Second Hand Bookshops

[Serge]

Has anybody ever been to this place in Norwood?



It was one of those places I meant to check out while I was living in London and never got around to it.

(Tangentially related, as it was filmed there, but this video of Dr. Alex Paterson being interviewed is unintentionally hilarious because of the amount of nervous rocking back and forth on their feet that both men do.)

The St. Christopher's Hospice Shop in Sydenham is a decent place for books and records as well, if anyone can get down there (it's practically across the road from Sydenham station). I picked up Danny Baker's first book in hardback for £1.50 from there, amongst other goodies.

[Frazer]

Keel Row Bookshop, hidden away in North Shield (Tyneside), is a proper fusty old shop with so many books they're even piled up on the stairs. Just along the road at Tynemouth Metro station there's a book fair every couple of months where one of the platforms is crammed with all manner of books and comics.

[holyzombiejesus]

There are two 2nd hand bookshops here in Tod plus one in nearby Littleborough. They're not that great really, just a bit boring. The Littleborough one's the best. Hebden Bridge used to be great for 2nd hand shops but apparently people prefer cafes that serve beer for dogs to stuff like that nowadays.

[greenman]

I thought I read somewhere that Oxfam scan books on arrival and move some stock to other stores if they think it will get a better price there while higher value items may not even remain in the standard stores. I could be wrong though. Books given to charities that don't sell in a suitable time get sold off in bulk to secondhand wholesalers, some of which may turn up as 1p books on Amazon for a while before eventually being pulped if there's no sale. Several companies have built dynamic pricing systems designed to get the maximum price possible at that moment in time for any secondhand book that reaches them and the average independent bookseller doesn't really stand a chance competing on price against them.

Picked up a nice cheap book on Catalonian art nouveau(helped it had german text) from the Bristol Oxfam at the top of Park Street today and talked a bit to them confirming that a certain amount of stock shipping happens with a branch like there's getting higher value items shipped in to them from other branches.

[Gurke and Hare]

Jermy and Westerman on Mansfield Road is pretty good. (The other shop they had out towards Sherwood is now closed).

Geoff Clore's Bookshop? Aw, that was a great place to spend an hour or so. When I was in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago I was pleased to see that one of the bookshops in Hurt's Yard is still there, although with weird opening hours (something like 11-2 Tuesday and Wednesday - fuck opening on Saturday when there might be anyone around).

I made a special trip to Balham a few months ago to visit that shop that's now closed. As people have said, so many have closed now. I've got two Oxfam bookshops near me, Crouch End (which often has interesting comedy vinyl in) and Muswell Hill, which are both reasonably good and there's an excellent Red Cross bookshop in Palmer's Green that I go and have a look at a couple of times a year. Broomfield Park in Palmer's Green is nice too, with a good variety of birds but that's veering slightly off topic.

Oh, Skoob in Bloomsbury is worth a trip. Picked up the Ripping Yarns scriptbook there recently.

Edit: I'm going to Hull tomorrow. Any good ones there?

[Serge]

When I was in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago I was pleased to see that one of the bookshops in Hurt's Yard is still there, although with weird opening hours (something like 11-2 Tuesday and Wednesday - fuck opening on Saturday when there might be anyone around).

Hang on, what? There's a bookshop in Hurt's Yard? I always nip up there to check out Rob's Records when I'm in town, but I've never noticed that before. Probably because it wasn't open....

There was a weird bookshop on Burton Road in Derby in the '80s and '90s called Melbourne House that seemed to open whenever the owner felt like it. As I remember it, she was a slightly creepy middle-aged woman - I only went in once, and the stock wasn't exactly thrilling. When my dad was looking for premises for his bookshop, he put a note through her door asking if she's be interested in letting it to him, but predictably, didn't get a reply. Shame, as it would have been an ideal place.

Oh, Skoob in Bloomsbury is worth a trip. Picked up the Ripping Yarns scriptbook there recently.

I never really went to Skoob as often as I should. In fact, in twenty years of living in London, I went precisely once. I'm not sure why I didn't make the effort more often - I didn't work too far away from it for much of the time I was there.

[Captain Crunch]

As if I needed another excuse to go back to Tyneside, thanks Frazer. 

Charity bookshops tend to be at the mercy of their volunteers – if they have a good number who know their stuff then they can get good money, either in the shop or on specialist websites but if they're short on help stock can go out at a standard price.  You stand more of a chance of picking up a bargain in the general shops where – unless they have a special book volunteer – all books go out at 50p or a pound.  At the moment one of the charities I work with is sending all its unsold stock to World of Books who sell on for a penny on Amazon but I did sit in on a semi-serious discussion around selling bags of books on for firewood once.  And this picture still does the rounds when book recycling comes up:

I never really went to Skoob as often as I should. In fact, in twenty years of living in London, I went precisely once. I'm not sure why I didn't make the effort more often - I didn't work too far away from it for much of the time I was there.

I never went in either but that's because I was working in Bloomsbury when Fopp on TCR was still going.  I'd often come back from lunch with a sandwich, ten paperbacks and something on the Southern Lord label. 

I do miss the nice bookshop which used to be inside the Elephant & Castle shopping centre, you know, the one with the bright yellow front?  Any bookshop with a separate beat section gets my vote.  I also miss the RSPCA in Clevedon with their book room at the back but that's more because it felt so hidden; there's nothing like walking round a charity shop then finding a whole extra room full of books.

Glad to see Halcyon Books is still going strong AND they have a clearance branch now too. 

In the South West there is Bookbarn.  On the plus side it's cheap (everything's £1), great parking, the cafe is nice and you can happily spend an afternoon there just having a browse.  You do get some treasure there too, I found As Ever: the Ginsberg / Cassady Letters and Ann Charters' Kerouac biography in there on my last visit.  On the downside it's hell during the school holidays, the catalogue search machine never seems to work and if you get lost in the unsorted section it can feel a bit like being in landfill. 

Thornbury is also worth a visit as they have a nice little bookshop run by the local Lions Club.  Again it's all one price, 50p for paperback, £1 for the stiffies and there is a lot of filler but still worth a trip, especially for the hobby section.  The other bonus is that it's brought the price down in the other charity shops so places like MSPH and the new one in the centre are very cheap for books. 

[Icehaven]

That's brilliant! Next time there's some S4C fad book I'm so doing that.

[jobotic]

I can report that Baggins in Rochester is indeed still open.

[maett]

Used to be lovely old second hand bookshop down Windsor Street in Uxbridge. Long gone.
But the first place to spring to mind was a bookshop in Bangalore, India. It was even mentioned (with a photograph of the shop front) in the Lonely Planet India guide of around 1993/4.
It was floor to ceiling books, you could barely move inside, like a hoarders house but only books. I was looking for I, Claudius but the books weren't catergorised in any way, shape or form.  Not alphabetically, by subject matter, genre, nothing. After an interesting 30 odd minutes I asked the old bloke at the 'till' if he had it. He stood up and without scouring the stacks of books walked half way along the nearest aisle, got on a small stool and reached up moved a stack of books to reveal another stack behind them and pulled out I, Claudius in less than 5 seconds. It was unbelievable.
I'm not 100% sure this is the place (Premier Book Shop) as it was 23 years ago, but it looks and sounds like it, apparently there was a documentary made about the place called Shanbhag's Shop 
Here are some pics from this article about the place
http://raghavshreyas.com/raghav-shreyas/photography/premier-book-shop/


The till

[Serge]

Ha, that looks like the bookshop version of Rob's Records in Nottingham. I don't know, places like that drive me mad, I hate piles of books all over the place like that (even though that's how I've had to have my own books for most of my life). I just can't browse properly - I get the same thing in Rob's, I go in keen as mustard, knowing I'm going to find some goodies, but get fatigue from actually having to heave piles of records out of the way.

I can report that Baggins in Rochester is indeed still open.

Excellent! CaB meet?

[bushwick]

There's none left in soulless, gentrified Leeds, just charity shops (Oxfam Books in Headingley is the only decent one though really). There was a couple of decent stalls in Leeds market but they've gone too now. Went to Manchester about 8 years ago and there were still some good ones - one ran by an eccentric dude with one arm that offered me an orange, and one with books in the front, porn in the back (I always like those shops, a dying breed).

[Serge]

The first one sounds like Paramount Books, which tookish and myself have said contrasting things about earlier in the thread. When I first went looking for it, for some reason my map-reading skills completely deserted me, and I must have spent about half an hour looking for Shudehill. Last week when I was in Manchester, I was up and about quite early, and just walking around the city centre and managed to stumble across it without even looking for it - and there seemed to be another one further down with vintage porn mags in the window, for some reason.

Has anybody been to Books On The Park in Sheffield? I remember seeing a thing with Richard Hawley raving about it on FB last year, and noticed that it seems to do second hand vinyl as well, but I've not been up to Sheffield (other than as an interchange to get to Manchester) for a while to check it out for myself.

[hermitical]

When I lived near Hunters Bar in Sheffield there was a wonderfully quirky place which I think, on researching, was called YSF Books. Very small front but was over a number of floors, lots of odd things hanging from the ceiling and little quotes etc - very eccentric as I recall and I spent many an hour there - I was studying up the hill at Psalter Lane

[Captain Crunch]

The Lions shop on the London Road in Southend is brilliant for books, that's if it's still there?   

[Judge Foozle]

You could try here, but it might not be the right place.

https://thetraveltart.com/offbeat-travel-photo-wrong-book-shop/

[pigamus]

If you're in Birmingham, the Oxfam bookshop on King's Heath high street is pretty good, and there's one in Moseley too, which is good because you can get to them both on the same bus.

Apparently there's a sci-fi bookshop in Walsall somewhere - don't know if it's any good, I've never been there.

None of them will ever compare with the notorious and much-missed Reader's World:
https://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/readers-world-birmingham

[buttgammon]

I recommend the upstairs part of Chapters in Dublin (the downstairs is new books, so you can browse the nice crisp new copies, then go upstairs and get the same book for €1). The Oxfams here are all a bit shit for books as far as I've seen, although I have a feeling I saw a specific bookshop one in Rathmines that I haven't been in.

[Captain Crunch]

If you're in Birmingham, the Oxfam bookshop on King's Heath high street is pretty good, and there's one in Moseley too, which is good because you can get to them both on the same bus.

And what a super bus it is.

[tookish]

The first one sounds like Paramount Books, which tookish and myself have said contrasting things about earlier in the thread.

Just went back and found your comment. Yes, that's all very in character for him - watching you struggle, chatting to a mate rather than you, generally not really giving a shit about whether he has customers or not. Other times, he plies you with pieces of fruit and tries to persuade you to take huge volumes of a Victorian housekeeping anthology for free. He makes up prices on the spot, seemingly influenced by his mood rather than anything else. I'd compare him to Bernard Black, but I don't think you could actually write this guy into a comedy, as he'd push it all past the suspension of disbelief. It's hit and miss but he is a compelling character, whether he's in an affable temper or an absurdly rude one, and I go back over and over mostly for the pleasure of witnessing him in action.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Hay-on-Wye is of course the epicentre of the second hand book trade.

I thought Amazon Marketplace had been a big boost to 2nd hand sellers as they could get their lists seen nationally.

In London there's the Charing Cross Rd shops, and also Skoobs over in Bloomsbury, which now presumably will survive as they're virtually a brand. a new thing is Books For Amnesty, who have a branch in Hammersmith and a few others around the country. They'll do well on the strength of the Amnesty International brand.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

one with books in the front, porn in the back (I always like those shops, a dying breed).

That used to be how porn was distributed, as described in Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.

[iamcoop]

Double post

Oh well since I'm here, here's Barter Books in Alnwick because it's probably my favourite shop in the world. You could lose a day in here.

It's the old train station, they've converted the waiting room into a cafe, there's a fire with honesty-box tea-making facilities, there are model trains whizzing round - I mean I could go on...

One of my favourite buildings in the whole world. Plus you get the bonus of seeing Chris Donald of Viz fame pottering about if you happen to be in on one of the days he's working.

[Blinder Data]

Indian bookshop with piles of books everywhere

Serge, I agree with you about those places - they set me on edge. You can't adequately inspect at least half the books, plus God knows what condition most of them are in.

There's a place in Glasgow like that, Voltaire and Rousseau. I plain don't like it!



Most of the secondhand bookshops in Glasgow are in the West End, which is typical. Though a shout out must go to Calton Books round the corner from the Barras, run by a toothless old Trot specialising in anti-fascist, communist and Irish republican books, badges and flags.