Where to buy your books in the UK

[delicatemoth]

Want books, but don't wish to ever use Amazon again? This thread has you covered.

https://twitter.com/unbounders/status/1245291077751406593

I can also highly recommend the Portal Bookshop - http://portalbookshop.com/

[Jon]

Thanks delicatemoth. I haven't used Amazon for years now and don't miss it. I have used Foyles, Blackwells and Waterstones, abebooks (isn't that owned by Amazon though?) but mostly use hive.co.uk. it's still open for business at the moment but last week they were only sending single book orders. hive give you the option to choose a book shop and they donate a portion of what you spend (they don't specify how much) to that book shop. i have a number of favourites that i donate to. Unfortunately, one of them, in much wenlock, closed down last year, a fact i only found out when watching the recent panorama documentary on Amazon.

[Etienne]

I think they are only delivering locally during lockdown, but Oswestry's Booka bookshop is far better than you'd expect from the size (and frankly demography) of Oswestry.

[Patrick Thistle]

There's a very nice bookshop called Griffin Books in Penarth. Unfortunately one of my favourite children's bookshops, Rogan's in Bedford, won't be reopening after the lockdown.

[Jon]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...the-book-trade

Article on how booksellers are coping with lockdown.

Despite the rise in digital book sales during this period, the amount of people wanting to show off their bookshelves on video calls on the telly makes me think that the print book will be around with us for some time yet.

[Various Artist]

Hah, someone said on the Virtual 'Thon that I was doing that on camera too, until I pointed out it was my music racks visible behind me. These CDs are small, those books are far away...


I hadn't seen this thread before but was about to put in a word for the tiny but excellent Griffin Books in Penarth – then saw PT had beaten me to it a month ago! Under normal circumstances they can, miraculously, order basically any book you can think of into the shop for collection the next working day. My 90-year-old near neighbour whose recycling, garden, bird-feeding etc. I help with always gets me tokens for there at Christmas and my birthday, so I've usually got a ready-made reason to use them too.

[imp]

If I'm doing a video call, there's almost nowhere in the flat I can sit without a book shelf in the background. And even if there wasn't, I'd not be ashamed to advertise the fact that I like reading books. What's the controversy, exactly? Is it that classic British anti-intellectualism whereby people who read books are automatically seen as thinking they're better than other people?

[Duncan Gardner]

Yes

[Sporting]

I use the kitchen, where we have no books.

We should do a photo thread of our bookshelves and see if people can spot our more dodgy volumes.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

If I did a zoom in front of one particular bookcase you'd notice it was floor to ceiling books on golf and football. I've got a larger sports section than a decent sized Waterstones.

[Sporting]

Mine isn't so big - not by far - but I do have a decent selection of, mostly, football books.

[Etienne]

I use the kitchen, where we have no books.

We should do a photo thread of our bookshelves and see if people can spot our more dodgy volumes.

That's the sort of concept I can get behind.

[ad hoc]

https://bookshop.org/ - a centralised online shopping platform for independent bookshops

(I guess it's US specific though so not really fitting the thread)

[MsD]

Moving house yet again has persuaded me that I really need to use libraries more and buy fewer books, although I want almost all those I have, and yes, I have read almost all of them, although many not the whole way through (they are what you’d class as text books). I moved over to Kindle for a lot of books a few years ago. I have access to a few specialist physical libraries as well as Hackney’s. Still, I covet new books.

Anyway, I recommend Pages in Hackney as a lovely, friendly bookstore that has events. They had another shop off Brick Lane, but I believe that’s closed now.

[MsD]

[MsD]

[MsD]

There’s a whole bookshelf I missed out with mostly art books, but I haven’t re-assembled it yet. I can’t see The Arcades Project, but that lives next to my bed.

[MsD]

[Jon]

Beautiful, MsD.

[Sporting]

Are we doing "posting photos of our bookshelves"? If so, I'll have a go, later.

And nice stuff, MsD