After work on Monday I had some time to kill in central London before meeting up with Mr C to go and celebrate a friends birthday with a meal out. I was determined to leave work on time and have some nice "me time" browsing the shops, so I headed up to Marylebone High Street where you can always find a fantastic array of things to buy
This time I ended up in Daunt Books and spent nearly an hour browsing the shelves. They have a fantastic, unique way of arranging the books, which is quite simply genius. In addition to the usual shelves separated into fiction, non-fiction etc, the majority of their books are arranged by country. This results in shelves where fiction, non-fictions and travel guides all sit side by side. I'm not sure that this system would always work if you were looking for something particular (that's where their fantastic staff come in useful), but if you want to browse or want to absorb yourself in everything to do with a certain country then this is definitely the place for you. I just wish I'd realised before our big trip to New Zealand earlier this year.
This also gave me a good opportunity to get a bit ahead with Christmas shopping presents and I came out with a great list of gift ideas for a variety of family members. It was still September, but I actually felt organised for once!
That sounds like my kind of shop. Unfortunately, I live a 3 hour train journey away! As we only have the usual Borders, Waterstones, W H Smith and the like here I tend to resort to Amazon for book buying. And rely on good people like yourself to point me in the direction of good reads. Have a good weekend.
That looks like a fun shop, thanks for the recommendation of a new Bit Of London to explore when time permits, there’s so much to the city that I miss just about all of it kicking about the central touristy areas. Would have been fun to have had a look on Monday, I had a spare hour or two cooling my heels wandering the sidestreets of Covent Garden.
I’d be missing a trick if I didn’t plug my favourite book shop though, Barter Books (.co.uk), the South can’t claim a complete monopoly on fun shops 🙂 Although I suspect Hay wins the is-it-a-town-or-is-it-a-book-shop award..
Totally agree with you there Dav – I’ve known about Barter Books for quite a while and make sure that I visit when ever we’re up near Alnwick. A fantastic place!