Options
Favourite secondhand bookshops
I have a horrible suspicion that bookshops will soon become rare finds due to the Ebook/Kindle/whatever electronic device sinister and stealthy advances 
Post your recommendations for great secondhand bookshops all over the UK and Ireland, so those of us who love the feel sight and smell of real books can continue to do so.
Here's mine :
Barter Books in Alnwick Northumberland ... heaven on earth.
Bookends in Bangor Northern Ireland ... two shops next door to each other and not bad atall, one shop has every book at £1.
Post your recommendations for great secondhand bookshops all over the UK and Ireland, so those of us who love the feel sight and smell of real books can continue to do so.
Here's mine :
Barter Books in Alnwick Northumberland ... heaven on earth.
Bookends in Bangor Northern Ireland ... two shops next door to each other and not bad atall, one shop has every book at £1.
0
Comments
We did have a nice little independent bookshop for a good few years, but then a borders came along and crushed them, Then they packed up business.
And to be fair, Ebooks are not the death of bookshops completely, the internet was killing them well before Ebooks started becoming popular.
I would love a nice second hand bookshop though, or a rare bookshop, or even a nice independent again
Along with Abebooks and Biblio-online sellers-and Ebay.
I mean no disrespect to the internet lovers of cheap book buying. It's this bit of the OP's post that's important. Looking through piles of real books to find maybe the one you've always fancied reading and never got round to. Maybe finding that rare gem. I miss second hand bookshops.
Most of the bookshops I loved have already gone so I can't think of any particular reccomendations. I have some success at charity shops though, and the oxfam bookshops whilst overpriced can have some rare finds.
I love a decent second hand book shop, the kind with piles of random old stuff - not the Oxfams that have a few shelves of fairly recent paperback bestsellers. I really like old (as in Victorian/Edwardian) household manuals, cookbooks, that sort of thing. I've got quite a few really fab ones, including a 'ladies' book from the turn of the century, with all sorts of advice about *whisper* 'lady things'.
Admittedly, I was being facetious. Still, I do find the Amazon used books to be great when I want a particular book that's out of print, and can get that book within days. For instance, I got Maurice and A Passage to India, both by EM Forster, from Amazon's used book service. Both are out of print and it's not too certain that I'd have found them at a second hand shop. Sometimes I think of a book I want, and want to be able to get it without too much hassle.
However, yeah, browsing books in second hand book stores is something, when you have the time to get to them, that's a good experience. Maybe when looking for Maurice and A Passage to India, I might have noticed a book that I wouldn't have considered before. Swings and roundabouts comes to mind.
I love it there! I can spend ages rummaging and never leave empty handed. And it has the cat:D
Awkward when I knock a big pile over though:o but they're used to it, haha.
And yeah, when I know what I want I go to Thistle Books. Used to get my uni books there, I'd bring my long lists and the guy would help me get them.
Baggins Rochester. Still largest outside Hay.
Skoob, Brunswick Centre London.
That shop is literally 20 minutes from my house.
http://www.dickensmuseum.com/vtour/groundfloor/fronthallway/dickenslife.php
http://www.walksoflondon.co.uk/39/a-charles-dickens-walk-in.shtml
I like Henry Pordes in Charing Cross also.