books

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Win: Tickets To Alan Titchmarsh At Battersea Power Station

After last week’s competition, Londonist are delighted to continue their series of Alan-related contests by offering you the chance to see Alan Titchmarsh speak at Battersea Power Station this Wednesday night. The former Ground Force presenter, an unexpectedly prolific author who has written seven novels …

Outside Clapham Books (man with Sainsburys shopping cannot always be guaranteed)

Biblio-Text: Clapham Books

Continuing our amble around London’s independent bookshops The tale of Clapham Books is one of triumph over adversity. In 2006, a team of plucky bibliophiles bought a failing bookshop on the site of the current store, changed its name, spruced it up and – despite …

Mowbray's Religious Booksellers was founded in 1858, moving to Hatchards in 2006

Biblio-Text: Hatchards

Continuing our amble round London’s independent bookshops Strictly speaking, Hatchards isn’t an independent bookshop (it’s owned by HMV, which makes it a sister to Waterstones; albeit a much older, more sophisticated sibling), but this is our game and we’ll change the rules if we want. …

Buckaroo Kid

Preview: Big Ideas Talks @ Foyles

A short series of four discussions around BIG concepts begin at Foyles (Charing Cross Road) next week. The series kicks off with perhaps THE biggest idea of the 20th Century, relativity, on 15 September. Physics authors Joseph Schwartz and Manjit Kumar will explain Einstein’s most …

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Richard Dawkins Talks About His New Book In Diverse Places

Biologist, presenter, atheist love/hate figure and Dr-Who-assistant-marrying author Richard Dawkins has a new book out. Naturally, that means opportunities to see the controversial thinker talk about his latest work. The Greatest Show on Earth carefully explains the evidence for evolution by natural selection (as opposed …

Guillermo del Toro tells "creepy tales", plus a review

Biblio-Text: Dulwich Books

Continuing our amble round London’s independent bookshops We’re back after our summer break, and in leafy West Dulwich. Opened 27 years ago, Dulwich Books has very strong sections on fiction, art, biographies and crime, even including translations of criminal goings-on from France, Germany and Scandinavia. …

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Book Review: The London Of Jack The Ripper

Is there anything new to say about the Ripper murders? A search on Amazon yields over 50 results – from forensic casebooks to fantastical reinterpretations – and that’s before you even look at web resources. Mary Kelly’s mutilations are as mere paper cuts beside the …

Buckaroo Kid

Literary Events @ Foyles

Buckaroo Kid We just caught a whiff of the autumn line up of bookish events at Foyles and thought you deserved a heads up. Ready? There’s smartypants Francis Wheen, Booker winner John Banville, Bond penner Sebastian Faulks, Audrey Niffenegger (you know, the one responsible for …

Tasteful sage paintwork of Clerkenwell Tales

Biblio-Text: Clerkenwell Tales

Continuing our amble round London’s independent bookshops We’ve visited some quite old and venerable bookshops over the last few months, so perhaps it’s fitting that this week we bring you a newborn. Clerkenwell Tales on Exmouth Market has only been open three – three! – …

Image / See Wah

The Ken Livingstone Memorial Library

Image / See Wah Was it with an eye firmly on his legacy that the former Mayor spent nearly £1,000 on books in the dog days of his tenure at City Hall? Or was it in anticipation of ample leisure time to come? The Standard …

Childrens books in Spanish - and Scrabble!

Biblio-Text: Grant and Cutler

Continuing our amble round London’s independent bookshops Set up in 1936 as a book club and lending library (and based in Buckingham Street until 1986), Grant and Cutler is now the largest foreign language bookseller in the UK. That being the case, the shop is …