M@Bookish London: Photos Of The Capital's Love Affair With Books
London has some of the world's greatest bookshops, from the Instafamous Daunt Marylebone to the treasured independents dotted through the suburbs. But London's book culture runs far beyond the bookshops themselves into the streets, museums and even graveyards.
Here, we've selected some favourite images from our days spent exploring literary London...
Hurlingham Books near Putney Bridge Tube isn't so much a shop full of books as a massive teetering pile of books that happens to have the appurtenances of a building lurking within. Images: Matt BrownOne of Tate Modern's most memorable works of art is 'The British Library', by Yinka Shonibare. Its 2,700 books feature names of immigrants who have made a lasting contribution to British culture or history. It's magnificent. Image: Matt BrownPick up a Penguin. The place to go is Waterstones off Gower Street, which not only has a wall full of second-hand Penguin Classics, but also a Penguin dispenser. Images: Matt BrownPiccadilly is home to several notable bookshops including the massive Waterstones and the posh old Hatchards. Posher still is Maison Assouline, beloved of Instagrammers, which specialises in travel and arts books of the highest calibre. Image: Matt BrownBookish plaques. London contains numerous plaques to authors and fictional characters. Occasionally it has plaques to bookshops and even bookshops contained within books. Here we find one on King's Cross Road to one from an Arnold Bennett classic, as well as the (non-fictional) Marks & Co. immortalised in the book 84 Charing Cross Road. Oh, and there's a plaque to a certain travel bookshop in Notting Hill, which we hear people like to photograph.Bookish graves. Highgate Cemetery contains a number of book-shaped graves. Here, we see the final resting place of William Foyle (of bookshop fame), and of presenter Jeremy Beadle. Best known for TV pranks, Beadle was also a prolific author. Images: Matt BrownPlaywright Joe Orton defaced dozens of Islington library books in the early 1960s, often using collage to comic effect. While nobody would condone the disfigurement of public property, it's hard not to giggle at the results. He was sentenced to six months in prison for his tomfoolery, which seems more than harsh, especially as the books are now a treasured item on display in Islington Museum. Image: Matt BrownThe floating bookshop. We could celebrate any number of quirky bookshops in this list, but nowhere is quite like Word on the Water. The bookshop nestles within (and without) an old barge on the Regent's Canal at King's Cross. Despite limited size, the boat manages to feel roomy and comfortable, and holds a varied stock. Images: Matt BrownLondon's free bookswaps come in all shapes and sizes (and we've mapped hundreds of them here), but the most fetching are surely the ones built into old phone boxes. Several can be found around town, including these in Lewisham and Islington. Images: Matt BrownA book embarks on its journey to a reading room via conveyor belt. We went behind the scenes at the British Library in June 2023. Not long after, they suffered a major cyber attack. It wasn't anything to do with us, honest. Image: LondonistThe writing desk of Charles Dickens at his former home in Doughty Street, central London, with some of Dickens' own reading material on a nearby shelf. Image: LondonistThe Middlesex Deeds Registry (1709-1938) is still widely read by visitors at the London Archives in Clerkenwell, a trove of records covering the whole of Greater London. We went behind the scenes in 2024. Image: LondonistLondon has numerous monuments to great writers, but the best-selling of the lot is Agatha Christie. A bust of the murder mystery writer stands in Covent Garden, around the corner from the St. Martin's Theatre, home to Christie's play The Mousetrap, which has been running in the West End for over 70 years. Image: LondonistAnd finally... when all the books have gone. We snapped this sad photo in 2014, when Foyles moved out of its historic home on Charing Cross Road. Happily, they re-opened just a few doors down. Image: Matt Brown
