Comments on: On second-hand bookshops

By: Claire (Paperback_Reader)

Claire (Paperback_Reader) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:21:06 +0000

My home city is also Glasgow and I LOVE the bookshops you mention in the west-end, especially Voltaire & Rousseau. At some point I will devote a bookshop post on V&R but firstly I need a much-needed visit home and to the shop so I can take photos and buy books!

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:43:52 +0000

Oh, I didn’t know about that one, thanks Annabel!

By: Annabel

Annabel — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:50:02 +0000

I went to Barter Books on hols this year – it was wonderful. They’ve done a great job, and it is a tourist destination in its own right being set in an old railway station.

There is a newish S/H bookshop in central but backstreet Oxford – Book Lover in Paradise St, Woodin Way. They appear to be comics specialists, but do sell other stuff – I only knew of their existence when I spotted the shop from the top of Oxford Castle the other day – they’ve been there for 3 years apparently! http://www.bookloveroxford.com/index.htm

I feel so lucky to have Mostly Books in Abingdon. It’s wonderful and Mark & Nicki, the owners deserve their success – they work so hard at it.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:59:39 +0000

Is Waterfield’s closing? I hadn’t heard, that’s a shame.
I think The Book House in Summertown is still extant… but then I haven’t been through there for a few weeks. I shall have to have a closer look next time I’m up that way.

By: Simon T

Simon T — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:50:07 +0000

OH, and hasn’t the indie in Summertown closed?? I couldn’t find it when I went there the other day…

By: Simon T

Simon T — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:48:47 +0000

Wow, Gresham Book is my local secondhand bookshop in Somerset, I can’t believe it’s made the list! Not that it isn’t great – I’m just surprised anyone’s heard of it.

I was in Any Amount of Books this week, though didn’t trust myself to go into the basement. I think it’s my favourite secondhand bookshop in London.

As for Oxford… now that Waterfield’s is closing, we just have Blackwell’s overpriced section, and the book room at Antiques on High (which is quite good, but small).

By: Lauren

Lauren — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:08:21 +0000

I don’t know if rent is all that different, but Cambridge is certainly more gentrified in the ‘city centre’ than Oxford is. The best indie here actually sells overstocks rather than second-hand, and the second-hand shops I know (apart from Oxfam) are hideously overpriced.

By: Kirsty

Kirsty — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:00:28 +0000

Ah yes, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent a small fortune in the Byres Road Oxfam, Anna, especially when I lived on Kersland Street! It might just be me, though, but going to V&R, Caledonia, etc sort of felt like a different type of experience. More of a treat than going somewhere like Oxfam Books, which looks like every other Oxfam Books. The prices for your average paperback weren’t wildly different between the two (as far as I remember anyway – I left Glasgow over 4 years ago) but there was just something *different* about the indies.

That’s a good point about the locations of the second-hand bookshops. Perhaps it’s a rent issue, like Lauren up there suggested.

By: Simon S

Simon S — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:55:11 +0000

I am so, so pleased to see Scarthin books there! Thats just down the road from my home town of Matlock and is indeed utterly superb!

By: Anna

Anna — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:48:41 +0000

I’m quite amused by a quote from the article you linked you, ‘Oxfam is the Tesco of the secondhand book world’ !!! If only Tesco was the Oxfam of, well, any world. But there’s some odd truth to it: I might prefer the look and feel of Roots and Fruits to Maryhill Tesco, but that’s where I usually get my shopping; similarly, much as I love the bookshops in Glasgow you mention above, it is the Byres Road Oxfam I spend the most money in.

It’s interesting that many of the most popular second-hand bookshops on our shores are found in funny, pretty little towns (Wigtown, Alnwick, Sedbergh, also Hay-on-Wye), places usually visited by tourists or book-collectors