It’s just over two weeks till this year’s London Bookshop Crawl! It’s a weekend long event from Friday 9th – 11th February and, as its name suggests, it’s a bookshop crawl in London where you can either join organised groups or plan your own bookshop crawl with handy maps with your friends and family. Dozens of bookshops are taking part and in some cases, that might mean there’s freebies or discounts to those participating in the crawl. It’s all very exciting and you can learn more about the London Bookshop Crawl here.

I’m really looking forward to this year’s crawl. I’m going to be a part of a guided group that’s going to be visiting bookshops in the Waterloo and Southbank area – a part of London I’ve been to a fair bit but never been to any bookshops round there.

As I’m so excited about all the new bookshops I’m soon to discover, I thought I would look back at previous London Bookshop Crawls and talk about some of the incredible bookshops I’ve discovered thanks to this wonderful event.

Persephone Books
This is a very unique bookshop. Persephone Books is not just a bookshop but a publisher as well. When I visited it on the first Bookshop Crawl the nice ladies there told us how the publisher worked and how it chose which books to print – because Persephone focuses on out of print works from the twentieth century, the majority of which are women. There’s a whole range of genres to be found there and the people who work there are happy to give recommendations. All their books have grey covers and have different patterned endpapers.

Any Amount of Books
This is a second-hand bookshop just off Leicester Square and it’s now somewhere I pop into every time I’m in that part of London (which is a fair bit because Leicester Square is often the meet up point for my friends). The books are in such great condition and there’s a wide variety of genres and books of various ages. There’s new releases and hidden gems and the shop has a basement that’s chockfull of books. It’s a smaller bookshop but it’s got a lot of cool stuff if you’re happy to have a rummage.

Word on the Water
This is a very unusual and cute bookshop, for one thing it isn’t on solid ground. It’s a second-hand bookstore on a barge! It’s a tiny place but that adds to its charm. There’s books to look through on the bank of the river, and you can go inside the barge too to browse more books there and maybe even sit on one of the few chairs by the fire. Word on the Water is a hidden gem on the river and there’s a dog there too to make you feel welcome.

Belgravia Books
This is a small independent bookshop a short walk away from Victoria station. It’s got a lot of books, fiction and non-fiction, from international authors and they’re not all the typical books you’d normally find in your high street Waterstones. Side note: I have nothing wrong with Waterstones, they’re fab, but it’s generally the bestsellers/books that the publishers give a huge push to in their stores.

Daunt Books
Daunt Books is one of my favourite discoveries from the London Bookshop Crawl. It’s a big bookshop, with your typical YA, children’s and popular fiction sections but the thing that really make it stand out is how a big portion of the books are divided by country. For example, if you go to the Austria section, you’ll find the usual travel guides and memoirs for that country but also fiction books set there and by Austrian authors. The top balcony has books from around the UK, the ground floor is all of Europe and downstairs is books from America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. It’s a great place to find books to help broaden your reading horizons and to discover literature from all around the world.

I could go on much more about the other interesting bookshops I’ve been introduced to thanks to the London Bookshop Crawl, but thought it’s best to stick to five – that’s a manageable amount. If you want to read about the other bookshops I’ve visited, you can read about the 2016 London Bookshop Crawl here (it was so much smaller back then and it’s incredible how much it’s evolved in a few years and that’s all down to the amazing Bex) and the 2017 one here.

There’s still time to plan your London Bookshop Crawl! There’s a list of all the bookshops involved, bookshop crawl maps, the all important Bookshop Crawl ID and more on the website.