Bath / United Kingdom
Berdoulat is a shop in Margaret's Buildings in Bath selling dining and kitchenware, with cookery books and furniture too.
Best for Kitchenware, cookbooks and furniture
Books of United Kingdom
58 stores · curated ORBIS register
British bookselling stacks five floors against one typewriter, both making the case for the shop. London's Foyles fills those five floors with 200,000 titles and stands as the world's first bookstore on Charing Cross Road. Edinburgh's Typewronger Books keeps the small-press shelf: poetry, zines and typewriter repair in the city's most characterful bookshop. The Chaucer Bookshop deals from a period building on Beer Cart Lane. Wear comfortable shoes: the top shelf repays the climb.
Visit official site ↗Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights
Hidden GemJohn Street, Bath
Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights is a Bath bookshop on John Street with a strong emphasis on personal recommendations. Its booksellers offer reading subscriptions and an online recommendation service alongside browsing in the shop. The building has books on several levels, with staff offering to bring titles from the stairs-only areas to customers on the ground floor.
Best for Personal book recommendations and reading subscriptions
Visit official site ↗The Paragon, Bath
Topping & Company's Bath branch, open since 2007, moved in 2021 into a former Quaker meeting house designed in 1818 by William Wilkins. Rolling ladders reach floor-to-ceiling shelves, free tea is poured for browsers, and author events run regularly.
Best for Sliding-ladder bookcases and free tea in Bath
Topping & Company opened its Bath branch in 2007, the second shop from Robert and Louise Topping after their original Ely store launched in 2002. After fourteen years on The Paragon, the Bath shop relocated in December 2021 into the former Friends Meeting House on York Street, a building designed in 1818 by William Wilkins, the architect later responsible for London's National Gallery. The building has cycled through several identities since then -- Masonic lodge, chapel, assembly rooms, and Quaker meeting house -- before becoming a bookshop. Inside, the shop follows the chain's signature look: floor-to-ceiling bookcases reached by rolling ladders, hand-painted section signs, and stock that runs into the tens of thousands of titles across multiple floors. True to the Topping house style found at its other branches (Edinburgh, Ely, St Andrews, York), staff pour free tea and coffee for browsing customers, and the shop runs a regular programme of ticketed author events. It's a shop built around lingering rather than a quick errand -- tall shelves, a ladder to reach them, and a cup of tea to make the browsing last.
Visit official site ↗Specialist Subject Records
Hidden GemOld Market, Bristol
A DIY punk and indie label since 2007, Specialist Subject opened its Old Market Street shop in 2017 and stacks thousands of new and used records, CDs and cassettes across punk, hardcore and indie. It also carries zines, books and its own artists' releases and merch.
Best for Punk and indie vinyl
Visit official site ↗Leith Walk, Edinburgh
Argonaut Books is a community bookshop and multipurpose space at 15-17 Leith Walk, Edinburgh, that opened in December 2021, stocking a curated selection of titles and including a cafe and an accessible event space for free community use.
Best for Curated books and community events
Visit official site ↗45 Market Street, Edinburgh
Fruitmarket presents contemporary art exhibitions alongside a specialist bookshop and café near Edinburgh Waverley. The bookshop is the genuine retail component, carrying art publications, editions and carefully selected gifts.
Best for Contemporary art in a converted fruit and vegetable market — adventurous exhibitions
Visit official site ↗Edinburgh / United Kingdom
Ingleby Gallery has occupied the category-A-listed Glasite Meeting House on Barony Street in Edinburgh since 2018, showing and selling work by the contemporary artists it represents, Wednesday through Saturday. Its Publications and Editions store also offers prints and books online, extending the gallery’s edition and publishing program beyond the physical exhibitions and Barony Street rooms.
Best for Contemporary-art, editions, publications
Visit official site ↗Edinburgh / United Kingdom
Pickering's Gin is hand-distilled and hand-bottled at Summerhall Distillery, 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, the first dedicated gin distillery in the city in over 150 years, built inside the former kennels of the Royal Dick Vet School. Visitors can book distillery tours and buy bottles in the on-site shop, or order online with free UK shipping over £45.
Best for Gin, distillery, spirits
Visit official site ↗Edinburgh / United Kingdom
On Nicolson Street in Edinburgh, the Surgeons' Hall Museums Shop sells items designed around the museum's anatomical and surgical-history collection, from syringe pens to anatomical heart jewelry. It also stocks books, stationery, homeware, and kids' items, with every purchase funding the museum itself.
Best for Museum shop, medical curiosities, gifts
Visit official site ↗Edinburgh / United Kingdom / Online
The Botanics Shop is the online store for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, selling garden tools, seeds and bulbs, botanical books, stationery, and archive art prints drawn from the garden's collection dating to 1670. Proceeds from every purchase support RBGE's conservation, research, and education work.
Best for Garden shop, books, gifts
Visit official site ↗Bruntsfield, Edinburgh
The Edinburgh Bookshop opened in 2007 at 176 Bruntsfield Place and has been named UK Children's Bookshop of the Year in 2014 and Scottish Independent Bookshop of the Year five times. It offers free book ordering within two working days and a weekly under-5s storytime.
Best for Award-winning independent bookshop
Visit official site ↗Topping & Company
Hidden GemBlenheim Place, Edinburgh
Topping & Company is an independent bookseller with an Edinburgh shop housed in a former bank. Tall bookcases and rolling ladders form part of a space built for browsing a broad range of titles. The family-run business also organises author events, extending the shop's role beyond a place to pick up a single book.
Best for Browsing books and attending author events in Edinburgh
Topping & Company Booksellers began with a single shop in Ely, Cambridgeshire, opened by Robert and Louise Topping in 2002. The chain has grown carefully rather than quickly since, adding branches in Bath, St Andrews, Edinburgh — opened in 2019 as the fourth shop — and, most recently, York.
The Edinburgh branch occupies a Grade A-listed former bank building designed by the architect William Playfair, spread over three floors and fitted out with oak shelving and a re-clad staircase that keeps the historic interior's sense of warmth. Around 85,000 books line the shelves, reached in places by rolling library ladders, with hand-painted signage throughout — the kind of interior that reads more like a private library than a retail shop. Complimentary tea and coffee is poured for browsers, and the shop runs regular author events plus a "Coffee with a Bookseller" consultation service and signed-first-edition subscriptions organized by genre.
It's an approach built on treating book buying as an occasion rather than an errand — ladders, tea, oak and 85,000 spines to choose from — and the Edinburgh shop, in its former banking hall, is the most architecturally striking setting the family has found for it yet.
4 Haddington Place, Edinburgh
Tiny independent bookshop and typewriter repair — poetry, small press, zines, and vintage machines. The most characterful bookshop in Edinburgh.
Best for Poetry, small press, zines, and typewriter repair in Edinburgh's most characterful bookshop
Visit official site ↗McCoys Arcade, Exeter
Opened in 2020 in McCoys Arcade, this independent shop carries new fiction, non-fiction, children's books, nature writing, poetry and zines chosen by hand. It runs author events, book launches and poetry nights, and co-produces the Echoes literary festival.
Best for Curated new fiction, nature writing and poetry
Visit official site ↗Gandy Street, Exeter
An independent craft and gift shop at 11a Gandy Street stocking gifts, cards, prints, jewellery, craft kits and books handmade by artisans across the South West. It takes part in Gandy Street's monthly First Thursdays evenings of late shopping, live music and street entertainment.
Best for Handmade South West gifts, cards and prints
Visit official site ↗Fore Street, Topsham, Exeter
Set across three floors of a 17th-century building at 27 Fore Street, this shop deals in secondhand and out-of-print books, with strengths in Devon and West Country topography, social history, archaeology and English literature. Owner Lily Neal runs a book search service and buys books from customers.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian West Country titles
Visit official site ↗West End
Family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop on Great Western Road at Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End, established 1986, spanning two floors with a strong stock of Scottish literature, history and philosophy titles.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books since 1986
Caledonia Books has traded as a family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop since 1986, on Great Western Road near Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End. The shop is known for a densely packed interior - books arranged in rows on the floor, piled in boxes, and stacked to the ceiling across two floors - with particular strength in Scottish, literature, art, history and philosophy titles. Stock is almost entirely secondhand and sold at modest prices, with genuinely rare or antiquarian volumes the exception rather than the rule.
Visit official site ↗Glasgow
Category Is Books is an independent LGBTQIA+ bookshop at 34 Allison Street in the southside of Glasgow, describing itself as a space for queer books, history, art, activism and storytelling.
Best for Queer books and community bookshop
Visit official site ↗West End, Glasgow
A shop carrying Nordic and British textiles, glassware, fragrance, plants, books, and locally knitted toys. Owner Karen Harvey selects the shop’s Nordic and British brands.
Best for Nordic and British textiles, glassware
Visit official site ↗Glasgow / United Kingdom
The Glasgow second-hand bookshop Voltaire & Rousseau has packed its Otago Lane rooms in the West End with pre-loved, antiquarian and rare titles. Alongside the walk-in shop, open 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, it runs a full online catalogue spanning first editions to 10-pound paperbacks.
Best for Secondhand-books, antiquarian, rare-books
Visit official site ↗West End
A family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop packed with rare, academic and literary titles.
Best for Secondhand literature, academic books and unexpected editions
Visit Instagram ↗Bell Street, Henley-on-Thames
The Bell Bookshop trades from an 18th-century building on Bell Street. It hand-picks a stock of more than 20,000 titles across fiction, children's books, travel and non-fiction.
Best for Hand-picked fiction and children's books
Visit official site ↗Henley-on-Thames / United Kingdom
Way's on Friday Street in Henley-on-Thames is a second-hand bookshop that also deals in rare books.
Best for Rare and second-hand books
Visit official site ↗Leeds Corn Exchange, Call Lane, city centre
Opened in November 2012 as the first Leeds shop to focus specifically on design publications, Colours May Vary now trades from the Corn Exchange on Call Lane. It pairs its book and print stock with exhibitions and collaborations with working illustrators and designers.
Best for Design books, art prints and zines
Visit official site ↗Farsley, Leeds, Yorkshire / United Kingdom
A destination showroom in a converted Yorkshire mill, with a booked listening lounge and hi-fi furniture built in-house.
Best for A destination showroom in a converted Yorkshire mill
The Spinning Room trades from Sunny Bank Mills, a former textile mill turned cultural hub in Farsley on Leeds' western edge, positioning itself as what founder Paul and his team call "a refreshing take on what a destination HiFi showroom can be." The stock runs the full two-channel chain — turntables, tonearms and cartridges, integrated and separate amplification, speakers and subwoofers, CD transports, DACs, streaming components, cabling and acoustic treatment — from brands including Pro-Ject, Technics, REL Acoustics, Ortofon, Quad and Hegel.
What distinguishes the shop beyond its catalogue is a dedicated listening lounge for booked demonstrations and a house sideline in handmade wooden audio furniture, built by the same team that sells the equipment it will sit under. That combination — an in-house cabinetmaking practice alongside the retail floor — is a genuine specialism rather than a marketing flourish, and it puts The Spinning Room closer to a craft workshop than to a chain electronics counter.
The shop frames its approach explicitly against high-pressure retail: hands-on expertise and personal guidance over a sales script, with demonstrations built around what a customer already owns or listens to rather than a fixed showroom playlist. For a city with no shortage of record shops selling turntables as an accessory to vinyl, The Spinning Room's combination of full-chain component depth, a purpose-built demo lounge and its own furniture workshop marks it as a dedicated hi-fi specialist in the fuller sense.
Visit official site ↗Farsley, west Leeds
Truman Books is an independent bookshop and café in Farsley, West Leeds, with books for adults and children. Owner Amanda Truman moved into bookselling after a career in travel, building a shop that also carries cards and gifts. Author events and children's activities add reasons to visit beyond choosing a book and stopping for coffee.
Best for Adult and children's books with a café in Farsley
Truman Books operates from 95 Town Street in Farsley, Leeds, describing itself as an "award-winning independent bookshop and cafe", combining adult and children's books, gifts and cards, and a coffee-and-cake counter under one roof. The book range runs across more than two dozen categories, from fiction split by hardback, paperback, crime/thriller and sci-fi/fantasy, to children's sections divided by age band (0-5, 5-8, 9-12), young adult, biography, history, poetry, science, travel and a dedicated Local Interest & Authors shelf. Beyond retail, the shop runs its own recurring programming: a Storytime and Young Readers' Review Panel for children, and Truman's Book Club Social for adults, alongside a partnership with the Farsley Lit Fest that ties the shop into the town's wider literary calendar. It also carries signed copies and special editions as a standing program rather than an occasional promotion. Closed Mondays, the shop keeps otherwise regular hours across the rest of the week, including a shorter Sunday slot. For a single-shop independent in a Leeds mill town, running a standing book club, a children's review panel and a literary festival partnership simultaneously is a more active programming slate than most comparably sized shops maintain.
Visit official site ↗Llandudno / United Kingdom
Mostyn Siop on Vaughan Street in Llandudno sells hand-crafted and design-led pieces, from creative books to homeware.
Best for Hand-crafted and design-led objects
Visit official site ↗London / United Kingdom / Online
The British Museum Shop is the museum's official online store, selling replicas, jewelry, books, and homeware inspired by its permanent collection and current exhibitions such as Hiroshige and Hieroglyphs. Every purchase supports the museum, with free UK delivery on orders over £100 and click-and-collect available.
Best for Museum store, gifts, jewelry, books
Visit official site ↗83–84 Marylebone High Street, London / Online
Daunt Books' Marylebone shop is a general bookseller with a particular interest in travel and books about places. Its ranges extend from fiction to travel guides, with books arranged by country forming part of the wider offer. The business began on Marylebone High Street in 1990, before expanding into other London neighbourhoods over subsequent years.
Best for Travel writing and general books in Marylebone
Daunt Books began on Marylebone High Street in 1990, before the business expanded into other London neighbourhoods. The Marylebone shop remains associated with travel reading, while operating as a general bookseller rather than selling guidebooks alone. Its wider catalogue includes fiction and books about places, giving travellers several ways to prepare for a destination.
Books by country form one route through the range, alongside conventional categories for novels and nonfiction. That distinction helps when the subject of a trip crosses several kinds of writing. A reader can consider a travel guide together with fiction set in the same place or an account of its history.
The store also serves readers who have no journey planned, through its general book selection and bookselling advice. A practical visit might begin with a particular author or subject and widen from there. Marylebone is a specific branch, so descriptions of the company's other shops need not apply to the same premises. The travel association is useful as a starting point, without restricting what someone can reasonably look for on its shelves.
Visit official site ↗London / Charing Cross Road
Foyles occupies the former Central Saint Martins building on Charing Cross Road, where the flagship relocated in 2014. Specialist departments cover general reading and language study, while Ray's Jazz adds records to the bookshop. A café and an auditorium occupy upper levels, with the latter hosting the shop's programme of events.
Best for Books, language-learning material and recorded music
Foyles moved its Charing Cross Road flagship into the former Central Saint Martins building in 2014. The new premises gave the bookshop a central atrium and a series of connected mezzanine levels. Three lifts provide an alternative to the staircases linking those levels through the building.
The departments give several reasons to visit beyond looking for a general reading recommendation. Fiction and children's books sit within a much wider range that includes specialist educational material. Ray's Jazz sells recordings on the second level, alongside classical music and sheet music departments. The language section incorporates Grant & Cutler, providing learning material and literature from publishers in many countries.
This is a bookshop where the department matters when planning what to look for. A visitor seeking language study material has a different destination from someone browsing music recordings or a new novel. The upper levels also contain a café and an auditorium used for literary events and other programmes. Those spaces extend a visit beyond the shelves without changing the store's primary role as a bookseller.
Visit official site ↗Goodhood
Hidden GemShoreditch (15 Hanbury Street, E1 6QR) / Online
Independent London retailer curating fashion, footwear, homeware, books, records and lifestyle goods, alongside in-house Goodhood collections.
Best for Tight edit of fashion, lifestyle and homeware from Ganni, Carne Bollente, Ari
Visit official site ↗London / UK
Hand & Eye is a letterpress printing and publishing house founded by Phil Abel in Whitechapel, east London.
Best for Illustrated letterpress-printed books and jobbing print work from a Whitechapel
Hand & Eye is a letterpress printing and publishing house founded by Phil Abel in Whitechapel, east London. Its own site dates the operation precisely: "We started in 1985 as jobbing printers, and now print books and record sleeves that find their way to a world-wide audience." It cites the twentieth-century Curwen and Shenval presses in Britain, and Riverside and Stinehour in the United States, as the operations it drew inspiration from when it began.
Four decades on, the shop works from 12 Pinchin Street on two large-format Heidelberg platen presses and a FAG Control 525 proofing press, backed by an extensive collection of wood and metal type. Most current work is printed from photopolymer plates made in-house, letting the studio control every stage of a job from typesetting through to the finished sheet.
Hand & Eye's list of illustrated letterpress editions includes The Wind in the Willows and A Christmas Carol alongside newer titles such as Shadows of Time, The Woman in White, A Far Away Country, and Dear Edward, published for private-press collectors and general readers alike. Alongside its own books, the studio takes on commercial jobbing work, including catalogues for art galleries, keeping the letterpress operation earning its keep between editions the way it has since 1985.
Visit official site ↗London / United Kingdom
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates.
Best for Hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters and letterpress classes
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates. The studio's own description sets its terms plainly: it exists to combine "centuries-old craftsmanship with contemporary design ideas," and the type collection backs that up — more than 700 fonts spanning wood type, metal type, and even a 3D-printed letterpress face, kept in working order rather than displayed as artifacts.
Secondary reporting (Standpoint London, British Letterpress) traces the press to 1986, founded by Graham Bignell on New North Road before the move to its current Coronet Street address in 1993 — the name outlived the original street. That continuity matters in a trade where most commercial letterpress equipment was scrapped decades ago; a studio still running the type and the presses, not just collecting them, is the exception rather than the rule in a city the size of London.
The press takes on commissioned print and design work alongside its own limited editions, and runs regular hands-on classes that teach typesetting and printing on the actual equipment rather than a simulation of it. That combination — production, commission work, and open instruction under one roof — is what separates a working letterpress house from a heritage display case.
Visit official site ↗London / Bloomsbury
Lamb's Conduit Street's feminist publisher — grey covers, forgotten women writers, and the bookshop that rediscovered mid-century female voices.
Best for Forgotten women writers, grey covers, feminist publishing.
Visit official site ↗London / Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane
Rough Trade East opened on 20 July 2007 in a former loading bay of the Old Truman Brewery, just off Brick Lane. It is the company's flagship UK store. David Adjaye designed the 5,000 square foot room with a coffee bar, a snug and record crates that wheel away for performances. Vinyl fills the greater part of the floor beside books and merchandise, and the stage hosts live events seven days a week.
Best for New vinyl and in-store gigs
Rough Trade opened its first shop in Notting Hill in 1976 and became a place to find new wave records and fanzines. The label of the same name split from the shops in 1982, and the two have run separately since. Rough Trade East was the company's answer to a bad decade for music retail. It opened on Friday 20 July 2007 in the former loading bay of the Old Truman Brewery on Dray Walk, off Brick Lane. Its 5,000 square feet made it the country's biggest music-only specialist store at the time. It replaced the cramped basement shop in Covent Garden, whose staff transferred east. The architect David Adjaye was a customer who had offered his services a decade earlier. He designed the room with old gin palaces in mind. A coffee bar greets the entrance and a cushioned bench runs along one wall under spoked fluorescent lights. Listening posts stand throughout. A snug with tables and sofas serves quizzes and workshops, and record crates on wheels roll aside for in-store performances. Director Stephen Godfroy argued at the opening that the high street had commoditised music. A side-street shop offering knowledgeable recommendation would find its audience, he said. The store remains the flagship of the UK chain. Vinyl takes the greater part of the floor. Books and merchandise fill the rest, and there is a bar and a photobooth. The stage hosts live events seven days a week and has held Sampha, Little Simz and The Hives.
Visit official site ↗Manchester / United Kingdom
This independent Manchester brewery, founded in 2014, sells its craft beer by the can, mixed pack and subscription through an online shop stocked with glassware and clothing. Buyers can build their own box, book a brewery tour, or drink in at the Piccadilly taproom.
Best for Brewery, craft beer, IPA, lager, mixed packs, subscriptions
Visit official site ↗Manchester / United Kingdom / Online
An art and design bookshop selling illustrated books, independent magazines, prints and design-led gifts through its online store. Stock ranges from a Fumi Koike St Pancras print to niche titles picked up at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.
Best for Bookshop, art books, magazines, prints, design gifts
Visit official site ↗Armchair Books
Hidden Gem72-74 West Port / Online
The West Port shop spreads through two adjoining addresses, with second-hand fiction, poetry and philosophy giving way to antiquarian and specialist nonfiction. Narrow aisles and overloaded shelves make browsing slower than a quick title lookup.
Best for Second-hand and rare books in a cosy cavern with vibrant threadbare rugs
Visit official site ↗South Street, Fowey
An independent bookshop on South Street shortlisted for the British Book Awards' Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2022, with strong Cornish, children's and general-fiction shelves. Booksellers' recommendations and special orders anchor its place in the town.
Best for New books and Cornish titles
Visit official site ↗Stow On The Wold / United Kingdom
The Borzoi Bookshop has traded from the center of Stow-on-the-Wold for more than 40 years, stocking a wide range of books alongside greeting cards, gifts and wrapping paper. Staff will source unusual or specialist titles on request, and the shop also runs an online store for home delivery.
Best for Independent bookshop
Visit official site ↗Burford Garden Co.
Hidden GemShilton Road, Burford
A large independent garden centre on the edge of town that has grown into a lifestyle destination, pairing plants and horticulture with homeware, books, food, clothing and a cafe. Independently owned, it is known for wide-ranging, design-led stock across many departments.
Best for Plants, homeware and lifestyle shopping
Visit official site ↗Church Street
Court Barn tells the story of north Cotswold craft from 1900 onward, rooted in the 1902 arrival of Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, and its shop carries design books, prints, and jewellery. The retail selection echoes the collection's Arts and Crafts focus, alongside pieces by makers still working in the district.
Best for Design books, craft prints, jewellery
Visit official site ↗Berkshire
At 88 High Street, this long-standing shop stacks secondhand and antiquarian books alongside prints and small collectibles sold under its Eton Treasures name. It sits among the antique dealers and tailors that line the pedestrian stretch running down toward Windsor Bridge.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books, prints, and small collectibles at 88 High Street
Visit official site ↗G. David Bookseller
Hidden GemSt Edward's Passage
Founded by French emigre Gustave David in 1896, G. David trades in antiquarian and secondhand books, remainders and fine bindings from St Edward's Passage. The shop buys private libraries and single volumes and is still run by successors of the original market-stall bookseller.
Best for David trades in antiquarian and secondhand books
Gustave David, a thirty-six-year-old Parisian, began buying and selling books on the Cambridge Market in 1896. As trade grew he opened a bookshop with his son Hubert David in St Edward's Passage, where the business still stands. The market stall ceased trading in 1981, but the shop continued to flourish in its passage off the market square. Today the firm is run by Gustave's great grandson David Asplin and his business partner Neil Adams. David joined in 1968 and Neil in 1979, and between them they count over 100 years of bookselling in Cambridge. The stock ranges across antiquarian books, including first editions of works by Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, and natural history and travel books with engravings. Second hand books fill the general shelves, and new books are sold at reduced prices. Antiquarian prints and maps form a further department, with a large collection of original engravings of Cambridge and its colleges and thousands of prints and maps on other subjects. The shop remains a meeting place for bibliophiles from many countries, and it continues to buy single volumes and whole libraries from private sellers.
Visit official site ↗Stockbridge
Golden Hare Books is an award-winning independent bookshop on St Stephen Street in Stockbridge, with face-out displays, a wood-burning stove and a busy events programme. Booksellers curate literary fiction, poetry, art and children's titles.
Best for Curated literary fiction
Visit official site ↗Garnethill (Reid Building)
The retail arm of The Glasgow School of Art, based in the Reid Building opposite the Mackintosh building, selling work by the school's alumni alongside designs drawn from its heritage. Stock spans jewellery, homeware, stationery and books referencing Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Style.
Best for Mackintosh and Glasgow Style design
Visit official site ↗Chipping Norton
Jaffé & Neale launched in Chipping Norton in 2001 and moved in 2006 to 1 Middle Row on the Market Square. Booksellers Polly Jaffé and Patrick Neale pair new titles with a café serving coffee and cakes, and the shop won Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2007. Author events, a book club and gifts fill out the trade.
Best for Independent books, coffee, cake and author events
Polly Jaffé and Patrick Neale met in the travel section of Waterstones in Bristol in the early 1990s and count over 70 years of bookselling between them. They arrived in Chipping Norton in 2001 with three sons and took over The Bookshop Chipping Norton. Jaffé & Neale Bookshop launched in West Street that year. In 2006 they bought the present premises at 1 Middle Row. The building was large enough for the second part of their plan, a place where people could meet and talk surrounded by books. The shop won Independent Bookshop of the Year in 2007. Its focus from the start has been good books and good customer service. The team likes nothing better than talking to a customer about what to read next. A café serves coffee and cakes at tables placed to watch the comings and goings of the Market Square. Cards, stationery and gifts are chosen from a range of small brands. Patrick has been President of the Booksellers Association and helps people who want to open a bookshop. Polly sits on the Children's Bookselling Committee and looks after the children's section. Newsletters carry news of forthcoming titles, a book club and signing events at the store. The owners describe their aim as holding onto the traditional values of high street bookselling.
Visit official site ↗Church Street, Inverness, Scotland
Leakey's Bookshop has been family-owned and run in Inverness since 1979, and is billed as Scotland's largest secondhand bookshop, dealing in used and antiquarian books, maps and prints. It occupies a former church on Church Street, with a wood-burning stove at the center of the reading floor.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books, maps, prints
Visit official site ↗West Nicolson Street, Southside
Lighthouse is a queer-owned, woman-led independent bookshop on West Nicolson Street, carrying around 10,000 titles with a focus on radical politics, intersectional feminism and LGBTQ+ writing. It runs the Book Fringe each August and the Radical Book Fair in November.
Best for Radical and LGBTQ+ books
Visit official site ↗Derry, Northern Ireland
Little Acorns Bookstore stocks new, rare, and secondhand books with a focus on Irish subjects, authors, and publishers, and calls itself the largest independent bookstore in the north west of Ireland. It also houses Ireland's only typewriter museum.
Best for Irish-interest and secondhand books
Visit official site ↗Marlow / United Kingdom
Marlow Bookshop is an independent shop at 22-24 Spittal Street in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, stocking new releases, fiction, non-fiction and children's books. Customers can reserve books online for in-store collection or order titles, and the shop runs reading groups and author events.
Best for New releases, fiction, and children's books, plus reading groups and author events
Visit official site ↗Haddington Place, Leith Walk
Established in 1957, McNaughtan's is a Scottish second-hand and antiquarian bookshop, at Haddington Place near the top of Leith Walk. Its gallery space hosts Typewronger Books, which deals in new titles and vintage typewriters.
Best for Antiquarian and second-hand books
Visit official site ↗96 Bold Street, Liverpool
Operating as a women's worker co-operative since 1974, News From Nowhere is a radical and community bookshop on Bold Street stocking political, feminist and small-press titles alongside mainstream fiction. It has run as a collectively-owned business for over five decades, making it one of the longest-running radical bookshops in Britain.
Best for Radical, political and small-press books
Visit official site ↗Black Jack Street, Cirencester
This independent bookshop on Black Jack Street is known for its children's section, with hand-picked titles and recommendations from the counter. It stocks a broad general range of fiction and non-fiction and hosts author signings and events.
Best for Independent bookselling and children's books
Visit official site ↗Broughty Ferry
A family-run bookshop in Broughty Ferry stocking fiction, manga and children's titles alongside signed and indie-exclusive editions. It runs eight community book clubs and hosts author events for local schools.
Best for Signed and independent-bookshop-exclusive editions, plus eight in-house community book clubs
Broughty Ferry's family-run bookshop stocks fiction, young-adult and children's titles alongside manga, graphic novels and a growing romantasy section, without slipping into indistinct chain-store range. Vintage collector's classics and special editions sit near a case of author-signed and independent-bookshop-exclusive copies, often priced below their high-street equivalents. The shop runs eight separate book clubs -- an unusually deep community program for a single-site bookshop -- plus author events organized for local schools and general readers. A mailing list of more than 2,000 subscribers gets first access to signed-edition drops before they reach the shop floor. Online orders can be collected in-store or shipped, with free UK delivery above £30, extending the shop's reach well past Broughty Ferry. For children, the shop stocks dedicated audiobook players alongside activity, sticker and coloring books, treating younger readers as a distinct audience rather than an afterthought. It is a small operation that leans on close relationships -- staff give personalized recommendations, and the volume of repeat, detailed customer reviews suggests a shop that knows its regulars by name. Broughty Ferry, a seaside suburb of Dundee, gets an independent bookshop with the range and community programming more often found in larger cities.
Visit official site ↗The Chaucer Bookshop
Hidden Gem6-7 Beer Cart Lane, Canterbury
The Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing in secondhand, antiquarian and rare titles, with prints, maps and ephemera among the stock. A member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and ILAB, it is Canterbury's principal antiquarian bookseller.
Best for Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing
Visit official site ↗Mousehole / United Kingdom
The Joel Gallery on Commercial Road in Mousehole shows and sells work by the Joel family and a dozen other, mostly Cornish, artists, from original paintings and prints to Beth's textile doorstops and cushions. Visited by appointment, it doubles as a place to book a painting or pottery lesson with the makers.
Best for Art gallery, paintings, prints, textiles
Visit official site ↗The Madhatter Bookshop
Hidden GemHigh Street, Burford
An independent bookshop on the High Street that also sells hats, a nod that gives it its name, stocking new titles across fiction, children's and Cotswolds interest. It is home to the Burford Literary Festival and runs regular author events.
Best for Books and hats
Visit official site ↗Curated ORBIS register · official links shown where recorded