Anonymous asked: I’m taking a gap year before I go up to Cambridge to study History and I am a big fan of your blog. I am in awe of your posts and your intellectual musings that really makes me wonder if I’m smart enough to succeed in Cambridge. I want to know what book shops did you spend time in when you were a student. Do you still find time to go to the English book shops in Paris now that you are busy in the real world of having a demanding career? Can you recommend some?
Congratulations on getting into Cambridge to read History. That’s an achievement in itself. I understand the History department has consistently rated as one of the best in the world in the global university rankings so it’s an achievement. Perhaps in time you can become the next Tom Holland or William Dalrymple?!
I spent many spare hours browsing through second hand book shops as a student (gosh! It feels like a life time ago now!). When I wasn’t drowning in books in my college library trying to stave off an essay crisis I was seeking sanctuary in mostly second hand book shops dotted around the city.
I obviously wouldn’t count the Cambridge University Press bookstore a second hand book store but I did go in often because it had frequent second hand book sales and it was always exciting what new specialist books were coming off the press written by our professors (buy their tomes for brownie points obviously and use it as a coffee coaster). It’s claimed that the CUP book shop is the oldest in Britain but I’m confused. I know Cambridge University Press is the oldest publishing house in the world but where the bookshop stands it used to be called Bowes & Bowes which claimed to be the oldest book shop since 1581. They got bought out at some stage and somehow CUP took over the shop. So make what you will of it.
Heffers - opposite Trinity College - was another book shop I would go to a lot. Again, not a second hand book shop but they carried the most wide ranging of books of all interests and served as an alternative to Waterstones, the big high street book store. I thought I was supporting a local book shop (however big it was in Cambridge) when I found out years later that it was actually owned by Blackwell’s (the same giant bookseller Blackwell’s in Oxford). Hmmm.
In my time, the Cambridge Market Place on certain days had second hand book stalls set up alongside all the colourful fruit and vegetable stalls. A browse through those stalls was never a wasted exercise. I even met one of my boyfriends whilst browsing there - we both fought over the same book we spied from afar (he put his fingers on it first but I was quicker to snatch it away before he put his palm down). I felt bad for him so I let him buy me tea at the Copper Kettle, opposite King’s College.
During my time in Cambridge I know some friends would go to the Sarah Keys the Haunted Bookshop in St. Edward’s Passage (so named because of the two ghosts which are rumoured to reside on its premises.) It was mostly filled with vintage children stories and had a tiny couple of tables for coffee. I found it claustrophobic and the coffee was ghastly. I avoided it because it really didn’t have any good books at all. Students went because it’s the closest it got them to some Brideshead Revisited fantasy of musty smelling books.
My most frequent haunt was actually also in St. Edward’s Passage was G. David. This independent bookshop sells antique, secondhand, remaindered books, maps and prints dating back to the late 1800s. For over three centuries the G. David bookshop has been run by the founder's family. I spent much of my student money in there. To this day whenever I go back to Cambridge to see friends (some are now teaching Dons in the university or work in the so-called high-tech ‘Silicon Fen’ community) I always make a point to go there for a quick browse. I always buy something there, usually a gift for someone but always some gem for my growing book collection. The shop is small but the service is intimate and homely. It’s a paradise for Shakespeare, Classics, and History lovers.
Later when I went over to study at Oxford, I would inevitably end up going into the legendary Blackwell’s on Broad Street. You needed to wear a comfy pair of sneakers if you ever venture into the Norris Room as it’s the largest single room selling books according to the world in the Guinness Book of Records. With about 10,000 square feet and three miles of shelving to browse through, don’t ever say they don’t have the book you’re looking for.
Another bookshop I would go to a lot was Last Bookshop which was tucked away in the Jericho area of Oxford. They always had these ‘two books for 5 pound’ deals which was great if your budget was tight (as it always is for impoverished students). The coffee area was cute and the coffee was bearable.
Then there was St. Philip’s Books on St. Aldates, opposite Christ Church Gardens. They specialised in rare and secondhand books in the the broad humanities from theology, history, literature, philosophy, art, classics and antiquarian books. If you were into C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein or any kind of Christian theology and patristics then this was the place to go to.
In London where I used to live I tried to be as local as possible given how big London is and also a preference for independent ones (be they second hand or antiquarian). There are a mecca of bookshops and second hand book stores scattered around London and so I’m always pleasantly thrilled when I stumble upon a new discovery by accident or word of mouth.
My absolute favourite that I used to frequent a lot - and I still do when I go back to London - is John Sandoe Books in Chelsea. It’s tucked away in a quiet side street around the corner of Sloane Square. Going inside feels like rummaging through some fusty old Professor’s home with low ceilings. It’s actually made of up three small 18th Century Regency houses somehow tacked on together so the creaky floor boards seem uneven as you wander around. Although it’s a general independent bookshop, the vast majority of its books range from history, classics, poetry, and biographies. It has an enviable Everyman collection to die for and you can also get lucky buying first editions. My grandfather used to know John Sandoe, who started the business 60 years ago after he left a career in the City to try his hand at bookselling much to the disapproval of his father. Sandoe sold the business to two ex-colleagues and a loyal customer in 1989 and he died in 2007 after enjoying a well earned retirement in Dorset apparently.
My grandfather was especially fearful of Sandoe’s colleague the formidable Felicité Gwynn who worked there for over 25 years (she died in 1984). Not only was she an expert on all things equestrian but she had a a passion for literature that would put an Oxford Don to shame. However she had little patience for tiresome customers and it was said she sometimes threw books at them. To me it’s the perfect afternoon escape especially on a rainy day. Hands down I think of it as the best bookshop in the world since I’ve known it from my earliest childhood. I cherish the memory of coming home to England for brief sojourns from living overseas and I was super excited to take a trip to Sandoe. Time there fed my love for reading and learning. If you ever go there you will find that the staff are friendly and knowledgable. They will never patronise the customer…or throw books at you.
Hurlingham Books, an independent bookshop on the Fulham High Street is another favourite of mine whenever I am seeing friends, cousins, or siblings. It’s a short walk on the Fulham road from Putney Bridge tube station. The shop is carpeted with books from the floor to the ceiling. It’s like a narrow maze of bookshelves everywhere. There is always something to buy there on any topic under the sun. It’s not the most beautiful bookshop aesthetically speaking but it’s an unpretentious pleasure to browse through its many wall to wall books.
In central London my most frequent haunt is Hatchards off Picadilly Circus. It was founded in 1797 and still retains a very English identity. Sadly it’s been bought out by the high street giant, Waterstones, but they wisely left it intact. It stocks all the latest releases and has many author driven events. For me it’s been a post-lunch ritual to go there as it is just around the corner from the gentlemen’s clubs I am a member of (nearly all now elect women as members). I sometimes invite friends for lunch or frankly to impress a foreign business client at the club. I then wander off around the corner to browse at Hatchard’s to work off the lunch. But mostly this ritual of lunch at the club and then a browse at Hatchards I associate with my father and my siblings, even to this day. We all lead busy lives and yet we come together over lunch and then jaunt over for a bit of book browsing. What’s perfect is that Fortnum & Mason is almost next door and so it’s a perfect place to pop in to buy special blended Fortnum’s tea and jams to take back to Paris and give out as gifts to friends.
I would make a special mention to Maggs Bros bookshop which primarily deals in first editions, antiquarian, and rare books and is one of the oldest in the world. This old bookshop has now two shops, one in Bedford Square and their original shop in Curzon street in Mayfair. They have a fine collection of over 20,000 books going back to the 15th Century in many specialised fields. The buy and sell rare books and also let their customers know about first editions. So in the past they’ve had such precious gems as first 1922 editions of James Joyce’s Ulysses as well as copies of Shakespeare’s four 17th Century folios and even pocket diaries of Virginia Woolf. My parents are avid book collectors and they both frequent this shop to pick up first editions on anything from literature and architecture to military history and travel exploration. I must admit it’s a delightful place to browse for a special gift as one can never go wrong with giving a book as a gift.
When I was working in the City of London I couldn’t wait to get away from the pressures of work. During my lunch break or after work I would wander over to Hanbury street in Shoreditch to visit a very cool and atmospheric bookshop called Libreria. The mirrored ceiling and intensely yellow bookshelves and comfy seats are meant to disconnect you to the world outside. No phones are allowed. The books are arranged by theme so it’s a magical mystery tour of sorts browsing books and coming across books you might never have considered in the first place.
I do go out of my way to drop in on the Bloomsbury area for a browse is the London Review bookshop. The bookshop is on Bury street. Bloomsbury is known for its literary connections to Virginia Woolf, E M Forster and others literary icons. The shop itself is owned by the purveyor of long-form critical writing that is the London Review of Books. There’s also an adjoining tea and cake shop to put your feet up after a good browse through its extensive literature and humanities collection. There are other quaint bookshops in Bloomsbury area and they are well worth exploring too such as Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers outside the British Museum. They specialise in 18th and 19th century English literature and history and you can be sure to find some amazing editions of Dickens’ work here alongside Hazlitt’s writings.
Recently I discovered another gem of a secondhand bookshop near to St. Pancras station called Judd Books. St. Pancras is where I come back and forth on the Eurostar between Paris and London. I hate crowds and I hate waiting. So if I have time to kill I take my small carry on luggage and wheel myself across Euston road down a side street called Marchmont street. It’s nothing fancy but a very functional bookshop selling tons of secondhand books that are almost brand new, mostly general fiction. Books line the walls from floor to ceiling so you may even need a ladder to reach the very top shelves.
In Paris where I now live I do go out of my way to support local bookshops even if the cost of an English language book is more expensive than if you bought it from the UK - this is because of added French taxes on imports. Still, it’s a small price to pay. Everyone will say the premier English bookshop in Paris is Shakespeare and Company. It is undoubtedly the most famous English bookstore in Paris. Perhaps even one of the most famous bookstores in Paris period. When it re-opened in 1951, it became a sort of hub for ex-pats living in France. It was inspired by the original Shakespeare and Company store by Sylvia Beach in the 1920s and 1930s where writers such as Joyce, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Eliot and Pound would gather. George Whitman took over and he paid homage to her amazing example.
The shop today continues to attract numerous anglophone readers, writers and tourists every day. And that’s why I try and avoid it if I can. It’s a wonderful bookshop and tons of books to get your teeth into. But it’s simply over-crowded by tourists who are just taking selfies. Moreover the shop is manned by sincere but earnest young American literature graduates who want to have some of that Hemingway or Fitzgerald magic dust sprinkled upon them by association whilst writing their own Great American Novel Written in Paris. I find it grating that some of them feel they have to give you a full blown semiotic laden book review on a book you’ve asked if they have in stock or not. But the bookshop does put on great open events where many famous authors drop in and I know it does support aspiring amateur writers.
There are other English language bookshops worth visiting in the Latin Quarter, the student area and where the Sorbonne is. The Abbey Bookshop, Berkley Books, and San Francisco Book Company are similar in that they are decent places to spend a lazy afternoon browsing English books of all kinds. Of the three the Abbey is better. It’s mostly dog eared second hand books What I love is the presentation of books. Books seem to cover every single inch of this tiny store. You have to be contortionist to get around the tiny shop. There are books piled high in every nook and cranny of the place and one misstep could bring tonnes of books down upon you. I admire the shop for trying to cram so many titles into one tiny space. I generally avoid the Latin Quarter because it is saturated with tourists and it’s just over crowded. But because it’s full of university students there are many French language second hand book stores and antiquarian and rare bookshops which are definitely worth a browse.
The Red Wheelbarrow, a tiny bookshop in the Marais part of Paris is well worth a visit.
The bookshop I go to for English language books is Librairie Galignani on rue de Rivoli - opposite the iconic Tuileries Garden. The bookshop at this site has been run by the Galignani family since the beginning of the 19th century and it’s certainly the most grand of the English language bookshops in Paris. Indeed, the Galginani family has been in business since 1520 as publishers but they also boldly claim to be the first English bookshop established on the continent. On their website Galignani does boast an impressive history: “The Galignanis were among the first to use the recently invented printing press in order to distribute their books to a larger audience. Beginning in 1520, Simone Galignani published in Venice a Latin grammar (the oldest “Galignani” known). However, their greatest success was the Geografia by PTOLEMAUS published in 1597, an incredible bestseller in both the 16th and 17th centuries. Not surprising, the shop has moved locations several times in four centuries, and only as recently as 1856 has been on the present shop on the rue de Rivoli. It is still run by direct descendants of the original family.
It is an international bookstore, so there are of course massive amounts of titles in French, as well as other languages, mainly English. It has a wonderful fine arts section. It stocks all the latest releases in fiction and non-fiction for both English and French titles and the prices are the same as elsewhere. Be warned though, if you want to soak up the atmosphere of an ancient bookshop then you will be disappointed. It’s luxuriously pristine and smells of pine. The shop is large and deep, with floor-to-ceiling dark wooden shelves and upper levels that can be reached by a swish staircase. It oozes sophistication. It’s a good place to bump into handsome young sophisticated French men who are worldly and charming without being intellectually tortured or pretentious as the ones you might come across in the Latin Quarter. It’s how I met one of my French boyfriends at the time.
Down the rue de Rivoli I should mention WH Smith, the well known British high street retail book shop. It’s the largest English-language bookstore in France. The books on sale are the same as you would find in the UK. But what makes it worth a visit is the rows of magazines you might want from design magazines all the way to Harvard Business Review and the Economist. The real jewel is upstairs where they have a great English children’s book section for all ages. You’ll find French parents picking with their sprogs picking up books They also stock hard to find British (and even American) foods from Heinz baked beans to candy bars. But one of the main reasons I go there is for the scones (served with clotted cream and jam) and decent tea served in the cafe that’s tucked away upstairs. It’s a nice place to take Anglophile French friends.
Congratulations again on getting into Cambridge to read History. You got in on merit and hard work so you’re fully deserving of your place. Make the most of it. It’s good that you’re taking a year out before you go up to study. I think many universities will only just be picking up the pieces from the awful mess the pandemic will have left them with.
Thanks for your question.
