The craziness that was the summer of 2022 saw an explosion in the phenomenon of bookshop crawling. For the uninitiated, a bookshop crawl is exactly what it sounds like. You hop from bookstore to bookstore and maybe (almost inevitably) buy some books on your way. But in many ways the book-buying part isn’t what it’s really about. A bookshop crawl isn’t a shopping trip. It’s more about experiencing the bookshops themselves and getting a feel for what makes each of them special. By the end, you have a sense of the chosen city’s literary landscape. Getting shitfaced is optional, but I find it helps. It’s also, at its core, a social activity. Sure, you can tour a city’s bookshops by yourself, but to do so would be to miss out on the magic of bookshop crawling. For me, what makes it special is the camaraderie; discussing books, comparing your respective hauls at the end, all the unscripted silliness that happens when you get folks together for a little organized fun.
On June 10th 2022, I embarked on my first bookstore crawl. The city was London and my company was my good friend and creative collaborator, Emily. It was a warm day in the capital, Emily was somewhat hungover, and we hit up four bookstores. Daunt—Marylebone, Word on the Water, Any Amount of Books, and Waterstones—Piccadilly. The crawl was a roaring success, and we had a feeling that it wouldn’t be our last.
Then just a few weeks later, on July 2nd 2022, I went bookstore crawling again. This time the city was Houston and I was joined by my two loves Aaron and Anne-Marie. Houston is about as different from London’s European, pedestrianized urban design as possible. Houston is a city built for cars, not people; a sprawling grid of strip mall islands separated by wide asphalt canals. Trying to get from island to island without a car is a surefire way to get pancaked by a Silverado. And even if you somehow make it across, you’ll succumb to the humidity before you ever reach your destination. Either way you’re roadkill. So just by having a car, the crawl took on a different character. As frustrating as Houston’s atomized design can seem, there are thousands of wonderful little places to discover among its disconnected islands. After a walk around the local bayou, we stopped off for crepes and coffee at Retrospect Coffee Bar, and then began our crawl in earnest. We hit up Brazos Bookstore, Murder By The Book, and Barnes & Noble, and it was another great success.
Both of these experiences helped in making the next crawl an absolute doozey. Emily and I first started discussing it over a year ago, in September 2022. The idea was to spend more time with the Green Witches (Hilde, Sigrún, & Lucia), who, as the name suggests, now lived in Greenwich. But due to various logistical concerns, the crawl kept getting postponed. We were determined to make it as ambitious as possible, and wanted to wait for a time that suited everyone. We were very conscious of the fact that people could disappear from your life so easily. We no longer had university as a structure that bound us all together. We were all focused intensely on finding jobs and securing our respective futures. We had all moved away from Kingston to various parts of London. The MA had gone by in a flash, with so little time actually spent on campus and very few organized events. We’d just met all these incredible people and now the hard necessities of life were pulling us in different directions. London is also a city where time goes by fast. With everyone working and the cost of living so expensive, it’s difficult to see anyone regularly.
And so Emily and I crafted this bookshop crawl around the idea of solidifying those friendships we’d made in Kingston. In total we were able to rally 6 people from the Publishing MA, all of whom we were hopelessly in love with: Lucia, Hilde, Sigrún, Marta, Rae, and Daisy. We agreed that it was an insanely strong lineup. A date was set for October 15th, and we crafted an itinerary of 6 bookshops. Since Daunt—Marylebone was the first stop on our list, we chose our meeting point as Paddington Street Gardens, since trying to meet inside the actual store itself would have been chaos. This gave us all time to catch up, dispense hugs, and go over the plan.
After taking a quick roll call and handing everyone their custom bookmarks, I asked each person if they had anything in particular that they were looking for. Lucia answered Babel, Emily said something by poet Louise Glück (who had passed away two days prior), and Marta said she hoped to find a birthday present for her 9-year-old nephew. We paused to take a group photo and remark on our appreciation for Rae’s sun-and-moon earrings before heading off, two-by-two, for Daunt.
Daunt Books
Address: 84 Marylebone High St, London W1U 4QW
Type: Indie chain (9 locations in total)
Theme: Travel
My Purchases: Diary of a Void
The Daunt in Marylebone is my favorite store on this list, and probably my favorite bookshop in the UK. Daunt is a small, indie chain like Foyles or Blackwell’s, but perhaps a notch classier if you can believe it. They’re known for their popular canvas tote bags, which you will see everywhere you go in London. They’re sturdy and stylish in equal measure, and you genuinely can’t go on the tube without seeing people wearing them. The bags come in several colors, but the classic dark green is by far the most popular. Emily has one that she takes everywhere she goes.
The other thing Daunt is known for is the unique way they arrange their bookshelves. The emphasis of Daunt is travel, and so their shelves are categorized by country rather than genre. So if you’re curious about Turkey, for example, then you can go over to the shelves marked as such and peruse Turkish authors. That includes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, everything. All genres mixed together. Turkish crime novels will sit alongside Turkish travel guides. It’s a really nice system, because it just changes the way you experience a bookstore, and I think it encourages you to consider books you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.
The Daunt in Marylebone is extra special though, as it’s the flagship store and located in this beautiful Edwardian building with polished oak galleries, a high ceiling, and skylights that flood the place with sunshine. The dark green color scheme in conjunction with the oaken interior just gives it this cozy, warm, sophisticated vibe. There are Edwardian lamps, stained glass, arched windows, and decorative William Morris prints. The wooden floors of the galleries and narrow staircases creak underfoot, but not in a this-place-is-a-shithole kinda way; rather, you feel like you’re stepping back in time.
The store’s beauty has earned it many admirers on social media, so it’s never empty. When we went there it was absolutely packed. I set my timer and told the gang to meet outside in 20 minutes. Within a flash, everyone disappeared in the sea of bibliophiles. I headed downstairs and looked for a book in the Japanese section that I’d been thinking of getting, called Fault Lines. As I weighed up whether I wanted it or not, Daisy appeared at my shoulder. She pointed out a book on the table that she’d recently read, called Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi. She said it was a nice, easy read that anyone could breeze through. It sounded like the book I needed at that moment. I’ve been really struggling with my concentration this year, to the point where I’ve worried that I’m losing the ability to read properly. My mind just disengages from whatever I put in front of it, and charges off in a dozen different directions. It’s happening with activities other than reading too. So, I put Fault Lines back where I found it and chose to purchase Diary of a Void instead.
Foyles
Address: 107 Charing Cross Rd, London WC2H 0DT
Type: Indie chain (7 locations in total)
Theme: General
My Purchases: She Who Became the Sun, The Trio, The Secret Talker
Foyles is a small, high-quality chain of bookstores in the UK. They were actually bought by Waterstones in 2018 but they retain their brand identity and autonomy. Whenever I think of Foyles, I think of the one they have on the Southbank. I’m not sure when—perhaps in my late teens—I took a trip to London with my family and my mom pointed it out. She said that Foyles was a really nice bookstore and that there weren’t many of them, so we stopped there. Ever since then, I’ve always thought of it as an upscale Waterstones—a treat for special occasions. I don’t know if there is much tangible difference between the two, but it’s mostly based on the way my mom talked about it that time. And the fact that there’s a Waterstones in every city, and only 7 Foyles stores in total. When something’s ubiquitous like Waterstones, it feels less prestigious, and when something is rare, like Foyles, Daunt, or Blackwell’s, the opposite holds true.
I’d heard that Foyles had a flagship store in Charing Cross that was meant to be massive, so I was quite excited to see what that looked like and therefore added it to the itinerary. The Foyles at Charing Cross has 4 miles of bookshelves across 6 floors, which I think makes it the second-biggest bookstore in the UK. The biggest is Waterstones—Piccadilly, which has 8 miles of shelves and is said to be the largest bookshop in Europe. I know that the Blackwell’s in Oxford has the biggest single room selling books, but I feel like Foyles—Charing Cross is the bigger store overall. You’ve also got some fat second-hand bookshops in Hay-On-Wye, so I’m not 100% sure. Either way, the Foyles at Charing Cross is definitely huge.
Unfortunately, I had the same experience I had last year at Waterstones—Piccadilly; going to a bookstore famed for its size but unable to find the books I wanted. Last year it was Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This time around, I was looking for Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie. Both prominent contemporary authors. Disappointing. Nevertheless, I ended up buying 3 books here—one of which I’ve already finished (The Secret Talker by Geling Yan).
I found Rae sat on a bench upstairs reading a copy of Yellowface. She was doing this thing where she picked it up at every store we went to, reading a little, putting it back, and then continuing where she left off at the next stop. I told her I really wanted to get into Fredrik Backman, but I was waiting for my next trip to the USA so that I could get the American covers of his books.
“The American covers are always better,” Rae agreed.
Overall, Foyles—Charing Cross was a good time. However, I wish I could have seen Foyles back in the day. During the mid-to-late 20th century, Foyles was known for a payment system that ranged somewhere between eccentric and completely off its tits. The staff weren’t allowed to handle money, so customers had to queue 3 separate times; once to collect an invoice for the book, once to pay the invoice, and once to collect the damn thing. They also refused modern conveniences like electronic tills or calculators, and all the books in the store were arranged by publisher, not by genre. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.
The London Review Bookshop
Address: 14-16 Bury Pl, London WC1A 2JL
Type: Indie bookshop
Theme: General
My Purchases: French Braid
I loved this place! It’s a real booklover’s paradise. For some reason I got the feeling that this was a real “writer’s bookshop”. The store is run by The London Review, a prestigious literary journal, and is known for hosting events like book-signings and readings. It’s got a clean, understated look with a lot of natural light. It’s not big but it’s not tiny either; there’s a downstairs too where they have non-fiction books and crates of cheap second-hand books arranged on tables. I ended up buying French Braid by Anne Tyler, my mother’s favorite author.
Fun fact! I discovered Anne Tyler during the final year of undergrad at the University of Winchester when my dissertation supervisor recommended her work. At the time I was trying out different ideas for a novella I was writing, and he hated every one of them. All of my stories were family melodramas set in American suburbia. My supervisor told me I was trying to be something I’m not, but said that if I insisted on writing about middle-class American life, then I should read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. I bought a copy for my mom and she loved it. Anne Tyler then went on to become her favorite author and she has since read all 24 of her novels. She’s got a signed hardback of French Braid but I felt like owning my own copy, hence my purchase.
Sadly, it was after our visit to The London Review Bookshop that we had to bid farewell to Marta, who had her nephew’s birthday party to attend. She did very well though, managing to get 6 books from 3 shops, including a sick Minecraft annual for the little birthday boy.
Skoob Books
Address: 66 The Brunswick off, Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AE
Type: Second-hand bookshop
Theme: Academia
My Purchases: The Roman Imperial Army
The first of our three Marchmont Street stops was Skoob Books, a second-hand bookstore specializing in academic books. I really liked the design of this place—for some reason it made me think of films from the 1970s. The building itself is this big, concrete Brutalist structure that evokes this forgotten idea of the future. The bookstore is located on the side, tucked away in this alley, accessible via a raised balcony that overlooks this little garden. Of all the stores on this list, Skoob Books is the most clandestine. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d probably miss it.
The bookstore itself is actually underground. As I descended the two flights of wrought iron stairs down to the store, I noticed an old man waiting at the bottom that seemed to be watching me intently. I smiled at him in thanks for waiting, and as I reached the foot of the stairs, he told me how much he liked my cowboy boots. At first, I thought he was just being friendly, but then he started asking me where I’d bought them.
“Cavender’s Boot City in Houston, Texas,” I told him. He asked me how you spelled Cavender’s. I was like: Damn, this guy finna go to Texas. He was serious. I wished him luck and rejoined my friends in the store. Although specializing in academic books, they have fiction too. I found Sigrún and Lucia turning the fantasy section upside-down in search of a Percy Jackson novel that seemed to be eluding them. During her search, Sigrún ended up finding what was undoubtedly the most interesting book on our crawl. Two books in one—King Arthur and Pinocchio. Only the book had been made as if you’d printed two separate books and subsequently glued them together, with the King Arthur cover on one side and the Pinocchio cover on the other. It was a really nice find. As for myself, I found this big hardback book on the Ancient Roman military for only a fiver—bargain! Growing up I loved big, encyclopedic history books, especially if they had maps in them. I’d take them in the car on long journeys, or I’d have them on hand while watching football in case the game got boring. I’m hoping this particular book can be a resource for little technical details (equipment, clothing, food, etc) in case I write some historical fiction in the future. Earlier this year I published a short story set in Ancient Rome that came 5th place in a competition. While I’m proud of it and obviously happy the judges liked it, I was a little dissatisfied with the story. I’d rushed it in a couple days and I didn’t have my trusty, annotated copy of SPQR on hand. You can find the story here if you’re interested.
Judd Books
Address: 82 Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AG
Type: Second-hand bookshop
Theme: Academia
My Purchases: N/A
Judd Books is your quintessential used bookstore. Out front you’ve got crates of dog-earned 70s paperbacks for one quid each, arranged along tables beneath a fabric awning. Inside you get the impression that they’ve tried to cram in more books than they’ve got space for. The place is absolutely packed with old books, from the floor to the ceiling. It reminded me a lot of Any Amount of Books; dusty, eclectic chaos—the kind of place where you’ll either find nothing that interests you or a rare book that you won’t find anywhere else. Judd felt like every second-hand bookstore I’d been to.
Like Skoob, they specialize chiefly in academic books, but with a particular emphasis on art, music, and social sciences. There’s not much space to move, so we had to squeeze in single file and slowly shuffle from shelf to shelf. In the basement they have all the political science books, including a whole room devoted to socialism, which I greatly appreciated. For some reason this basement made me think of my uncle. My uncle on my father’s side has given me a lot of books down the years, and almost all of them are paperbacks from the 70s and 80s that feel like they’re from another world. Mostly they’re books about American politics, so I guess that’s why I thought of him at that moment. I didn’t see anything that took my fancy in Judd however, and it’s the only store on this list where I didn’t end up buying anything. Overall, this is a great place to go if you’re looking to pick up some old political tomes on the cheap.
Gay’s the Word
Address: 66 Marchmont St, London WC1N 1AB
Type: Indie bookshop
Theme: LGBTQ+
My Purchases: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Last Night at the Telegraph Club
The last stop on our crawl was a special place. Founded in 1979 by a gay socialist group, Gay’s the Word is the UK’s oldest LGBT bookshop and one of the most famous queer bookstores in the world. For a long time, it was the only LGBT bookshop in England. It’s not the biggest place—in fact I think it’s the smallest store on this list, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in its rich history and iconic status. It was also quite busy when we went, even though it was late afternoon on a Sunday, so clearly its reputation precedes it. Even though the shop is quite small, it has a variety of sections covering everything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella; there are shelves devoted to queer history, new voices, classics, lesbian fiction, gay fiction, YA fiction, et cetera. They also sell goodies like tote bags, pins, badges, all that fun stuff.
I ended up buying two books, one of which was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I’ve been wanting to try TJR for a while now just to see what the fuss is all about, and I chose this one because I’m interested in the era of “Classic Hollywood”. I’m also intrigued by what I’ve heard about the structure of the novel. That said, a few of my friends have told me that this isn’t TJR’s best work. The same conversation has happened with completely different friends that don’t even know each other, and they always tell me, “It’s okay, but Carrie Soto shits all over it, mate”. Nevertheless, I’m still excited to give it a go.
By the end of our crawl, we were quite tired and hungry. Luckily, my ever-dependable co-coordinator Lucia (voted by our class last year as the “Best Business Brain” on the MA program) had identified a local joint by the name of The Marquis Cornwallis for us to gather at the end of the crawl. It was perfect—right on Marchmont Street, with plenty of space, a nice atmosphere, and drinks that weren’t outrageous by London pricing standards. And, being a pub, it offered us flexibility; those that wanted to get food could do so, and those that didn’t could just get drinks without it being weird. I opted for a roast dinner on the grounds of “fuck it”.
As we sat down, we arranged all of our books into stacks on the table and placed them alongside one another. Daisy proved to be the most unhinged, with a total of 12 books weighing down her tote bag. Somehow, Rae had managed to go the whole crawl without giving into temptation and buying anything. But the fact she didn’t buy anything only served to endear her to us all, as it implied that she had come along purely for our company. A few of us hadn’t seen each other in about a year and half, as our classes had ended in March 2022, after which everyone became consumed with their dissertations. Some folks, like Daisy for example, had moved out of London since then. Time seemed to have flown by. But it was great to see everyone enjoying each other’s company so much. The evening passed by with wine and laughter. Emily and I watched with satisfaction as a bunch of the girls were having animated discussions about a cruise-ship-themed reality show and making plans to see an Icelandic pop singer together.
“Look at this,” I told her. “This is what it’s all about, right here.”
Emily raised her glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and I dutifully clinked it with my own.
“Mission accomplished.”
Here’s our total haul! Altogether we got exactly 50 books, with the individual tallies as follows:
Me: 8
Emily: 6
Sigrún: 7
Hilde: 7
Lucia: 4
Marta: 6
Rae: 0
Daisy: 12
TumbleweedWrites 
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