It wouldn't come as a surprise if I tell you all one of the (many) reasons I wanted to go back to London was to buy books. As simple as that. Although I didn't have much time to really explore the city besides the mandatory monuments/museums and what have you, I convinced my sister and her friend to let me spent one afternoon visiting some bookshops. And so the dreadful task of selecting which bookshops I was going to go into began. I narrowed my list to three: Persephone Books, Folio Society & Foyles. Lucky for us, all three were near we were staying at, sort of. Both Persephone Books and Folio Society are close to each other and they are also a 10-15 minute walk from Russell Square. Foyles is at Charing Cross Road which is also near Trafalgar Square. Win-win situation for us and our feet, or so we thought. We visited all three bookstores during our second day and we ended up being quite tired at the end of the day, especially since we had a few problems finding Persephone Books.
Let me explain... we had a physical map of the city and while we were having lunch we decided to pinpoint all the places we wanted to visit. That was the easy part. We got all lucky because they were close to each other and so after lunch, we headed towards Persephone Books. The thing is, I pinpointed the place but not the street name (in my defense I will say the map didn't have all the street names on it) and it didn't occur to me to write it down and so when the time came, we didn't know which one we had to go for. Fear not my friends... I decided to go down one of the streets just because. Let's just say I had a hunch and there it was: Persephone Books. Like it was meant to be.
PERSEPHONE BOOKS
Persephone Books is a lovely independent bookshop that publishes forgotten fiction and non-fiction classics by mostly women writers. Their books are very distinctive. All grey and with beautiful endpapers. However, they also have re-printed with different covers a few of their best-sellers. The shop is tiny but it's very beautiful and I ended up picking up three books even though I could have bought more. Funny enough, I didn't get any book with the grey cover but I plan to order some online - you can buy from their website and hey, they give you a bookmark that matches the endpapers of the book; a bookmark you don't get if you order anywhere else. And bless the lovely workers there. They were so kind as to tell us where Eagle Street was in order to get to Folio Society. They even searched it on Google Maps right in front of us. They are the reason we didn't lose more time that day and could get to the next bookshop without troubles.
FOLIO SOCIETY (FOLIO 44)
If I thought Persephone Books was tiny, Folio Society was teeny-weeny and again, gorgeous. Although the bookshop is very small, it's packed with books (it's like being in heaven!). They publish outstanding crafted editions of well-known pieces of literature. I knew about them thanks to a few bloggers but never in my life would I have thought the books could look that good on real life and just like that I was seriously tempted to buy more than just the two books I wanted to get initially. Yet, I controlled myself and only got those two books: Emma by Jane Austen & Perrault's Fairy Tales. Well, I bought Emma first and once I was out of the shop I remembered I had to get Perrault's too and I went back. It was a bit embarrassing to be honest. Oh, and when I bought Emma the guy there gave us three beautiful notebooks for all of us, which was very sweet of him. Once Persephone Books and Folio Society were visited, we set our way to Foyles.
FOYLES
This bookshop is huge. I'm not even kidding. They have like 6 floors full of books. Well, technically 5 since the last one is a cafe and a gallery but still, that's pretty impressive for an independent bookshop. And here is where I did most of my damage you know why? Because they have very so much books and so much editions it was impossible to resist temptation and so I caved. I won't say I picked up books out of the blue though... every single book I bought was already on my wishlist and since you guys know how hard it is to buy books in English - the ones I want - in Spain, I decided to get them instead of coming home and order them online. I mean, I think I took the right decision, don't you agree? :)
BOOK HAUL
Anyways, at the end of my trip I was left with the task of fitting 17 books - YES, 17 BOOKS, you've read correctly - inside my suitcase and fortunately, they did fit. Again, it was all meant to be and so here I am today, almost one month and a half after my trip showing you what books I purchased while I was there. I'm not gonna talk you through all of them but if you wanna know more about each specific book you can either click on the titles (they will link you to Goodreads) listed at the end of the post or ask me on the comments below :) Without further ado, here they are.... Enjoy!!!
*Please note: two of the 16 books were not purchased in any of the bookshops I just mentioned. One I bought when I was in Anthropologie and the other one at Waterstones.
*Please note: two of the 16 books were not purchased in any of the bookshops I just mentioned. One I bought when I was in Anthropologie and the other one at Waterstones.
Books from Anthropologie & Waterstones
Books from Persephone Books
Books from Folio Society
This one is the lovely notebook they gave us ^^
Books from Foyles
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Mariana by Monica Dickens
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
Perrault’s Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
Emma by Jane Austen
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola
Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
Princesses Behaving Badly by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Sorry for the longest post in the history of long posts but I hope you have enjoyed it nonetheless =)
What about you? Which books have you recently acquired?
What about you? Which books have you recently acquired?
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