There’s something strikingly reassuring about stepping into a bookshop. I suppose it’s the comfort of knowing you will be surrounded by one of your favourite things in the world – if there ever is a dog bar and bookshop – that’ll be my all-time treasured place.
It might also be the feeling that, knowing there’s so much out there we still haven’t read – we are so spoilt for choice – just stepping through the door to wander through bookshelves, becomes an act of intention.
Which book will you pick? Which ones will you leave behind? More importantly, what unexpected book will you take home with you?
All of this runs through my mind every time I step into Foyles on Charing Cross Road in London. I usually come armed with a list of volumes I must have, and I come out having found some – and adding unforeseen titles to my heist. And a new tote bag, of course.
This is a personal ritual I truly look forward to every year. This time, I’ll be lucky – I get to visit twice in just a couple of months.
Whenever I buy a book, I make a little note inside: the place I bought it from, the date and the city. Every time I pull a book off my shelves and read the small inscription, I’m instantly transported back to the day and place where those pages and I first met. It’s a memory time machine.
We also catalogue every book we own using Liblib, a digital inventory that helps us avoid buying the same title twice – something that, believe it or not, used to happen quite often.
My bookshop ritual also takes me to Forbidden Planet, just a few minutes from Foyles, where I hunt down the titles I couldn’t find – particularly any SFF volumes. As you can imagine, there’s always a bit of irresistible merchandise that ends up coming home with me too.
This year, I was also lucky enough to discover two amazing literary-loving gems: The Brick Lane bookshop (yes, in Brick Lane) and the BookBar in Islington (there’s also one in Chelsea). The first offers a boutique, curated experience, and I was thrilled to find – and buy – the English translation of Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, one of my favourite books.
BookBar is an experience in itself. It’s a small bookshop, filled with great contemporary titles – I walked out with four extras – and a cosy place to drink and read. You can sit outside with your pages, letting London life lull your senses while you’re immersed in someone else’s world, or sit inside and listen to the gentle murmur of conversations.
I liked it so much, it might just be a mandatory bookmark in the Book of London – the one I’ve been quietly writing, page by page, with every bookshop I visit in the city.
David Cuen 
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