Independent bookshops are always charming and intriguing; they aren’t usually very big and famous, and you can find whichever gem of literature you are intensely craving for. They are unique and unreplaceable.
Blackwell’s bookshop – although they have a couple of stores in London and a few in the United Kingdom – has been able to maintain these characteristics. The location is quite peculiar – the bookshop is only a few minutes walking from Chancery Lane tube station for readers who come from East, and a few minutes walking from Holborn tube station for book-lovers who come from West. This means that the important London School of Economics is just around the corner and easily reachable as well as the famous and important British Museum which stands only a pair of blocks behind the store. As I arrive in front of the store, I spend some minutes to look interestingly at the main window. The best-sellers and new releases dominate the biggest part of the display. A pleasant and intense smell of coffee and printed paper hit my nostrils as I get through the entrance. An unusual and unexpected shelf immediately catches my attention. I hadn’t ever seen such a rich and varied selection of works focused on London – there are guides books, of course, but there also are collections of short stories and other curiosities on the City (“London’s strangest tales” by Tom Quinn is one of them). A grey moquette softens the thumping of my paces on the floor. A light buzzing of customers’ and booksellers’ voices echoes in the entire room. Big tables with stacks of books stand along the main aisle, and I immediately see novels by H.P Lovecraft – his unmissable collection “The call of Cthulhu” – and Thomas De Quincey. An unexpected surprise immediately catches my eye; on the corner of the table, almost hidden as though it was shyly trying not to get noticed, an English-translated copy of “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri lays lonely. I think it’s the first time I find this work in a bookshop. I quickly go through the rich and valuable fiction section. I freeze – literally – before the assorted ‘Staff choices’ shelf. It is an entire wall, and it contains different varieties of books – from novels to essay, from crime to horror, from romance to sci-fi – but, before leaving, I can’t help detecting two of my favourite readings: “And then there were none” by the incredible Agatha Christie and “1984” by the immense George Orwell.
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November 2020
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