Eighteen London bookshops as of 28 September 2026, grouped as the four famous names, independents, secondhand and rare, and specialists. Each card has the shop's own opening hours, what it's best for, the nearest Tube station and one honest drawback. If you only visit one: Daunt Books in Marylebone.
If you visit one bookshop in London, make it Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street: a 1912 shop with long oak galleries and skylights, where travel guides, novels and history are shelved together by country. For range, Foyles on Charing Cross Road has more than 200,000 titles. For history, Hatchards on Piccadilly has sold books since 1797. For secondhand books and signed first editions, spend an hour on Charing Cross Road and in Cecil Court, the bookseller's alley beside Leicester Square station.
The 18 shops below are grouped by what you want: the four famous names, the independents, the secondhand and rare dealers (including a bookshop on a canal barge), and the specialists for maps, comics, cookbooks, LGBTQ+ books and the occult. Each card gives opening hours from the shop's own website (checked 28 September 2026), what the shop is best for, the nearest station on the Tube (the subway) and one honest drawback. Several shops close on Mondays or Sundays, so check the card before you cross town.
Bookshops fit into almost any day in central London. For the rest of the trip, start with things to do in London. If you're heading to Bloomsbury for the bookshops there, the best museums in London guide covers the British Museum around the corner, and free things to do in London has plenty more that costs nothing to browse.
The famous four. The shops most visitors have heard of. All four are worth the trip, for different reasons.
Daunt Books is the London bookshop I'd send anyone to first. The older part of the building was finished in 1912 for an antiquarian bookseller and is often called the first purpose-built bookshop: a long back room with oak galleries, skylights and William Morris prints. James Daunt bought it in 1990 and gave it his big idea, shelving by country. The guidebook, the travel writing, the history and the novels for Italy all sit together, which makes it a dangerous place to plan a trip.
It also runs a steady programme of author talks, and it sells a year-long book subscription (£200 for paperbacks, £320 for hardbacks) if you want a London bookshop sending you something every month after you get home.
Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-7:30pm, Sun 11am-6pm. Tube: Baker Street. Best for: travel and fiction by country, and the building itself. The drawback: the gallery is one of London's most photographed rooms, so it can be busy with people taking pictures, especially at weekends. Go at 9am on a weekday.
Head straight through to the galleried back room for travel, arranged by country. Tube: Baker Street (Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Jubilee, Metropolitan), about 8 minutes; Bond Street and Regent's Park are about 10.
Hatchards has been on Piccadilly since John Hatchard opened it in 1797, and it calls itself the oldest bookshop in the UK. It holds a Royal Warrant and has had customers from William Wilberforce to Oscar Wilde. Inside, it's five floors of small rooms, strong on signed first editions, history, Churchill and royal books.
It publishes its own reprints of classics as Hatchards Library editions, mostly £16.99, which make a good London souvenir that isn't a tea towel.
Hours: Mon-Sat 9:30am-8pm, Sun noon-6pm. Tube: Green Park or Piccadilly Circus. Best for: history, signed copies and gifts. The drawback: small rooms and a lot of stairs, and it gets cramped on a Saturday.
Children's books are on the second floor. Fortnum & Mason is next door and the Royal Academy is across the road. Tube: Green Park (Jubilee, Piccadilly, Victoria) or Piccadilly Circus (Bakerloo, Piccadilly), each about 5 minutes.
Foyles was founded in 1903 and is the anchor of Charing Cross Road, London's old bookshop street. Since 2014 the flagship has been in the former Central Saint Martins art school at number 107: more than 200,000 different books on eight levels around a skylit atrium. Ray's Jazz, a record shop within the shop, is on Level 2, and the languages floor stocks books in about 100 languages.
The café on the fifth floor is run by Leafi and does coffee, scones, cakes, soups, toasties and hot lunches, plus wine and beer. It's a good place to sit down before a show in the West End theaters.
Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-9pm, Sun 11:30am-6pm. Tube: Tottenham Court Road. Best for: finding a specific book, and sheer range. The drawback: it's bright and modern, closer to a department store than a characterful old shop. Walk down to Cecil Court for that.
Ray's Jazz (records and CDs) is on Level 2 and foreign languages on Level 4. Tube: Tottenham Court Road (Central, Northern, Elizabeth line), about 3 minutes.
Waterstones Piccadilly calls itself Europe's largest bookshop: more than eight miles of shelves from the lower ground floor up to a bar on the fifth, three minutes from Piccadilly Circus. It's the chain's flagship, so the stock is broad rather than curated, but it's open until 9pm six days a week, as late as Foyles.
It's also the best bookshop for a sit-down: 5th View, a bar and restaurant on the top floor (listed as open 11am-8pm), Embertons Café in the lower ground floor, and a café on the mezzanine. The second floor is one of Waterstones' board-game shops.
Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-9pm, Sun noon-6pm. Tube: Piccadilly Circus. Best for: late opening, new releases and a drink with a book. The drawback: it's a chain store, and Hatchards, a two-minute walk away, has far more character. Do both.
Three places to sit: 5th View on the top floor, Embertons Café in the lower ground floor, and the mezzanine café. Board games are on the second floor. Tube: Piccadilly Circus (Bakerloo, Piccadilly), about 3 minutes.
The independents. Smaller shops where the staff choose every book, spread from Bloomsbury to Chelsea and east London.
The London Review Bookshop was opened in 2003 by the London Review of Books, a few minutes from the British Museum. It stocks around 20,000 titles and is strongest on poetry, history, politics and philosophy. The evening talks are some of the best in London and often sell out.
The old Cake Shop next door has closed. The café is now St. JOHN at the Bookshop, an outpost of the famous restaurant, serving coffee, Eccles cakes and St. JOHN doughnuts from 8am, with savoury tarts, sandwiches and madeleines baked to order at lunch.
Hours: bookshop Mon-Sat 10am-6:30pm, Sun noon-6pm; café from 8am Mon-Sat. Tube: Holborn. Best for: serious reading and a pastry after the British Museum. The drawback: the basement and toilet are down stairs with no lift.
Evening author events often sell out, so book on the website. Tube: Holborn (Central, Piccadilly), about 6 minutes; the British Museum is a 2-minute walk.
John Sandoe opened just off the King's Road on 11 November 1957 and now fills three small 18th-century shops on three floors, with books piled on tables and up the stairs. It leans towards fiction, history, biography, poetry and art, and it's the shop I'd pick for a personal recommendation. The staff are the reason people come.
Hours: Mon-Sat 9:30am-5:30pm, Sun 11am-5pm. Tube: Sloane Square. Best for: a hand-picked recommendation and a very London browse. The drawback: it closes at 5:30pm, earlier than the West End shops, and the rooms are tight.
Ask the staff for a recommendation; it's what the shop is known for. Tube: Sloane Square (District, Circle), about 5 minutes.
Heywood Hill has been on Curzon Street in Mayfair since 1936, and 2026 is its 90th year. Nancy Mitford worked here during the Second World War, and John le Carré set a scene of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the shop. It sells new, old and antiquarian books on two floors of a Georgian townhouse.
Today it's best known for its reading subscriptions. The Tailored Twelve (£410) starts with a conversation about what you like and then sends 12 hardbacks over the year; the simplest, New Fiction, is £175. For a visitor it's a lovely, quiet stop between Green Park and Hatchards.
Hours: Mon-Fri 9:30am-6pm; closed weekends. Tube: Green Park. Best for: a gift subscription and old-fashioned service. The drawback: closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and it's small.
Weekdays only. Tube: Green Park (Jubilee, Piccadilly, Victoria), about 7 minutes; pair it with Hatchards, about 10 minutes' walk away.
Libreria, off Brick Lane in Spitalfields, is a bookshop by Second Home, the creative workspace company, and arranges its shelves by theme rather than genre, under headings like Wanderlust and The City, so you find books you weren't looking for. There's a risograph printer in the basement for zines and prints, and a busy talks programme.
As one Google reviewer wrote in September 2026, it's small but very well curated, and they singled out the shop's no-phone policy.
Hours: Tue-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun noon-6pm; closed Monday. Station: Shoreditch High Street. Best for: a browse with no agenda, and a pairing with Brick Lane. The drawback: it's one small room, so don't come for a specific title.
Brick Lane is at the end of the street. Nearest station: Shoreditch High Street (Overground, Windrush line), about 7 minutes; the nearest Tube is Aldgate East (District, Hammersmith & City), about 10.
It is small but so so well curated… I appreciate the no phone policy from a visitor review
Burley Fisher Books on Kingsland Road in Haggerston sells new books upstairs and secondhand downstairs, with a specialism in independent presses and zines. It publishes its own pamphlets as the Burley Fisher Community Press, with Woolf's Street Haunting and Orwell's Books v. Cigarettes at £6 each, and it calls itself London's bookshop of the year for 2021 and 2022.
Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun noon-6pm. Station: Haggerston (Overground). Best for: small presses and a cheap, beautiful pamphlet. The drawback: it's a trip out east with no Tube line, so combine it with Columbia Road on a Sunday or the Dalston bars.
No Tube nearby: Haggerston (Overground, Windrush line) is about 4 minutes' walk. The Vortex and Cafe OTO jazz rooms in Dalston are about 10 minutes north.
Secondhand, rare and on the water. Where to rummage, from £1.50 bargains to signed first editions.
Any Amount of Books is what Charing Cross Road used to be. There has been a bookshop at number 56 since at least the 1920s, and it still puts books out on the pavement every morning. Inside, the stock runs from bargains at £1.50 to out-of-print books and rare first editions, with more in the basement, and it changes almost daily.
Hours: Mon-Sat 10:30am-7pm, Sun 11am-6:30pm. Tube: Leicester Square. Best for: a cheap secondhand find in the middle of town. The drawback: narrow aisles, stacked shelves and stairs to the basement.
Check the tables outside first, then the basement. Tube: Leicester Square (Northern, Piccadilly), about 2 minutes.
Cecil Court is the short pedestrian lane between Charing Cross Road and St Martin's Lane, rebuilt in 1894 and still owned by the Cecil family. Mozart lodged here as an eight-year-old in 1764. Today it's lined with booksellers and dealers in old prints, maps, coins and medals, including Marchpane for children's and illustrated books, Travis & Emery for music, and Sotheran's. It's the best five minutes of window shopping for book lovers in London.
Goldsboro Books, founded in 1999, says it's the only bookshop in the world specialising in signed hardback first editions, with more than 25,000 in stock. It became famous in 2013 as the only bookshop with signed copies of The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, before he was revealed to be J.K. Rowling. Every dust jacket gets a protective cover for free.
Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-6pm; closed Sunday. Tube: Leicester Square. Best for: a signed first edition to take home. The drawback: closed on Sundays, and signed firsts cost at least as much as ordinary copies, so it isn't a bargain browse.
Tube: Leicester Square (Northern, Piccadilly), about 2 minutes; Charing Cross is about 5.
Skoob Books (books backwards) is a big basement of secondhand books tucked into the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. It calls itself London's broadest selection of secondhand books and is especially good for academic, out-of-print and older paperbacks, at fair prices. It's open every day.
Hours: daily, until 7:30pm Mon-Sat and 6pm Sun (from 10:30am or 11am). Tube: Russell Square. Best for: a long rummage; pair it with Gay's the Word, two minutes away. The drawback: it's easy to miss, behind the back doors of Waitrose.
It's a basement at the north end of the Brunswick Centre: go out through the back doors of Waitrose and turn left. Tube: Russell Square (Piccadilly), about 4 minutes.
Word on the Water is the London bookshop on a boat: a secondhand bookshop on Dianti, a Dutch barge from the 1920s, normally moored on the Regent's Canal by Granary Square in King's Cross. There's a fire on board to sit by, and the barge regularly hosts live music and poetry.
It's open every day from noon to 7pm, which makes it an easy add-on to Coal Drops Yard or a walk along the canal. For more books by the river, the South Bank Book Market under Waterloo Bridge is in my London markets guide.
Hours: daily noon-7pm; closed Christmas Day. Tube: King's Cross St Pancras. Best for: the most unusual bookshop in London, and a canal walk. The drawback: space on board is tight, and weekend afternoons are the busiest time.
It's moored on the canal beside Granary Square, just north of King's Cross station. Tube: King's Cross St Pancras (Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan), about 8 minutes.
The specialists. Shops that do one thing better than anyone, from maps to comics.
Stanfords says it has traded in the Covent Garden area since 1853 and calls itself the world's largest map and travel bookshop: maps, atlases, globes, guidebooks and travel writing on two floors. Its customers have included Shackleton, Scott, Florence Nightingale and Michael Palin. In 2019 it moved from its old Long Acre building around the corner to Mercer Walk, and there's a small coffee house inside.
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-7pm, Sat 10am-7pm, Sun noon-6pm. Tube: Covent Garden. Best for: a proper walking map, a globe or the book for your next trip. The drawback: the grand old map room is gone; this is a modern shop.
Mercer Walk is a pedestrian lane off Mercer Street, not the old Long Acre shop. Tube: Covent Garden (Piccadilly), about 3 minutes.
Unequalled selection of maps. A pleasure to visit, with small café and seating in a quiet courtyard. from a visitor review
Gay's the Word opened on Marchmont Street in January 1979 and is the UK's oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop. In 1984-85 the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners group met here, the story told in the 2014 film Pride, and a blue plaque above the shop honours LGSM's co-founder Mark Ashton. It sells new and used LGBTQ+ fiction, non-fiction, poetry and trans and nonbinary writing, and it still hosts reading and discussion groups.
Hours: Tue-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun 1pm-6pm; closed Monday and bank holidays. Tube: Russell Square. Best for: queer books and London history. The drawback: it's a very small shop, and busy from Friday to Sunday.
It's a very small shop that gets busy Friday to Sunday; a weekday afternoon is quieter. Tube: Russell Square (Piccadilly), about 4 minutes.
Watkins Books, the other big name in Cecil Court, dates from 1893 and has been at 21 Cecil Court since about 1901. W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley were customers, and Watkins arranged the first printing of Carl Jung's Seven Sermons to the Dead. Two floors cover mysticism, Buddhism, astrology and the occult, with one of the largest collections of tarot decks, and a bargain and secondhand basement.
Hours: daily 11am-6:30pm. Tube: Leicester Square. Best for: the unusual, and a tarot deck as a souvenir. The drawback: it opens at 11am, and it's of little use if the subject leaves you cold.
The bargain and secondhand books are in the basement. Tube: Leicester Square (Northern, Piccadilly), about 2 minutes.
Gosh! Comics, on the corner of Berwick Street in Soho, has been selling comics for 39 years. It's strongest on graphic novels: translated European albums, manga, small-press work and a big children's section, plus superheroes. There are regular signings and a monthly comics reading group.
Hours: daily 10:30am-7pm. Tube: Piccadilly Circus. Best for: graphic novels, and a gift for a teenager. The drawback: it's a small corner shop that fills up on signing days. For the bigger merchandise-and-comics megastore, Forbidden Planet is on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Tube: Piccadilly Circus (Bakerloo, Piccadilly), about 5 minutes.
Books for Cooks, on Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill since 1983, specialises in cookbooks, with more than 8,000 books on the shelves. At the back is a tiny test kitchen that cooks recipes from the books on the shelves and serves lunch, cakes and coffee at a handful of tables until the food runs out. The menu changes every day.
Lunch is served from noon at a handful of tables, and a line often forms before then, so arrive early.
Hours: Tue-Sat 10am-6pm; closed Sunday, Monday, and for breaks in late August and over Christmas. Tube: Ladbroke Grove. Best for: cookbooks, and lunch in what the shop calls the best-smelling shop in the world. The drawback: it's closed on Sundays and Mondays, and lunch sells out.
Blenheim Crescent crosses Portobello Road, so it pairs with the Saturday market. Tube: Ladbroke Grove (Hammersmith & City, Circle), about 5 minutes; Notting Hill Gate is about 10.
I stopped by for lunch on a Tuesday (vegetarian day). It was the top of my list in London and did not disappoint! We stood in line for a while… from a visitor review
One bookshop, no time: Daunt Books, Marylebone.
The biggest range: Foyles on Charing Cross Road, or Waterstones Piccadilly if it's after 7pm.
The oldest: Hatchards, since 1797.
Secondhand bargains: Any Amount of Books, Skoob, and Word on the Water.
A signed first edition: Goldsboro Books.
A map or a travel book: Stanfords, or Daunt's country shelves.
Something unusual: Word on the Water, Libreria or Watkins.
St. JOHN at the London Review Bookshop: Eccles cakes and doughnuts from 8am, Monday to Saturday.
Foyles: the fifth-floor café, for coffee, scones or a hot lunch, until 8pm Monday to Saturday.
Waterstones Piccadilly: 5th View on the top floor for a glass of wine, or Embertons in the lower ground floor.
Stanfords: a small coffee house inside, with seating on Mercer Walk.
Books for Cooks: lunch from the test kitchen, Tuesday to Saturday, until it runs out.
Charing Cross Road and Covent Garden (about 1 km): start at Foyles (Tottenham Court Road station), walk south down Charing Cross Road to Any Amount of Books at number 56, turn into Cecil Court for Goldsboro and Watkins, then cross to Stanfords on Mercer Walk for coffee. Gosh! in Soho is a 10-minute detour west.
Bloomsbury (about 1 km): start at the London Review Bookshop (Holborn), which works well after the British Museum, then walk north to Gay's the Word on Marchmont Street and Skoob in the Brunswick Centre next to it. Russell Square station is two minutes from the end.
Piccadilly and Mayfair, on a weekday: Waterstones Piccadilly and Hatchards are two minutes apart, and Heywood Hill on Curzon Street is about 10 minutes' walk west.
Check the day. Gay's the Word, Libreria and Books for Cooks are closed on Mondays; Goldsboro and Books for Cooks on Sundays; Heywood Hill all weekend. Sunday hours everywhere are short, usually from 11am or noon to 6pm.
The shelf price is what you pay. No sales tax is added at the till, and books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK. London has no tourist tax yet.
Gone to Bath. Persephone Books, which used to have a shop on Lamb's Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, moved the whole business to Bath in 2021. There is no London shop now.
Packing books. Books are heavy. If you're flying home, buy paperbacks, or ask the shop about shipping before you pay.
Where to stay. Bloomsbury and Covent Garden put the two best bookshop walks on your doorstep; see where to stay in London. For more free browsing, the best markets in London include the South Bank Book Market.
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