London bookshops
Literary exits
Bookshops in London are disappearing thick and fast. One of the latest casualties is Angel Books in Camden Passage, a great favourite of London-RIP. This follows hot on the heels of the independent bookshop, Islington Green and it's not unreasonable to suppose that this may have a little something to do with the massive Borders that's opened in the N1 centre.
London bookshops RIP: Roe and Moore - stomach vs books
Closures are happening all over the place. Just recently, I was in Bloomsbury next to the British Museum. One of those shops that you always look in was Roe and Moore, a fantastic bookshop that sold 20th century art and design publications. It has just shut down and was being repainted a gaudy green, and looked as if it would reopen as a Thai cafe. The proprietor of Roe and Moore was a bearded, rather cerebral chap who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of modern design and graphics. It's sad that central London is able to feed the stomach, but not the mind.
London bookshops RIP: Sisterwrite
Going back a bit further, North London was something of a bookworm's paradise in days of yore, especially for those of us who fancied ourselves as a bit alternative. One of its most notable offerings was Sisterwrite on Upper Street. This was really the ultimate feminist bookshops. Rumour has it that they didn't let men in at all, but I don't think this is true, although I don't remember an awful lot of guys hanging out there. Obviously, Sisterwrite sold books by women, but not just your Viragos or Women's Press. It was full of fascinatingly obscure imports and radical feminist magazines. You could spend hours browsing in there (unless you were a bloke of course... joke). London-RIP thinks it closed in around 1990, but correct us if we're wrong.
London bookshops RIP: Silver Moon - books vs botox
Another great feminist bookshop was Silver Moon on Charing Cross Road. London-RIP remembers this as being a bit more mainstream than Sisterwrite. It flourished in the 1980s, but is no longer in the original shop - it's moved to Foyles, I believe. Now we're all so gloriously post modernist there's the idea that feminism somehow wasn't as much fun as blowing a year's salary on a pair of shoes or having botox injected into your forehead. This is not true. These bookshops were fascinating places that were genuinely devoted to ideas and the spirit of inquiry. They were a lot of fun. So there.
London bookshops RIP: Classic Compendium
You can't write about bookshops without mentioning Compendium,
that mother of all left-wing bookshops in Camden High Street near the
lock. Compendium was fantastic. It had the best selection of books on
music ever known, as well as tons of quite imaginative left-wing stuff.
I remember buying a comic book starring Tintin as an anarcho socialist
there. Don't ask me why. In the late 80s it was also the only place you
could buy books on astrology and the occult, should you have wanted to
do so. Downstairs was full of books by people like Jacques Derrida. So
if you really wanted to be pretentious, that was the place to be.
Obscure reel-to-reel tapes and videos were a Compendium sideline. It
closed in 2000. What happened to these last remnants of the counter
culture? Why did they all close? Are people just not interested in
politics now? Or what? Answers on an email to London-rip please.
We want to hear what you've got to say..
Leave a message for us here.Messages
| Message: | 10/10 |
| Date and time: | 15/04/2010 at 19:15:53 |
| Sender: | Remembers the 80s |
| I was in Silver Moon once when a woman and her boyfriend were heading to the downstairs cafe, and a bookshop worker confirmed that the cafe was women-only. However the shop wasn't. Later they made the cafe into a club. It sold nice cake. | |
| Message: | 9/10 |
| Date and time: | 14/04/2010 at 15:58:30 |
| Sender: | Warren |
| I found a dying pigeon on the street outside Silver Moon, in about 1988. They let me call the vet, and then a cab to take me and the bird to the PDSA. The bird was destroyed. I often called in to Silver Moon after that. It wasn't that they were unfriendly; I think, as a big man, I wanted recognition of my solicitude. I'm sure they had more important things to be getting on with. | |
| Message: | 8/10 |
| Date and time: | 28/08/2009 at 07:45:48 |
| Sender: | phoebesmum |
| Murder One! And the other specialist detective fiction shop whose name I can't remember, somewhere round the back of Bloomsbury. But Murder One: thrown out of its premises in Charing Cross Road because the landlords raised the rent, and what's in those premises now? Nothing but tourist junk. It may not be a tragedy, what's happening to Charing Cross Road and the environs, but it's a great shame. | |
| Message: | 7/10 |
| Date and time: | 14/05/2009 at 10:55:30 |
| Sender: | Alan |
| What was the name of the left wing bookshop that used to out side Finsbury Park Station between the station and the Park? Can anyone remember it from the 80s? | |
| Message: | 6/10 |
| Date and time: | 05/04/2009 at 16:49:29 |
| Sender: | Richard |
| Contrary to what "harfarhs" has said below, Silver Moon had no female-customers-only policy. At least, I never experienced such a thing. There was a time when I would visit quite regularly (to browse books on feminist film theory) and, if I had an enquiry, the shop assistants were always helpful and courteous. I myself sold books in the area for six years - the first three at the Design Council bookshop in Haymarket, and the rest at Zwemmer. Although I remain a bit nostalgic for bookshops, it's little wonder that customers favour online shopping. More choice, better prices, greater convenience. Diversity and specialism has moved from the street to cyberspace, and booksellers can trade with greatly reduced overheads. Even so, they'll always be around - which is something that probably can't be said for music shops. | |
| Message: | 5/10 |
| Date and time: | 19/01/2009 at 20:42:31 |
| Sender: | Phoebe |
| The beginning of 2009 heralded the closure of Shipley Art Booksellers, a stalwart of the Charing Cross Road. It was located at Number 70 for 25 years. Graham Ward has written an eloquent tribute on his blog, with anecdotes about Shipley regulars Derek Jarman, Susan Sontag, and the "Golden Cherub" to name but a few... As an employee for the past four years, Shipley's was a place where I found work, friendship, intellectual stimulation, and all manner of abstract sparks. We attracted a certain kind of customer who simply wouldn't fare well in a faster-paced, modern kind of bookshop. Although people make a place, I think that I will just as well remember the peculiarities of ladders that conversely, "should never be opened the right way, for fear of death!", the carry-on like arrangement of an Erotic Section on the top-shelf (next to Animal Art), Ivor Cutler's stickers hidden in the doorframe, the joke coins embedded in the parquet floor which fooled many a customer... There is some talk of Shipley's reopening in the future at another location, but for now we say R.I.P Shipley Art Booksellers, 70 Charing Cross Road. | |
| Message: | 4/10 |
| Date and time: | 09/01/2009 at 14:14:57 |
| Sender: | booklover |
| When I was in london last was sad to see that the cinema bookshop that used to be in the bloomsbury area of London is now gone and Compendium books was where I 1st picked up a copy of The Marxist as a teenager and that got me reading Marx and changed my life really. It is sad I think most people shop for books online now or pick them up at the station but nothing beats actually spending time in a bookshop where you can just stumble across a book that just seems meant for you, I'm sure you know what I mean. | |
| Message: | 3/10 |
| Date and time: | 08/07/2008 at 07:54:02 |
| Sender: | Bookangel |
| Which bookshop can I go to now to find the less hyped up dumbed down ,more esoteric and interesting books especially re: art; education; self-help/psychology any ideas.? Now June 2008 even the pan bookshop on the Fulham Road has closed . Mind you it is so much cheaper to buy on line you cant beat myself up for doing it. | |
| Message: | 2/10 |
| Date and time: | 25/05/2008 at 07:05:17 |
| Sender: | harfarhs |
| Silver Moon certainly didn't let men in, at least according to my mum who apparently took me (as a small boy) in there one time. Good riddance to all discriminatory entrance policies.. | |
| Message: | 1/10 |
| Date and time: | 03/04/2008 at 08:17:44 |
| Sender: | gfw |
| good bookshop was Colletts on Charing Cross Rd. Plenty of interesting stuff . Closed late 80's?? | |
