THEFollow a shelf.
See where it takes you.
Map: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, © OpenStreetMap contributors and GIS User Community. Selected streets and water; numbered points use the existing address matches. Use directions for your visit.
Browse the drawings. Open a shop for visiting details.
At Daunt’s Marylebone shop, a country can lead you across subjects. The bookselling extends from new fiction to secondhand travel writing, with author conversations held in the same branch.
Shelved by country. An interest can cross three subjects without leaving the room.
83–84 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4QW
Poetry, politics, fiction and natural history share the selection at the London Review Bookshop. Founded by the journal, it also hosts conversations with writers.
A review starts it. The next book is on the shelf beside it. Go three deep before you form an opinion.
14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL
Libreria uses themes such as The City and Wanderlust to arrange its shelves. That changes the browsing question: what connects these books?
Books shelved by theme put unexpected titles in conversation.
65 Hanbury Street, London E1 5JP
The London Bookbarge changes the room around the reading. Word on the Water sells books from a boat on Regent’s Canal and runs a creative writing group.
Our Detour follows the water: a different setting for the ordinary act of opening a book.
Regent’s Canal towpath, Granary Square, King’s Cross, London
John Sandoe occupies three adjoining eighteenth-century shops, with books spread over three floors. Its selection leans toward the humanities: literature, history, art and the lives behind them.
A crowded shelf rewards a second look.
10–12 Blacklands Terrace, London SW3 2SR
A bookshop puts someone else’s choices in front of you. Spend time with a subject outside your work. See what comes back with you.
Queer writing runs through The Common Press, from poetry and graphic novels to disability studies, feminism and political thought. Zines sit within the same broad edit.
A history, an argument, a zine. Three formats for the same conviction.
118 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 6DG
Bàrd combines bookshelves with coffee, pastries and a programme of readings and music on Roman Road. Its debut-author evenings give new writers a short turn on stage.
A new voice at a reading can send you back to the shelves.
341–343 Roman Road, London E3 5QR
Gay’s the Word places new LGBTQ+ writing alongside fiction, poetry, history and rare books. Its Marchmont Street shop also hosts readings and community groups.
Another writer, another account, another way of putting experience into words. Count the ways.
66 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AB
A magazine cover can stop you as effectively as a sentence. Claire de Rouen makes room for that kind of reading: photography, fashion and visual culture, selected with a particular eye.
A photograph is a sentence in another grammar. Come with a visual question, or leave with one.
11A Kingsland Road, London E2 8AA
The Corporate Artist: The Art of Working Beautifully is Morgan Sage Norman’s book about bringing your creative self to everyday work. It explores how the roles we play, the conversations we have and the decisions we make can become creative practice.
Find your copy ↗Try Every Role Has a Medium (Your Craft) for a different way to look at what you do.
Or turn to Nothing Is Wasted and Rightsizing Importance. Begin with the title that catches you.
Another city. Another way to look.