As bookselling in Charing Cross Road has steadily declined due to a combination of high rents, internet competition, and bubble tea takeovers, it is good to see Skoob Books surviving in Bloomsbury.

Skoob occupy a large subterranean space in the Brunswick Centre off Marchmont Street.  It retains all the essentials of a proper secondhand bookshop: quirky, hand-written signs; enthusiastic staff; a good mix of cheap paperback fiction and a diverse range of non-fiction subjects; and the occasional underpriced gem.

For the discerning book collector, there are still treasures to be found here.  On one recent visit, I managed to pick up a good condition first edition of John D. MacDonald’s The Beach Girls, complete with stunning Barbara Walton dustjacket, for a fiver!

Today, my visit is more prosaic; hoping to find cheap copies of Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair cheaper than I can buy them on the internet.

The result?

Well, they did have copies of both books, but not the particular edition I wanted.  Picky?  Moi?

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow, forever on the hunt for books.