European Holiday 2025, London, England - Part 2

While still sitting in the departure area of Heathrow Airport I've decided to break this blog post on London into two parts because it's turning out to be so large.  This second part concentrates on my wife and I book hunting in London, and book stores we encountered that did NOT have Ian Fleming - Jonathan Cape hardbacks for sale.  All the Capes we did encounter feature in my previous post.

While at Piccadilly Circus, and the Hatchards book store nearby mentioned previously, we visited the massive Waterstones store.  They had heaps of new James Bond paperbacks including the recent hardbacks from Ian Fleming Publications.  These hardbacks were only released in the last few years and this was my first opportunity to physically hold them.  They were very nice however I decided not to pull out my credit card.  It was a tough decision though.

We also visited another Waterstones store near our hotel in Covent Garden.  Not as big as their Piccadilly store but they still had lots of great new books.

We also made it to the book store Any Amount Of Books.  I remember visiting this store on a previous trip to London around 2007.  A great two storey secondhand store with lots of quality books to peruse.

Foyles on Charing Cross also featured in our book hunt.  What a huge, and magnificent, book store it is.  My wife purchased some humerous greeting cards while we were there.

Also we visited an Oxfam store near SoHo where they were selling hardback copies of Kim Sherwood's "A Spy Like Me" for £5 each.  These books were published by William Morrow in the US, and as I'd only previously acquired a UK published edition of this hardback at a more expensive price, I was compelled to purchase one.  

We travelled to Notting Hill too.  Not only did we see the blue door from the film of the same name and plenty of pastel coloured houses, we also visited two book stores.

This was The Notting Hill Bookshop.  We wondered if this book store doubled as the travel book store from the film.  It was a nice little store choc-a-block with potential customers.

Another bookstore in Notting Hill, Daunt Books, where the owners were very friendly and welcoming.  They had lots of great new books including the Ian Fleming - James Bond novels below.

Some final photos of London:

View from the Sky Garden

Big Ben

The London Eye by the Thames

Double decker bus

European Holiday 2025 - London, England - Part 1

My wife and I are currently at Heathrow Airport, about to depart the UK.  We've spent seven days here, four of which were with family and friends.  The other three were spent sightseeing, relaxing, and of course book hunting.

After visiting several London bookstores my biggest surprise was how many Jonathan Capes (especially first editions) and John Gardner proofs were available for purchase within just a short distance of our hotel in Covent Garden.  We are certainly not this fortunate in Oz !

The first bookstore we found featuring Jonathan Cape hardbacks was Goldsboro Books on Cecil Court.  The very friendly staff even let me hold their first edition of Ian Fleming's "Live And Let Die".  Although it was my first visit to this store, I've purchased numerous modern first editions from them in the past.  I definitely recommend a visit to this store and checking out their limited edition hardbacks online.

Next bookstore was Peter Harrington Rare Books, where again I found everyone to be extremely helpful.  Despite immediately explaining I was only there to visit the store and check out what was available as I probably couldn't afford to buy anything, both my wife and I felt very welcome.

As you can see in the following photos, they had some lovely books for sale which also appear to be shown on their website.

Hatchards on Piccadilly was the third store.  They also had several secondhand Jonathan Capes behind the front counter.   I was fortunate to find a signed paperback edition of "A Spy Like Me" by Kim Sherwood on their shelves too.  This copy was published by Hemlock Press.

We did visit a fourth bookshop who allowed me to take these photos within their store but didn't want any promotion explaining "We'll handle our own promotions thankyou !".  As you can see they had plenty of Capes for sale as well as many vintage paperbacks.  I won't mention the store's name or location though to respect their wishes.

Sadly my holiday budget didn't extend as far as purchasing any of the Jonathan Capes shown, but in the next blog post you'll note I did manage to purchase a recently published hardback while also in London.

And finally, here's some photos of London:

Tower Bridge

Inside the Tower of London including a resident raven

Piccadilly Circus