Tell me about your favourite bookshops.

[ThePineappleSeahorse]

I think that I have a new favourite, and no this isn’t an advertisement. I was in St Andrews last week and went to Topping and Company. I love all bookstores though normally prefer used bookstores but I found so many books that I wanted to buy. They had lots of lovely special and signed editions, ladders on the walls, friendly staff, offered tea and coffee, have a customer loo and was large and just maze like enough to be interesting without being too confusing.

I could only buy one book as I’d already bought several others and I had no more room.

So please tell me about your other much loved book shops as I’m eager to visit as many as possible.

TIA

I recognise this as the Bradford branch, very beautiful! Spent a very pleasant few hours there once!

My favourite bookshop, which I’ve known since I was a child, was Broadhurst's in Southport. It was a proper family shop, narrow, but on several floors, with new books on the ground floor and second-hand as you went up successive flights of stairs. I can’t even begin to think how many books I’ve bought there over the years, and I introduced DH to it too. On the ground floor they had an open fire in winter and they wrapped your books in brown paper and string.

Then a couple of years ago the owner died unexpectedly, a family member inherited and - to everyone's shock - abruptly shut the shop and fired all the staff, citing 'unsafe wiring' in the building. It’s never been reopened but last time I went past it’s just sitting there, shut up, with all the stock still in there as though ready to open for the day. It’s really heartbreaking and makes me feel as though my world has shifted a bit on its axis - I honestly thought it would be there forever 😥

@ObelismThis explains a lot. Visited Southport 2yrs-ish back with DS and was very excited to spot this… then found it was mysteriously shut. So sad to read what’s happened, always kept it in mind for when I was in town again.

Watching all these with interest. Odd to see all those travelling North to Barter Books - as a Scot it was always a southbound trip. Not been for a few years as we are too far north now.

Been to Leakeys in Inverness but didn't find much, hope to get to Criminally Good Books in York later this year, too early for the new Toppings there though. Always looking for secondhand/new bookshops or good charity ones like Amnesty or Oxfam.

Recommend Transreal bookshop for sci fi/fantasy, just down the road from Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

That’s sad @Obelism. What a waste of all those books!

For those who don’t have an independent near them, a lovely online independent I often use is Fox Lane Books. Great selection, and all the books come individually wrapped with a free bookmark - it’s like getting a present through the post!

www.foxlanebooks.co.uk

The West Moors Bookshop in East Dorset. Rammed with second-hand books.

Little Apple Books in York. It's like visiting a signed edition of my bookcases at home

Another vote for Scarthin Books in Cromford, Derbyshire.

Whithorn in Galloway, as there are several to wander between, enough to make a day of it at least.

Forum Books in Corbridge is lovely - it's in an old chapel & is very welcoming. My other favourite is the bookshop in Grasmere.

I haven't been in the very beautiful Waterstones in Bradford for many years - but recognised it as soon as I saw the picture.

I hate that I live in a major city whose only mainstream bookshop is Waterstones (not counting the comic book shops)

I mean, I love Waterstones, bless them, even though they dropped their apostrophe and they culturally suppress gender critical books and are not staffed by as many gloriously mad book enthusiasts of old, but we used to have two branches, plus Dillon's and about 5 branches of Austicks and 4 storey Borders and, well, lots of bookshops over the decades.

And now just the one.

@MoistVonL

As soon as I saw Austicks, I knew you were talking about my home city, Leeds. At one point, they had dedicated branches for the university, for medicine and law, another for the colleges and a general bookshop on the Headrow. I think they also had one or two of the second-hand outlets near the university.

Austicks was a Leeds institution and a great place to buy your books because they liked their customers.I loved going to the Cookridge Street branch for my O' and A' Level texts. Then I left Leeds to go to poly in Stoke and found out how the less privileged live. Our head of year handed out reading lists with "you lot know nothing about foreign policy. You didn't do it at school, so this is where you get started. Read this, this, this and this for next Tuesday." Off we obediently went to the student bookshop in Hanley to find that the core texts weren't in stock. . .although the department had sent the reading lists in weeks ago and what's more, they didn't like their customers. "But my tutor says I have to read this for next week!" I wailed. "Well you'll have to wait won't you?" said the smirking fool at the till. It was 1983, so no Amazon, no huge chains and the ordering systems were antiquated and took ages. If the individual shops weren't on top of things, you were stuffed. So yes, we really did have to wait. I missed Austicks so much I organised myself to get to the University branch on a couple of occasions when I was in Leeds - it was worth the extra effort to get what I needed without a side order of sneers!

@Tortielady - Good old Austicks! Leeds used to have so many bookshops, I loved it.

(Edit - sorry! didn't mean to quote you and can't seem to delete it)

If you are ever on the west coast of Ireland Charlie Byrnes bookshop in Galway City is a glorious labyrinth of books

House of books and friends in Manchester is just lovely as is ebb and flow in Chorley

I second Toppings in St Andrews. Simply gorgeous place.

I can't cope with second hand books - I just can't. I have been to Barter Books and to various places in Wigtown, the Scottish book town, and I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything.

I love a Waterstones - the old Birmingham New St branch was amazing. My local one is in a shopping centre in my town and it's my destination of choice when I need a pick me up. So it may not be pretty or quirky but thank you Waterstones in Kingston.

Booka bookshop in Oswestry is lovely. They have lots of books signed by the authors too.

The Little Apple bookshop in York - really lovely, friendly staff.
The Bookshop by the Sea in Aberystwyth- secondhand bookshop with a really good selection.

New From Nowhere - Liverpool

My favourites closed years ago. Both in the Bournemouth area. 😥

There was an old chapel in Ashley Road, Boscombe crammed with books, shelves, tables, boxes... I spent hours in there. I bought an old set of Dante's Divine Comedy illustrated by Dore, loads of Guy Boothby and Anthony Hope novels - really cheap.
Then a really Dickensian shop in Old Christchurch road. Narrow, claustrophobic, looked tiny - but it went up and up - more and more tiny rooms full of bookcases. There was an original copy of Le Morte d'Arthur illustrated by Beardsley - £60 - way beyond my means as a student in the 1960s. I looked through it every time I went in.

Scarthin Books in Cromford. The new books are absolutely perfectly curated and while it doesn’t have the eyeball kick of Barter Books, its secondhand selection is just as good. I never ever leave empty handed.

There's a tiny little book shop in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland called Better Read Books, it does old and new and has the most fantastic kids section. It's run by a father and son and they are very knowledgeable and the service is fantastic. It's stuffed to the gunnels with books and just a magic place. If you are anywhere near I highly recommend you go

I have to say that I was so excited to visit Wigtown and I was really disappointed by it. I buy second hand books all the time, but I felt like every shop I went into there was just full of sad, fusty, mouldy books and there wasn’t any sense of them being organised, merchandised or curated in any way to make them attractive to customers, which they do well at Barter books.

I totally agree about Wigtown - I felt that the books were all the absolute dregs that no one else wanted.

Also Astley Book Barn outside Nuneaton. Enormous selection of 2nd hand books and amazing coffee shop too.

Orkney is lucky to not have a big chain bookshop. The best and most charming of the bookshops is Stromness Books and Prints. I think all the other independents I know about have already been mentioned.

Yes, am obsessed with Scarthin's, Cromford too.

It's deliciously higgledy piggledy, with narrow stairways that creak underfoot and quiet corners with deep armchairs.

It even has a tiny cafe tucked away at the very top of the shop which serves the most amazing homemade cakes and fresh coffee.

It's everything a book shop should be. Perfection.