I'm ashamed to admit that after 10 years of living in the capital, I have never ventured inside Hatchards bookshop on Piccadilly which was established in 1797.
I'm not sure why I've never been, other than I always seem to get caught up in Waterstone's flagship store, just a little further down the road, and so I never have time to go book shopping elsewhere.
Today I made an exception and during a little jolly around the West End I decided I might be brave enough to visit the very same bookshop that the Queen gets all her tomes from. Apparently the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales shop here, too, which is why Hatchards bills itself as "booksellers to the Royal Household". Well, laa dee dah!
Anyway, inside there are five rambling floors stocked to the brim with every kind of book you could imagine. It's one of those stores that I imagine you could return to again and again and never get a full sense of what is kept where, because there are little rooms tucked away and tiny passageways leading from one section to another, and it's a bit like going on an adventure to a theme park you've never seen before, and no matter which way you turn you're surprised to find a new ride or a new attraction, except, in this case, it's books.
I made my way slowly up each floor, exploring as I went, and it was only when I got to the top that I wondered where the fiction was. A kindly shop assistant, when I inquired, told me to backtrack all the way down the staircase (beautiful timber balustrades and lush, olive green carpet) to the basement. There, laid out before me, was a series of well stocked rooms filled to the brim with novels, novels, novels!
Like their competitors down the road, Hatchards do a 3-for-2 offer on selected titles, and I was pleasantly surprised to find their selection largely different to what Waterstone's has on offer, mainly of the literary fiction persuasion, including many new Canongate books.
I liked their carefully themed display tables (of full-price fiction), which included "Scandinavian crime", "Pulitzer Prize Winners" and "Books in Translation", among others.
There were very few people in the store, so browsing was wonderful. I think I whiled away a good hour or so just in the fiction section. The shop obviously attracts a certain, shall we say eccentric, clientele, and I chuckled to myself listening to two old gents with cut-glass accents discussing what they should buy. "There's a wonderful section here on erotica!" one of them bellowed to the other. "Do you read that sort of thing, dear chap?"
"Well, no, I can't say that's normally my cup of tea."
"Pity, there's a wonderful title here called 'Between My Thighs'!"
I think everyone on the floor had to bite their cheeks so they wouldn't laugh out loud at that one.
Anyway, I resisted temptation, and only bought one book -- J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country -- but I will definitely return on a regular basis to explore further.
If you're planning a visit, Hatchards is located at 187 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LE.
