-125 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EW
Monday-Friday 10am-6.30pm Saturday 10am-6pm Closed on Sundays and Bank Holidays 020 7287 1813

Artworlds Bookshop

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:34:58 +0000

Art books, graphic design books and magazines which are hard to find is what you get here. It’s a tiny shop packed floor to ceiling with “flick-through-once-and-leave-around-to-look-cool books” with the same being said for magazines which are 75% adverts, 15% artistic photoshoots and 5% boring articles on people who don’t matter. I am by the way one of these people who buys these kinds of books and magazines – usually because I find one image that I want, so you will often find me killing time before I get my fringe trimmed as they are quite happy to have people linger, flick through everything on display, get them to climb up and pass down magazines out of reach, ask them for the one book or magazine they don’t have and leave without buying anything.

http://www.artwords.co.uk/aboutus/

Artworlds Bookshop, 65a Rivington Street, London EC2A 3QQ
020 7729 2000
Monday-Sunday 10.30am – 7pm Closed bank holidays

Notting Hill Book Exchange

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:34:24 +0000

All the people who work here are idiots*. I don’t think they mean to be but they have the mindset that people who work in second had book/record stores have – ie. that they are superior and know far more on the subject than you ever will. They always have industrial jazz or worse, Bob Dylan or the Velvet Underground (totally safe music that no one would ever admit to not liking) playing too loud in the background and over which they make loud in-jokes about comics or whatever that you are meant to be impressed by as I catch them giving me a stealthy side glance. The NHBE is I think the best secondhand bookshop particularly if you are looking for anything on or related to music, film, art, and photography. My favourite section is the part titled ‘Cult books’, I always make a few good finds in there. It’s cramped as the comics take up too much space but I never leave without a few good finds or spending more than a tenner.

*I used to work in a similar shop selling vintage magazines and I used to be an an idiot too. So were all my friends who worked there. Moronic customers just bring that out of you. Just for the record.

http://www.mveshops.co.uk/

Notting Hill Book Exchange, 14 Pembridge Road, London, W11
020 7229 8420
Monday-Sunday 10am-8pm

Foyle’s (Ray’s Jazz Café) / Hatchards

Penny Blood — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:19:20 +0000

I use Foyle’s as my own personal lending library, buy and take back later and it has a great cafe too. Far and away the best bookshop in London, it’s an independent version of what Borders used to be. I think it’s accurate to say that Ray’s cafe is the central meeting point for anyone coming to Soho. Situated in Foyle’s bookshop it serves all kinds of healthy food and cakes, coffee, tea and other drinks. Its pouring with rain outside and it’s a handy place to find myself as I have the whole book shop attached to browse through. Although Ray’s is a favourite, I generally avoid it as I went to college at Central Saint Martins next door and it was our unofficial canteen, too many college people still linger here and I believe you will find ‘small talk’ under my list of ‘pet peeves’. Although it’s a bit of a melting pot being in the centre of town, it’s spacious with big wooden tables and window seats and it’s a great place to come if you don’t want to leave in a hurry, great to meet people or hang out all day with your laptop.

http://www.foyles.co.uk

Foyle’s (Ray’s Jazz Café), 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB
020 7437 5660
Monday – Saturday 9.30am-9.00pm Sundays 11.30am-6.00pm (Public holidays 11am-8pm)

For what it’s worth I thought I’d mention Hatchard’s on Piccadilly, it’s a large scale bookshop but has been around since 1797 which by the way is a very long time. It has lovely sweeping staircases and portraits on the walls and a huge selection books.

http://www.hatchards.co.uk/

Hatchards, 187 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LE
020 7439 9921
Monday – Saturday 9.30am – 7.00 pm Sunday 12.00 – 6.00 pm

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