Here’s a rarity for me: two reviews in one post! Both of these books are from the Opinionated London Guides series from Hoxton Mini Press.
An Opinionated Guide to London Museums, by Emmy Watts
Emmy Watts’ An Opinionated Guide to London Museums is a pretty well-designed little volume. There’s a map in the front with the numbers of the various museums on it, and each museum gets a page with a little description/commentary, and sometimes some extra images to pretty it up or further illustrate the kind of cluttered miscellany that you’ll find there.
It’s a little heavy on things that’re worth the visit for the architecture/art, which doesn’t interest me — but that’s the point of an opinionated guide, once you get the drift of the person’s opinions. For those looking for family-friendly (kid-friendly, it means) trips, this book also tends to note how good the museum is on that front.
I found one or two museums I didn’t know about that I want to visit, and was reminded of others, so I think it has served its purpose.
Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)
An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops, by Sonya Barber & James Manning
Like the other book in this series I’ve read, An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops is a good travel guide if you’re interested in the topic — which it will surprise no one to hear I am. (If you are shocked, why are you here?) This one’s written by a couple, Sonya Barber and James Manning, and tends to note whether there are kid sections.
There’s a fair spread of political bookshops and bookshops for art and coffee table books, even one for cookbooks and another for all types of graphic novels and manga, but it feels weird that it’ll mention something as mainstream as Waterstones Piccadilly and not the Forbidden Planet International which is pretty good for SF/F stuff as well as comics. To judge from this book there are few genre specialist bookshops, and a quick search does seem to back that up, but in that light it seems especially weird to skip Forbidden Planet.
Also, I’m sorry, but organising by vague themes or by country is not a draw for me, yikes. By country the book is set in? By country the author comes from? What if the author’s a dual national? What if the book is set in several different countries? How do you find books by themes like “wanderlust”? It’s fine for browsing, but less so when you know what you want, including when you know you want some new SF/F or non-fiction and it’s all mingled together. I hate this trend.
Anyway, curmudgeon moment over. It’s a reasonably helpful volume, and of course constrained by what’s actually available in London, but man it seems weird if there are really no shops specialising in crime fiction or sci-fi (Forbidden Planet aside) in London?!
Like the museums guide, it has a map with the numbers on it, which helps in planning a trip.
Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)
That is weird that Forbidden Planet isn’t mentioned. I love in the states and even I know about it! (and probably went there when I visited London years ago)
I definitely found it a very weird omission.
Interesting. I would assume they would mention Forbidden Planet so it’s weird that they don’t. If they mention Waterstones Piccadilly I would hope (but doubt) that they mention either the one on Gower Street or Tottenham Court Road – both of which I think are more unique, more interesting Waterstones than the Piccadilly one (and I would say Gower Street is not much smaller). TCR branch has a cafe with happy hour and GS is in the most beautiful building with turrets, dotted with study and reading spaces and maybe because it’s so close to a bunch of universities it has a really wide nonfiction and academic nonfiction selection. It’s probably the most beautiful Waterstones I’ve been to (certainly the most beautiful in London).
As for organising books by location – I assume you’re referring to the Daunt Books branch in Marylebone? Having been there myself, I actually really like it. They do have a section that is not organised like this with some of the more popular books, children’s books etc. but then they have two rooms that are organised by country and I find it a really interesting and exciting way to discover more global literature – and also get context for things. It’s kind of interesting to be able to see a travel guide, a history book and a fiction book from the same country together and I think it makes it easier to find works from around the world to read without having to have prior knowledge. I would agree that it’s not somewhere to go to pick up a book that you know you need necessarily, but I do think it works as a functional browsing experience. Of course they do have to make decisions about where things go when they’re not super clear cut… but people do this with genre etc in regular bookshelves as well!
Keira @Keira’s Bookmark recently posted…Women writers of China and Korea | Stacking the Shelves
They only mention Waterstones Piccadilly, yup. IIRC I liked the Gower Street one more in the past, too.
Daunt Books is indeed the one that organises by country. I’ve been to a couple of bookshops that organise things non-traditionally and I generally find it annoying because I want to find specific things. I read across a lot of genres and topics, so it’s not that I don’t like to find something unexpected… but years of genre-organised books have taught me how to find that unexpectedness within that system, if that makes sense! If I know I want some non-fiction, but have no pre-conceived notion of what topic I want to read, I’ll go to the non-fiction and see what jumps out at me. In that moment I have no use for fiction. It’s sort of a knowing where to start problem, I think.