I was recently in London for a 10-day trip and visited some lovely new-to-me bookshops (and a few well-known-to-me) in search of some specific books.
There’s something about the bookstores in London…upon entering one, I find myself wanting to pick up and touch all the books. From the shop layouts, to the display arrangements, to the beautifully designed and oft-matching book covers, books just look and feel more attractive there. Perhaps what creates this emotional impact is substantially due to the history, architectural charm, and “smell” of the city itself—what else could it be?
During the first few days of the trip I visited the Marylebone location of Daunt Books, but didn’t have much chance to explore the whole store. I also stopped by the specialty/antique bookshops Any Amount of Books and Henry Pordes Books in Covent Garden, as well as a handful of Oxfam bookshops while my mother and I were walking around the city. All lovely to browse through without any purchases being made. But towards the end of the trip, I had a weekend mostly to myself in which I could take my time with the book browsing and shopping, and these were the shops I visited:
Bookmarks: The Socialist Bookshop
I didn’t know about Bookmarks and it wasn’t on my list of shops to visit, but I saw it as I exited the Oxfam bookshop across the street from it (where I didn’t find anything I was looking for) and went in to take a look. I had had two of Ursula Le Guin’s books in my local bookstore’s website shopping cart for several months, waiting for the right time to order them…but I purchased them here because they had matching and more attractive covers than those available in Canada. I’m a sucker for pretty book covers—I’m convinced that I’ll love a book that much more if it has an attractive (to me) cover—so I didn’t hesitate, even though they weren’t books I was actively looking for in London.
Forbidden Planet
I wasn’t initially planning on visiting Forbidden Planet, but I walked out of Bookmarks and was making my way down to Waterstones and Hatchards on Piccadilly, via Shaftesbury Avenue, so thought I might as well check it out as I would be passing right by it.
Stores such as this are a source of sensory overwhelm, especially as it was also on a Saturday that I went in…but I still ended up spending quite a bit of time here. I’d never been in there before, as manga and anime are of no interest to me, but the extensive collection of sci-fi and fantasy books found on the lower floor made it very much worth the visit.
To gift to a friend, I bought a copy of This Is How You Lose the Time War, signed by one of the authors, Amal El-Mohtar, which was a nice bonus.
Foyles and Hatchards
I was then meant to head to Hatchards, but realized that Foyles’ flagship store was nearby and thought why not stop by, and so I did. I was a little disappointed to not find anything on my to-buy list here, but not much surprised, because I was looking for ‘older’ books, and very specific editions of them at that. Still, it was a very modern, open, and welcoming store and worth the visit. It had been decades perhaps since I was last there, so it felt like new to my eyes. (Note: I looked into it, and it is in fact a new store, they moved into the current building in 2014, only a few steps down the street from their previous location.)
So then I made my way down to Hatchards…mainly because in all the times I’d been to London over the years, I thought that I hadn’t visited this particular landmark before. But upon entering the shop and seeing the carpeted staircase, it did stir a faint memory of my having been there before (and having thought at the time the carpet too thick and deep for comfort, making for wobbly steps and all that, and oh, how troublesome it must be to clean it for it attracted too much dirt to befit such a heavily-trafficked establishment), but it must have been too long ago, I being too young perhaps, for it to have left a lasting imprint of its charm.
This time around, I made sure to soak it all in, as much as I could at least, because I had already been to four other bookshops that day and was sufficiently sensorily saturated and nearing my limits of physical exhaustion for the day.
From here, I purchased Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite, even though I was determined not to purchase anything from a Waterstones-owned establishment (for boycotting purposes), but I was having a hard time finding the book anywhere else, in good condition, even in Canada.
I did then walk into the nearby Waterstones too, again, just to browse and because I was there, but the previously-mentioned exhaustion forced me to keep the visit brief before heading home.
Camden Town Bookshop
The following day, a Sunday, knowing that it would be my last opportunity to go out before leaving London, and having had no plans for the afternoon, I took advantage of the few hours I had left of the day to go to another few bookshops in Camden, an area of town to which I had not previously been.
I noted that there was a little bookshop near where I got off the bus outside Camden Market, but decided to first go up the road to Walden Books, that sells second-hand books. I didn’t find anything for me there and walked back down to the Camden Town Bookshop (CTB) that I saw earlier. Though small in size, it had a surprisingly wide range of books, of which quite a few were of interest to me, but I hesitated to buy anything, as I still had another couple of bookshops to visit nearby that might end up having what I’m looking for. So, I decided to come back to CTB at the end of my outing since it was near the bus stop I needed to return home.
Owl Bookshop
So, out of CTB and up Kentish Town Road I walked, first to yet another Oxfam, where I once again had no luck, and then to Owl Bookshop across the street.
Oh, what fortunes awaited me here, about which the pleasure of finding I cannot sufficiently—though I hope to try—express!
You see, I have yet to explain what items I was seeking during my trip, the particular books that my hopes of finding and securing, and to which all my bookshop visits were in service…
Twenty years ago, I had purchased Sarah Waters’ first three books on a summer visit to London not dissimilar to the one I was on now. I read them and loved them, and when her fourth book came out in paperback, I purchased it as well.
Earlier this year, feeling nostalgic for re-reading her books, I realized that Tipping the Velvet, her first published book, and the first I read of her works, was missing from my bookshelf. I found this puzzling as I knew I loved the book too much to give away or misplace without notice. Perhaps I’d lost it in a move or lent to a friend, but couldn’t think who. Either way, I needed to replace it. Trouble is, the books I purchased in the summer of 2003 all had matching covers, and having been republished several times over by now, the current versions of the books no longer match the ones I own. I wanted to replace my (now missing) book with one that looked exactly like it, not only so it would match the other two in that series, but also for the sentimental attachment I have to the memories of reading Tipping the Velvet with that particular cover.
So, I went to eBay, and found someone in the UK selling a brand new signed copy of the book. I don’t much care about signed books, and I would have happily ordered a previously-read copy, but there were only a handful of previously-owned listings available for the particular edition I wanted, and I didn’t see any that were in good enough condition among them, so I happily placed the order for the new copy. The book arrived a few weeks later.
Great! I now once again had Waters’ first three books in matching covers.
Wishing now to have all six of her works, I turned my attention to Waters’ next three books, which to my recollection, were also published with a similar look to each other at some point. Her first three books were set in the late 19th century, so they ‘belong together’ in that way. Her next three were set in the early–mid 20th century. So, to my mind, Waters’ books make up two sets of three, and it makes sense that each set would match in appearance.
I already owned her fourth book, The Night Watch, that I purchased and read soon after it came out in paperback…but I hadn’t put any effort into reading her next and last (for now) two books, because I was quite busy with school in those days and not doing much any reading for pleasure, and because they didn’t seem to be as ‘queer’ as her previous books…that is to say, there weren’t any lesbians in them.
Thinking back now, that was quite silly of me. I loved her first four books, and there’s no reason to think I wouldn’t enjoy her last two just as equally. But anyway, I found myself then in a similar situation as I was previously: hunting for the older versions of her fifth and sixth books that match the fourth one I have…and, of course, to actually read.
I did as I had before. I went to eBay and searched, and again, there weren’t many that were in good condition. But I eventually found a seller that had both books, so I figured I’d save on shipping and ordered them together. When they arrived, I opened the box and saw that they were huge! Okay, that’s an overstatement…but the dimensions were larger than a standard-sized book. Nothing about their non-standard size was mentioned in the listings. While the look of them is what I was after, they’re just too big and won’t fit on my bookshelf neatly next to the other Waters books. I felt dejected, and decided to put the matter away from my mind for the time being.
A month later, I had reason to be in London for a short visit, and I thought, hey, I might be able to find the books myself, either as old stock at a regular bookstore, or secondhand—and it became my primary mission to locate the two remaining books needed to complete my collection.
Okay, now that you’re caught up, let’s go back to where we were.
So here I was, entering the last bookshop, on the last day I had opportunity to spend on my search before leaving town, feeling disappointed and begrudgingly resigned to returning home empty-handed.
But still, I went straight to the fiction section, followed the alphabetical trail of author names to the W’s which were around a corner, scanned the rows of shelves from top to bottom to top again, and, aaaaaaaahhh!! There they were!
Oh, how I wish I’d taken a photo of the shelf upon which I saw the very two books, with the exact covers, in the exact editions I was after, before I rushed to reach for them!! You can perhaps imagine my emotional state in that moment, as utter disbelief and immense delight hit me in equal measure.
I found them! And not even secondhand! Brand new copies! My trip to London was, honestly, made. The Owl Bookshop will henceforth hold a treasured place in my heart.
I walked out of there with a smile on my face and a spring in my step as I made my way down the road back to Camden Town Bookshop.
US trade size received from eBay (6″x9″) vs. standard UK-B size (5″x7.75″).
Camden Town Bookshop (Part Two)
Here, I purchased Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I already owned a copy and had read it earlier in the year, but the British spellings of certain words were Americanized in the edition I had that was published in North America (e.g. favourite to favorite, colour to color).
Why? Why would they do that? The book is written by a British author and it immediately takes the reader—me—out of the story when publishers do this. It just doesn’t make any sense to make these changes. Very irksome.
The book was great, I absolutely loved it—and I debated whether to purchase another copy because I do get attached to the actual physical books I hold and read and annotate—but I couldn’t get over how bothersome I found the American spelling, so I decided to purchase the UK version. To be honest though, after returning home and comparing the two side-by-side, the North American version is more clearly typeset, with better paper quality, and is overall a more pleasant book to hold.
It was, as it turned out, an unnecessary purchase.
Side note: I am now a bit paranoid about the whole thing. If the author isn’t American, I’ll stand in a bookstore and flip through a book for as long as it takes to make sure the spelling is how it ought to be. Otherwise, in future, I’ll wait to purchase or order directly from the UK.
Anyway, since I was there, I went ahead and also bought Armfield’s more recent book, Private Rites, as it was already out in softcover (my preference) in the UK, but wouldn’t be out in softcover in Canada until December.
And that was it. I got on the bus back to our apartment with a backpack full of books and heart full of gladness.
Oh, and I also ordered a secondhand copy of The Slave and the Free by Suzy McKee Charnas that was delivered to me where I was staying in London. I’d like to read The Holdfast Chronicles series someday and was just missing that first volume, which combines the first two (of four) books in the series.
