Most beautiful bookshop you’ve ever been in?

[Moksha]

What is the most beautiful bookshop you’ve ever visited? On Saturday, I went to Heffers in Cambridge, which is just heaven. I love bookshops. I sometimes think I’d like my ashes scattered in one

[biscuits]

^ Did you pop into the Waterstones? I love the Waterstones in Cambridge. It is HUGE and has so many floors. The children's book section is lovely too. I like to go to the cafes in there. All the students are beavering away on their laptops and it's so quiet.

I wouldn't buy a book from there though.

Charity book shops are my favourite. I can spend a long time in them looking though the books and DVDs. There are so many random ancient books in them that are fun to look at.

I don't have time or the attention span to buy a book to read to be honest though!

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by biscuits

^ Did you pop into the Waterstones? I love the Waterstones in Cambridge. It is HUGE and has so many floors. The children's book section is lovely too. I like to go to the cafes in there. All the students are beavering away on their laptops and it's so quiet!

Oh yeah...it’s gorgeous. Walking into that big entrance on a bright, cold, sunny morning, when they have flowers in vases and the light is streaming through the glass doors and shining on the rows of new books...ahhh, heaven.

I love Cambridge. It’s the nicest town in the U.K., along with York, Bath, Oxford, Norwich and Edinburgh.

[Jam do Bronx]

Isle 7, Asda.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Jam.

Isle 7, Asda.

Barbarian.

[Sunrise]

I like ones that are like a real life version of Black Books. Old fashioned places with random books piled up everywhere, musty smells, creaking floorboards, a curmudgeonly yet obviously well-read owner sitting behind an old desk in the corner immersed in a dog-eared copy of Crime and Punishment, and not a cappuccino in sight. That's what book shops should be like.

[Dougella]

I buy my books from charity shops or borrow them from the library.

[anxiouslondoner]

I don't know about beautiful but there's a 'book barn' near my parents town that has quite a warren of higgledy-piggledy rooms and corridors inside. It's a bit like a hobbit house full of books.
Apparently there is a bookshop on a canal boat near Kings Cross but I've never seen it.

[anxiouslondoner]

There used to be a Waterstones in a very ornate building in Birmingham with a huge open space, probably an old bank, but it's an Apple store now

[Tembo]

There’s a place called Baggins Book Bazaar in Rochester that claims to be the largest secondhand book shop in England. It’s in an old rickety building meaning it’s like a maze with stairs up to different levels. It was amazing. The person working there is just how I imagined him to be, and I mean that in a good way.

[AuroraSky]

As a member of Generation X I have many fond memories of Borders Books in Glasgow. Even if I went on my own and didn't talk to anyone there was a feeling of being part of a community of people. I know it meant a lot in the lives of people who felt outsiders through being a bit nerdy especially those who didn't drink alcohol, at the time there was very little else for them to do in Glasgow.

https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/h...books-16501942


I haven't been abroad since 2003 so don't want to pretend to be Mr Sophisticated World Traveller, I'm quite the opposite, but I was lucky to visit Buenos Aires in 2003 and by far the most beautiful bookshop I ever saw was converted from a theatre, it's featured in this article :-

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ga...world-pictures

Daunt Books in London is also super cute, specialising in travel books, which happens to be a genre I like.


If you have more money than sense you might enjoy this beautiful coffee table book, maybe it wasn't worth the money but it was lovely "armchair travel" for me to read it (for my sins I bought it from Amazon).

https://uk.gestalten.com/products/do-you-read-me


If I won the lottery this would be the bookstore I would go to even if the only things I could understand would be photo books/ coffee table books plus occasional overpriced English language ones.

https://monocle.com/film/culture/novel-ideas-tsutaya/


Glad someone suggested this topic it's one I am very passionate about! It's a shame I don't travel at all any more I wish when I had the chance I went more often to the Edinburgh Book Festival. I only went once but enjoyed the two book readings I saw very much. Larger bookshops are often good for this too as well as being lovely looking buildings.

[βetty]

I love Heffers, it has an amazing Board game section too. There's a lovely independent bookshop in Ely called Toppings. If you're lucky they offer you tea in a teapot (I've never been offered any of course )

[twosocks]

Labyrinth books- glastonbury.

The art of tea- didsbury

Baggins in rochester looks really cool

[Orwell20]

Interesting thread. I'm not a fan of the creaky little secondhand shops, with the low ceilings and mouldy books. I prefer big, bright, independent places. The most beautiful bookshop I've ever been in was either in Exeter or Bristol. This was 20 years ago, and I was a sulky teen on holiday with ma and pa, so my memories are hazy. But it was in a beautiful building that resembled a cathedral or Italian chapel - black and white marble floors, whitewashed walls, giant windows that filled the place with light. It was also full of flowers, which someone had placed in vases throughout the store. They had a coffee shop in there as well. I remember it was a hot summer, and the shop felt lovely and cool - that cool marble feel you get in churches in Italy or Spain. As you walked in, the smell of coffee and flowers hit you. Also, the staff were so lovely. They were probably postgrad students, and you could tell they loved books. It was like a little oasis of civilization.

[Moksha]

I generally prefer independent bookshops, but there is a gorgeous Waterstones just off Piccadilly Circus in London. There are six floors, and at the top is a juice bar, where they spend all day cutting up fresh fruit. So you have this wonderful smell drifting through the building. They’ve also got a lovely marble staircase that’s like something out of a 19th century gentleman’s club.

[humphrey]

Barter Books at Alnwick. Biggest 2nd hand bookshop in the world. Amazing what you can find in their, I still have some credit to buy more books after I put some in a few years ago.

It is a tourist attraction up here in Northumberland.

https://www.barterbooks.co.uk/html/A...20Bookshop.php

[anxiouslondoner]

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...2!4d-0.1234795

[Mr. Spaceman]

The Waterstones on Piccadilly was I believe Simpson's department store from the 1930s to late 1990s. It is a beautiful building, and supposedly the biggest bookshop in Europe, so you can while away hours in there unnoticed.

[limey123]

Originally Posted by Moksha

What is the most beautiful bookshop you’ve ever visited? On Saturday, I went to Heffers in Cambridge, which is just heaven. I love bookshops. I sometimes think I’d like my ashes scattered in one

Don't know about "beautiful" but I LOOOOOOVED Heffers!

Foyles in London is superb, especially the foreign languages section.

The Waterstones in Bloomsbury brings back fond memories as I went so many times when studying at UCL in London about 25 years ago now.

The big bookshops in the major US cities were always very good, not beautiful, but a good experience.

I've been in so many antiquarian bookshops in several countries that I've lost count. I probably have 1500 or so books.

[Counterpoint]

Lovely idea for a thread!

I rather like this cosy barge bookshop usually moored in the canal near the back of King's Cross.

[Orwell20]

Originally Posted by limey123

Don't know about "beautiful" but I LOOOOOOVED Heffers!

Foyles in London is superb, especially the foreign languages section.

Ah, yes, I’ve heard about Heffers. But I get it muddled up with Hatchards. Isn’t there a famous Hatchards somewhere in London that opened in the 1700s?

I once knew an Australian who had a list of all the pubs in central London and was determined to have a beer in each one while he was living here. It would be interesting to get a list of all the most beautiful bookshops in London and do the same. Well, not have a beer in each bookshop but...we’ll, you get the point!

[Azalea]

Waterstones in Bradford is my favourite, it's in the old wool exchange which is beautiful inside.