A short note

 Reader, I married him.

For when you need to escape everything

Trigger warning: while this is an uplifting bookshopping experience, it does discuss grieving, cancer and the death of a parent. I considered not telling the full story, but I cannot separate the bookshop from its first encounter and I will be forever grateful for this experience and the way it innocently helped me to begin to rejoin the real world.

It's taken me a while to write about this bookshop visit. Not quite so long as it took me to get to the bookshop itself (yes, this is another from my initial must-visit list back in 2013), but the words have needed a lot of thought.

The visit this blog covers took place in early May, 2024. We've since returned, stayed in the same hotel and spent almost exactly the same amount of time and money, but I couldn't tell you much about subsequent visits (other than that they were as wonderful as you'd imagine). This visit, however, this visit is etched into my mind. It's one of the few clear memories I have from an approximately month-long period which I think of as a void.

The void began in April, when after a mercifully short battle with cancer my elderly father died. Having lost Mum to a prolonged battle with cancer 40 years previously, I was relieved Dad's suffering was limited, while devastated to have lost my remaining parent, the biggest constant in my life. Various family losses meant I'd thought I was used to death, but this one shook me to my core.

Sure, life goes on and I had commitments to distract me, but the absence of a man who lived hundreds of miles away still hit whenever 4pm came and the phone failed to ring to discuss his day. I was a mess and I'm grateful to The Boy for the way he looked after me at that time.

It was The Boy who suggested that after the funeral, instead of going home, we stay somewhere else. Not too far away, just a short trip to escape everything. He suggested Oxford. He found us a sweet, old-fashioned hotel with parking and – most importantly – within easy walking distance of Blackwell's, which is exactly where we headed the very next morning.

To say I had no idea what I was letting myself in for is an understatement.

I knew this was the flagship Blackwell's. I knew it had a lot of books. But when we'd walked past the night before – even taking into account the neighbouring Blackwell's Music – it hadn't looked particularly big.

We entered by the door on the right of the above photograph, finding ourselves in an averagely-sized shop area with a till. It clearly stretched further back, and to the side into the neighbouring shop, which I wandered into next, but nothing struck me as particularly unusual. 

I enjoyed browsing the recommendations and we gradually made our way further in, thoroughly immersing ourselves in the translated fiction area. It wasn't long before I picked up The details by Ia Genberg, and I believe this is where The Boy found Time shelter by Georgi Gospodinov.

At about this point, The Boy decided he needed a toilet break. As we'd agreed to explore the shop together, I waited near the stairs while he followed the sign up for the toilets – with strict instructions that he wasn't to look around any of the other levels until we'd completed the ground floor. While I waited, I browsed the shelves nearby, soon finding myself engrossed in Breathe: Tackling the climate emergency, by Sadiq Khan. Then I realised I'd read far more of the book than was acceptable while loitering in a bookshop, I began to worry. What was wrong with The Boy that was keeping him so long?

In case you haven't guessed, it turns out The Boy can't follow instructions. He eventually appeared, enthusiastically bounding down the stairs, telling me I *must* follow him back up at once. Fiction could wait, he said, I needed to see what he'd found. I looked longingly towards the back of the shop, then followed him upstairs.

To be fair, he was right, the upstairs non-fiction floors are brilliant. Their layout helped me to get a better idea of the size of the bookshop, and we happily roamed the different themes, pausing to look at certain books before landing back at the sale corner at the top of the stairs. The Boy had found a reduced art book he was particularly excited about, and so Le Corbusier's Precisions: On the present state of architecture and city planning was added to our pile of four. The weight of the pile suddenly doubled, but the discount made the load feel lighter and this has become a must-visit section for all our return trips.

Finally, we made it back downstairs to fiction, and a step closer to The Norrington Room, which I'd noticed a sign for but didn't know much about. Assuming it was another secondhand or antiquarian area, we agreed we'd pop into it quickly at the end of our visit.

Fiction was worth the wait. All those walls and tables of books, best sellers, classics, authors I'd long sought and rarely found. I was fully immersed in the here and now, with any lingering thoughts of life outside the bookshop completely banished. I briefly agonised over the fact I'd already got two books in my hands, then I found almost a whole shelf of Nevil Shute books and wondered if I could justify buying the lot. I ended up settling on Trustee from the toolroom – which turned out to be the perfect book for me to start reading as soon as we got home – and I now make a pilgrimage to this shelf every time we visit Oxford.

I lost track of The Boy, who planted himself firmly next to the table of blue Fitzcarraldos in the picture above, adding Owlish by Dorothy Tse to the pile.

Six books in hand, we decided that was probably a sensible time to stop. Then we remembered the sign for The Norrington Room, that we'd passed underneath on our way to fiction. We thought we'd better stick our heads in for completeness.

Oh.

Oh my goodness.

What?

Reader, I had no idea.

For those – probably rare – ignorant few, who like me also had no idea, this photograph does not do justice to the sight we beheld as we walked into the room, which is better described as a cavern.

The Norrington Room is extraordinary. We began by taking a walk around the edge, and we discovered another level.

Somewhere along the way, we inevitably lost each other as we each found our individual niches to explore. I don't have the words for both how lost and how found I felt while exploring the myriad topics and enjoying their breadth of coverage. This truly was a different world, a world where time and loss and grief were forgotten.

Then I walked around another bookcase, probably my hundredth of the day, and found The Boy. My smile – my first in weeks – grew even wider at the sight of him, sat on the floor with books scattered close by.

There were plenty of chairs within this cavernous room, but why walk to a chair when you can comfortably plonk yourself on the ground next to a whole bookcase of treats? And how could I not giggle with delight at the sight of him?

Somehow, in our time apart, we'd added a few more books to our pile. I picked up Pathogenesis: How germs made history by Jonathan Kennedy, while he had found Japanese by Christopher Harding, and Regenesis by George Monbiot.

Now loaded up with nine books, we spotted the underground entrance to Blackwell's Music Shop, but decided we really had to pay for our books before continuing into there.

We could have paid in The Norrington Room, but all those hours ago among the fiction we'd spotted an old-fasioned bell, which was where we'd intended to pay, so we made our way back to the table of blue Fitzcarraldos and gleefully rang for attention. Its jingle prompted a child-like joy in the both of us, and a bookseller instantly appeared. Along with our books we bought a sturdy new tote bag, because by now we realised how unprepared we'd been.

Overloaded and elated, it was time to face the music.

We opted to arrive underground, so back we went into the book cavern, and up into the music shop.

I love music but admit to being almost completely ignorant about most of the music in this shop, so it was here that The Boy was in his element. It was lovely watching his delight as he found unexpected treats, and we both enjoyed talking to the man behind the counter (the music seller?) but I have to confess that as I was so wrapped up in my own world before and after this visit, I somehow forgot to include the CDs purchased in my end of day photo. I know he bought at least three, but his music collection is vast and trying to identify those initial purchases has proved impossible. You'll just have to trust us: it's an important part of our repeat Blackwell's visits and I always make purchases in the places I write about.

But we're not done yet.

Our re-emergence into the outside world was fleeting, as we crossed the road to ensure true completeness with an exploration of the Blackwell's science fiction bookshop.

Where we'd chosen to browse the main bookshop on our own, here I politely pounced on the first bookseller I found and asked for advice. I love science fiction, but it was my first encounter with so much of it in once place. I was overwhelmed and had no idea where to start with finding something completely new to me.

Within a few minutes of conversation the bookseller realised our tastes were very different. To her credit she admitted this and, rather attempt to soldier on, she asked me to wait a moment and came back with a different bookseller, who I think may have been the manager. He immediately stepped up to the challenge of finding me a book, and was naturally incredibly successful at it.

I picked up Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 (I cannot say this enough: read it), and following the bookseller's conversation The Boy chose to buy me City of Lost Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky, then I also ended up with N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. And the purchases didn't stop there.

Following the above successes, the bookseller and I had a long conversation about Mordew by Alex Pheby, which ended up added to my pile along with a promise to return to discuss it, no matter how far into the future that visit might be (the book has been read, the conversation is still waiting, as he's not been around on the days we've been back).

We really should have been done by now, but while I was chatting, The Boy wandered off, and so he added Showa: 1939-1944, a history of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki to the pile, along with a small box game, Town 66.

By now, our minds, bodies and bank balances were completely spent. We had been in the various establishments for more hours than I could count and during that time I'd been completely immersed. 

I'd forgotten the grief I'd parked on the doorstep and now we were re-entering the world there wasn't quite room for all of it to fit into the tote bag I carried. Some of the sadness had begun to evaporate. My journey to healing had begun.

Blackwell's

48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ

Blackwell's Music Shop

51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ

Blackwell's Science Fiction and Manga

27 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BS

A feeling of familiarity

Holidays are different things for different people, but this holiday took even me by surprise when – with no apology to either town – rather than going somewhere completely different, we ended up in a town that felt very much like the place where we live.

I guess the fact both Tunbridge Wells and Cheltenham are historic spa towns means I shouldn't have been too surprised at the feeling of familiarity, but history doesn't necessarily translate into present day and the two certainly don't seem similar on paper. For starters, one has far too many hills, while the other takes longer to walk across and is definitely more of a shopping destination. But let's stop before I end up accidentally insulting one or other destination. Back to my feeling of comfort and familiarity as we meandered the streets of Cheltenham.

We were there for a weekend with two goals in mind: visit the local parkrun, meet a new-to-us bookshop. We also found a lovely real ale pub, ate some gorgeous meals, meandered, and wished we had more time to make the most of a very relaxed wine bar. Not forgetting our complete failure to find the time to walk to the tap room of one of my favourite breweries. I'm no travel reviewer, so that's as much as you'll get about all of those. My priority is Rossiter Books.

Part of a small chain of independent bookshops, Rossiter Books intensified my feelings of familiarity because I've previously visited two of their older outlets. From the front, it looked exactly as I'd anticipated. But you'll have to take my word for it because apparently my only external photo is this selfie.

Inside, the bookshop is large and light. Its two floors mean I'd say it's larger than the others I've visited, but I hope they'll forgive me if the memory of those first two has dulled over time. While all the Rossiters are different, the pale blue front and the oak (I'm guessing) coloured bookshelves meant there was no doubt this was part of the same family.

This shop is also as well-stocked as the others, meaning we spent quite some time browsing in the calm surroundings. I loitered in the area pictured above, while I lost The Boy to the non-fiction. It being late in the day on a Saturday meant we had the place mostly to ourselves, which is always a treat.

I ended up buying two books: Orbital by Samantha Harvey, and a gift for a friend: Back to the local by Maurice Gorham, while The Boy chose Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad by Daniel Finkelstein. As some time has passed since this 2024 visit, I can add I was particularly smug to be able to say I'd read a Booker Prize winner before the winner had been announced (this occurrence is rare for me).

Happy with our purchases, we left the bookshop and made our way back down Montpellier Street, which had a slight feeling of The Pantiles about it, in terms of businesses and architecture – there really was no escaping the familiarity.

I'm not sure how long ago the Rossiter Books "empire" arrived in Cheltenham, but I'm pleased to see it's continuing to grow and thrive. For me, independent bookshop chains such as this are a welcome part of the bookshopping world, and I look forward to visiting the rest in time. I'm also long-overdue a return to Cheltenham, to re-visit the bookshop, finally get to the brewery, and to enjoy another break in this home away from home.

Rossiter Books
7 Rotunda Terrace, Montpellier Terrace, Cheltenham, GL50 1SW

I love Margate

I love Margate. I love the quirkiness of its Old Town. I love the beach. I love the bars. I love the restaurants. I love the Turner Contemporary. I love gigs at Dreamland. I love the place so much that around 14 years ago I – very briefly – considered moving there to make it easier for me to attend one of the best bookclubs in the world. Back then, the town didn't have an independent bookshop.

Instead, I got a job in a town on the other side of the county, a town that also didn't have an independent bookshop, and moved there anywhere. Crucially, nowadays both Margate and Tunbridge Wells are covered. I have a nice place to live and go bookshopping, and I still love the seaside town as a place and to visit and go bookshopping. That geographical move is the reason I met The Boy, who also loves trips to Margate. So it was a win all round.

Having opened its doors in 2019, The Margate Bookshop is a few years older than my local and I remember eagerly watching the social media updates as it was lovingly created. This blog mostly focuses on my memory of finally visiting it for the first time, but as you would expect with a town I'm so fond of, I have returned many times since and can confirm the bookshop continues to live up to that first visit.

Located in a pedestrianised square in the Old Town, there's a welcoming buzz from nearby cafes and bars that naturally draws people to the area, and once there the cheery bookshop front cannot be missed.

Immediately in front of the door you come to a short wall of books, and so you turn right into the bookshop, which is best described as bright and snug. Bright because it felt spacious and light, snug because – despite the implications of one of my photos – there really isn't a massive amount of space to walk around in.

 

Those two photos show a significant part of the bookshop, but at no point does it feel too small. Even when we are swapping places with other browsers, the space simply works. This is probably helped by the fact it's got an excellent range of books. I love the nature section, which feels particularly large for a small indie, but it's usually fiction that wins my purchase. Despite its size, this bookshop always offers something completely unexpected that I can't leave without.

For our first visit, I realised I'd read a significant amount of Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe, so thought I'd better take it home with me (fascinating, readable, disturbing, thought-provoking), while The Boy is a fan of photography so he chose Forever by Saul Leiter (I forgot to ask him for a review before I started writing).

There's been a lot of love thrown around this week but it can't be helped when describing one of my favourite places in Margate. It's been around two months since my last visit. I'm not sure when we'll be returning, but one thing is certain about that next visit: it will include the bookshop, and once again I'll be feeling all the love for this Kent seaside town.

The Margate Bookshop
2 Market Place, Margate, Kent, CT9 1ER

A good stop for a holiday read

Holidays always pose a bit of a balancing act: how many books do I take versus how many bookshops can I reasonably count on us visiting, with the added pressure of how. much luggage* I can carry.

A little pre-holiday research gives me an idea how many bookshops might be in the vicinity, but the vagaries of travel options; unexpected opening hour tweaks; other holiday commitments; or even the possibility I don't buy anything in the bookshop** means I can never guarantee how many books will end up coming home with me. For this week's bookshop the opposite happened: I was completely ignorant of the place's existence until I took a wrong turning during a walk and found myself in front of a lovely big window. I'd packed a lot of books for our holiday to Bakewell, but what's one more among friends?

Maxwells Bookshop is found in a sort of pedestrianised area to one side of a main road. It's nicely at home among other independent shops and not far from The Old Bakewell Pudding Shop, an inevitable must-visit for anyone who's only ever experienced Mr Kipling's offerings. We actually found the bookshop while on the hunt for a birthday card (which thankfully arrived on time for a friend's birthday), so it was lucky for me that the bookshop also sold a selection of greetings cards – and gifts and crafts, but my suitcase wasn't up to that.

For a small town that's popular for walking holidays, it has a big bookshop. Maxwells fills what I'd guess is two shop units, leaving plenty of space for browsers to wander around. This also means there's a good variety of books, ranging from the non-fiction you need for a walking holiday, to the fiction you need for a rest.

While we were browsing a steady stream of local and holidaying bookshoppers appeared, and while I jogged my memory about the bookshop (I have to confess this visit is from 2023), I was pleased to find many positive reviews on bookish blogs and local websites. They may not have their own internet presence, but Maxwells is clearly well-loved both on and offline.

As an added bonus for those of us who've already spent far too much on holiday, the books are all discounted, meaning I didn't feel too guilty about my purchase of Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, and that much-needed birthday card.

Maxwells Bookshop
9, Orme Court, Off Granby Road, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE45 1ES

PS. At time of visit they also had a bookshop dog:

*I'm at my most strict about the one book per bookshop rule when I'm limited by luggage.

**Keen readers will notice this blog is always positive about the bookshop being visited. I think the stats are something like 1/100 for me finding a bookshop I don't feel happy enough to buy a book in, and on those rare occurrences I will quietly walk away. Then next time I'm in the area I'll try again. Because maybe that bookshop was having a bad day. We all have bad days occasionally, and I don't think it would be fair for this blog to hold one bad day against anyone.

Golden memories

Almost exactly one year and one week ago I finally had the pleasure of visiting the capital of Scotland. 

For around 20 years I'd wanted to go to the Edinburgh Festival; for around ten years a bookshop in the city had been on my radar; I'd even got so far as to have had a holiday planned for spring 2020. What I'm trying to say is that writing about this bookshop a year after the visit is nothing compared to how long it took me to actually get to the city.

We finally got to Edinburgh as part of a summer holiday train journey that took in York, Edinburgh, Berwick-upon-Tweed and Hull. Which otherwise translates as two parkruns, four arts festivals*, one moment of quiet, many geographically distant bookshops and two quite heavy suitcases. It was a marvellous adventure, with this week's stop a special treat in the middle of it all.

Golden Hare Books is located in the Stockbridge area, around a ten-minute walk north of the festivals, or half an hour from our hotel in slightly out of the way (and vaguely cheaper) Haymarket. Stockbridge is a calm, quiet, village-like area that gave us a welcome morning of calm away from the crowds. The bookshop is found part way along an attractive warm grey stone street characteristic of Edinburgh, with a short flight of steps leading up to the front door.

Inside, this is another of those bookshops that's small in reality but feels spacious and welcoming with its warm, golden lighting. From memory, the counter where the booksellers were to be found was luxuriously long, helping with the feeling of room to manoeuvre. I left The Boy browsing the non-fiction here. My main focus was the second room, where the fiction was displayed on a central recommendations table and shelves around the walls.

The balance of the room with the surrounding bookshelves starting just above the height of the central table added to the feeling of space and made it easy to browse in comfort with only the minimal polite "excuse me" needed to pass other bookshoppers.

What can I say? I loved everything about this bookshop. It also contains a beautiful children's section, plus directly behind where I was stood for the above photograph was a wall of mystery books, beautifully wrapped with only a brown luggage tag descriptor to hint at the contents.

We both spent ages browsing. I wanted to buy at least half of the recommendations table and several more from the walls. The thought of the weight of our luggage was the only thing that kept me sensible and I still broke my one-book-per-shop rule because even though I was sorry to not be buying many of the books I'd looked at, I wasn't leaving without a mystery book.

And so I bought the above mystery and Evie Wyld's The echoes. I kept the wrapped book in my suitcase for the rest of the holiday, saving it to be a treat to look forward to when we arrived home. I was delighted to discover it was one of the books I'd forced myself to leave behind at Golden Hare: The book of days by Francesca Kay. Having now read both of my purchases I can confirm they will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

As with the books, the memory of this bookshopping experience has also stayed with me. I hope it's not another ten years until we return.

Golden Hare Books
66 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh, EH3 5AQ

* As well as the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe, we also managed to visit the Edinburgh International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival, which were all taking place at the same time. Edinburgh was very busy, making the calm of Stockbridge and the bookshop even more appealing.

Deja vu, good books and an emergency tenner

No two bookshops are the same. This is a hill I will die on. No matter what anyone says about them all having shelves and books, a bookseller, a window full of books, etc, I find the differences between bookshops are more plentiful than the similarities.

Even chain bookshops with their brand guidelines still vary from bookshop to bookshop, affected by the personality of their staff and the tastes of their customers.

However I will admit that when I found myself inside this week's destination I had the strongest feeling of deja vu I've ever felt in a bookshop.

My visit took place on a cold, wet day in February. Specifically late afternoon, when darkness had already set in. We'd had a soggy day trip to Bexhill and somehow missed our connecting train at St Leonards-on-Sea, so we decided to walk around the town while we waited. The visit I'm recounting here took place two or three years ago, but has been followed by so many return trips that I can comfortably say the only difference is the variance of the stock and the lack of scaffolding obscuring the shop front.

I'm blaming that scaffolding for me missing the name Black Gull Books as I walked towards the door, although if I'm honest I'm not sure the name would have helped jog my memory or if I'd even looked at it: I was focused on the warm, golden light through the window, calling us across the road before we even realised it was a bookshop.

It's about now I should probably add that this was my first visit to St Leonard's in more than 20 years. Back then I'd spent a couple of days learning my trade at The Editorial Centre. The training was good, my brief experience of the town had been less good. Somewhere in the intervening years the centre has closed down and the town has transformed – the two things are most certainly not related.

This apparently irrelevant fact is important because I knew I'd never been inside a single shop in the town and yet I was certain I knew this bookshop.

So what was I looking at? The inside of a small two-room bookshop. Floor to ceiling shelves of light wood were crammed with new, used and antiquarian books. The bookshop specialises in art, photography, textiles, fashion, philosophy, psychology and good fiction, but it felt like all genres were covered and I was very happy to see that "good fiction" perfectly suited my taste.

A conversation was going on at the till, and a dog was curled up on a chair. I believe the dog was in some way connected to the bookshop, but I haven't seen them during my later visits so can't promise there's a regular bookshop dog.

The atmosphere was convivial, especially after the cold, and we both enjoyed exploring the shelves. I'm pretty certain we ended up missing our intended train as a result.

Eventually I broke my one-book-per-shop rule and chose E M Forster's Where angels fear to tread, and Philip K Dick's Time out of joint. I went to the counter to pay and had to ask the question that had been nagging at me throughout the visit: does the bookseller have a bookshop anywhere else? They don't, but I was relieved to discover my deja vu had been justified because St Leonards is the new home of Black Gull Books in Camden Lock, somewhere I'd thoroughly enjoyed visiting many years previously. Relieved I wasn't going mad, I stepped aside to let The Boy make his own purchase.

Not having a self-imposed book limit, he had got properly carried away and picked up The Turner Prize by Virginia Button, Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark, Wittgenstein A graphic guide, and two by Martin Gardner: Knotted Doughnuts, and Time Travel and other mathematical bewilderments. This led to an animated conversation between him and the bookseller, as both appeared to be big fans of Gardner.

Then it came time for The Boy to pay. He took out his debit card and the bookseller politely explained the bookshop – like many other shops in the town – is cash-only, before providing directions to the nearest cash machine. It turns out the ATM is incredibly close to the bookshop, but on that cold, dark afternoon I could see The Boy looking crestfallen, quietly weighing up how much he wanted the books against how much he didn't want to go walking the streets any more than he had to. Fortunately, I never leave the house without an emergency tenner, and on this day I'd been more than usually prepared.

Reader, I broke my bookshopping rule with five more books and The Boy now understands the importance of the emergency tenner.

Black Gull Books
34 London Road, St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex, TN37 6AN