Brief encounter

When you're in the middle of packing up all your possessions to move in with your boyfriend for the first time in your life, things can be a bit stressful.

There are boxes to find; books to pack; books to cull; books to hide*; bookshelves to move; CDs and DVDs to pack; at some point there'll be clothes to fold; bedding and towels to merge; kitchen equipment to squeeze into a smaller room; kettles to argue over; a cat to move as stresslessly as possible**... and in between all that there's work, eating, sleeping, breathing, dieting, socialising, exercising, and helping to organise an annual awards ceremony. If you don't get the image of a Very Busy Time then I have no idea how you cope with your life.

Which is why, when it came round to a random weekday booked off for a day trip to Brighton we arrived in the town with absolutely no idea where to find a bookshop***. And no brainpower to work out how to find one either. It was an opportunity to relax, switch off and forget about all the stresses of day-to-day life. The internet was off, and we hurried to nothing. We wandered around, ate doughnuts on the pier, bought mementoes from arty boutiques and generally fell in love with our bright, quirky, and wonderfully chilled surroundings. It was exactly what I needed, if only we could stumble across a bookshop.

I'd pretty much given up on that hope until we turned down a road in the North Laine. Pausing outside a lively pub, we spotted a man bending down to take in the doormat just as Brighton Books was closing up. I was pleased to have found what I now know to be one of many independent bookshops in the town, but also sad we were only there in time to see the door closed. I took a photo of the shop front for posterity and prepared to keep walking. Meanwhile my boyfriend had gone inside and asked the bookseller if we could just look in quickly. I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to keep the bookshop open longer than needed – booksellers have homes to go to too – but we were told we could have a couple of minutes.

I loved the colour and bustle of Brighton, but entering the cool, slightly darkened bookshop and finding myself surrounded by floor to ceiling secondhand books and a general sense of calm was the icing on the cake. I liked it even more when contrasted with the general Brighton buzz drifting through the open door. I quickly located the fiction taking up a good space at the back and took note of diversity and quality (good and good). It hadn't occurred to me that I'd manage to buy a book and so be able to feature the bookshop on this blog as the result of such a short visit, but as I turned to leave a slim volume caught my eye.

Edith Wharton is my all-time favourite author and so to be able to add her novella Ethan Frome to my collection without even trying felt like it was meant to be. Not only that, but my boyfriend also found a book: Turner, a life, by James Hamilton.

There's not much more I can tell you. There's a comfy looking chair and the bookshop has a downstairs but it had been closed when we arrived. The bookseller seemed friendly enough, but anxious not to delay him further, I kept my chatter to the absolute minimum. It was a brief encounter but a happy one, and yet another reason for us to return to Brighton.

Books were reasonably priced, so the bookseller didn't make much money out of allowing us those few minutes in his shop, but he did make us very happy.

Brighton Books  
18 Kensington Gardens, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 4AL
Tel: 01273 693845


*he really doesn't need to know about my Sweet Valley High collection
**impossible
***slight exaggeration, I did know of one but it was out of range at this time. I fell head over Irregular Choice heels for Brighton though, we'll be back again soon


UPDATE: 28th July 2017: I've just received a very lovely email from this bookshop, sharing all the local bookshops in Brighton. Independent bookshops are lovely.

Appearances can be deceiving, sometimes

Things aren't always what they seem, whether we're talking the answer to life, the universe and everything or simply looking at a good bookshop and its books.

In the case of this week's blog, I'll stick to the latter two subjects (although surely the answer to the first is liberal doses of bookshops and books), and tell you how constantly surprising The Bookshop in East Grinstead turned out to be.

From the front The Bookshop looks massive, with large modern windows set in an otherwise historic building. These windows are packed with books inviting passers-by in to what appears to be a large space, but the moment you're through the door you're instead transported into a small, cosy, period bookshop that wouldn't look amiss in a costume drama.

Look again and you realise the series of snug areas (including what appeared to be a very popular small cafe) squeezed in between beams and walls are actually filled with new books – this is far from the musty secondhand bookshop you'd expect from such an arrangement. The books are modern and the staff welcoming, and for me a wonderful reminder of what I'm missing out on with no immediately local indie nearby.

For Independent Bookshop Week, the booksellers had wrapped a variety of books in brown paper, with each identified by just four words that saw us almost completely unable to guess the reality from the clues. The idea was to inspire readers to look beyond the cover and genre and try something new and we certainly had fun taking part. This was also part of their The Art of Giving campaign, with donations of books being given to local charities later in the week. As I'm always keen to encourage and support other people's reading habits, we chose one mystery book for us and one to be a donation.

The books we chose were Australia, war, affair, Man Booker for us – because when we asked the bookseller we were again surprised to find things were not what they seemed and it wasn't A Town Called Alice – and Books, promises, romance, small town as our gift. Can you guess which books they are? Read on to find out.

Moving upstairs painted with the spines of books is where you come to the really fun part of the physical space, with a maze of small rooms (stocking the secondhand books) leading to a comfy event area and inspiring a lot of exploration and delight. The upstairs isn't massive, but the layout and content meant we could've been entertained for hours were we not on a bookshop crawl.

We completed our visit with a chat to the booksellers, who were as friendly, smiley and enthusiastic as you'd hope for, telling us more about events, books and the bookshop as a whole. It was a good start to the day and showed that in one way, at least, appearances aren't deceiving: as you'd expect from any good indie, The Bookshop is as welcoming and worth a visit as you could hope for.


The Bookshop
22 High Street, East Grinstead,
West Sussex, RH19 3AW
Tel: 01342 322669
@JohnPye7


Our purchases were The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan and The Little Bookshop of Promises by Debbie Macomber.