Do you have any favourite / suggestions for indipendent bookshops or second-hand books markets/shops in London? :)
YES
1. Daunt Books, Marylebone ⇢ my favorite in the world. Must see.
2. Foyles ⇢ it’s huge, beautifully organized, and has everything you could need. Also great cafe upstairs.
3. Persephone Books ⇢ all lady authors, a great way to find new things.
4. Southbank Book Market ⇢ in between waterloo and the eye (east edge of the southbank center under the bridge). Interesting selection (heavy on old orange penguin classics) with a can’t beat view.
5. Charring Cross Road ⇢ there’s a string of independent, rare, and 2nd hand bookstore here (same road Foyles is on). Start down by Great Newport Street, head up towards Foyles. There’s a whole range of bookstores down there – I particularly like Koenig (emphasis on art and fashion). Don’t be intimidated by the antique booksellers; no, you probably can’t afford anything but as long as you’re quiet and careful they don’t mind you poking around.
Happy Hunting!
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough.
ig: liberaureum.
Reblog this to prove your blog was made before the February 2022 tumblr resurgence
Rain pounded on the roof of the car, plunking out a melody.
“What do you think happiness is?” Theo often asked these unexpected questions, so Alexander wasn’t so very surprised.
“Not crying myself to sleep every night,” the words had slipped out of his mouth as he read his book in an uninterested tone. Now he looked at Theo, weighing his reaction. Theo’s face had a puzzled, maybe worried, expression on it.
“Hm.” He didn’t say anything more. Alexander wouldn’t admit that he’d hoped Theo would. Alexander didn’t know it, but that scene near the brook at midnight all those months ago was playing through his head again. After a bit, Theo continued.
“Are you happy?”
“I don’t know,” Alexander said, looking at the rain crashing down on the window. The melancholy that came every night and used to make him cry in Autumn now only resided in his mind as a dull numbness that visited before he went to bed each evening, but it was there, even still. Theo did not enquire further this time, and the two returned to reading their books, Alexander consumed in a secondhand copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Theo skimming through a book of Sappho’s poems.
Interviewer: What difference in usage would you point out in these three languages [Russian, English, French], these three instruments?
Nabokov: Naunces. If you take framboise in French, for example, it’s a scarlet color, a very red color. In English, the word raspberry is rather dull, with perhaps a little brown or violet. A rather cold color. In Russian it’s a burst of light, malinovoe; the word has associations of brilliance, of gaiety, of ringing bells. How can you translate that?
- Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor. Bryan Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, Eds.
In Greek, "nostalgia” literally means "the pain from an old wound”. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.
Don Draper, “The Wheel”
last book that I…
bought: the secret history, donna tartt
borrowed: letters home, sylvia plath
was gifted: infinite jest, david foster wallace
started: uno, nessuno e centomila, l. pirandello
finished: song of achilles, madeline miller
didn’t finish: emma, jane austen
last book that I;
bought: stone blind, natalie haynes
borrowed: the collected poems of sylvia plath
was gifted: a set of antique 1830-1850s novels
started: elektra, jennifer saint
finished: a thousand ships, natalie haynes
gave 5 stars to: tales from the estate, sadie davidson
gave 2 stars to: war of the worlds, h. g. wells
didn't finish: if we were villains, m. l. rio
tagging anyone who wants to take part
"I want a boyfriend," no you want to pin a boy to a wall with a dagger to his throat, don't settle for less.