A Day of Books!

One of my favorite bookstores!

Sotheran's

Picadilly Street

Fortnum & Mason-I don't know much about this store because it is so expensive. I don't think they would have even let me in in my tank top and jeans, so I didn't chance it. They definitely would have frowned upon me taking photos for the blog.

Haven't shown a picture of tube stops recently! Not sure what happened at Charing Cross back in medieval times, but the images are actually pretty brutal!


So as you may or may not have gathered by now, I love books. Not necessarily just to read, but also the way they look (preferably hardback). I buy a many a book with no intention to read it, just because I love the cover and binding. So when I watched Finding Neverland on Thursday night (one of the last dvds of mine that I brought that I haven't watched), I decided to go out on a hunt for a nice antique copy of Peter Pan. So I googled some antiquarium bookstores and set out! I started my search at New Bond Street at Marlborough Rare Books. It was not a store front, but rather marked on the street with a little A-Frame sign. I had to buzz myself into a building (luckily someone was there trying to do this first), and take a lift (if I was anymore claustrophobic, I would not have been able to take this 4x4 box) up to the fourth floor. They had a beautiful selection of books which looked 100's and 100's of years old. Too bad they were mainly medical, law, and arts books (I was proud for not even browsing the art books-they looked VERY expensive). The shop owner was very nice and pointed me to another store a few blocks away in between Regent's Street and Picadilly whihc might have what I was looking for-Sotheran's.

At first when I walked in, no one offered to help. But after I asked, they were extremely nice! The store was GREAT! Each section-Travel, Literature, Children's, Art & Architecture-all had a different person in charge who specialized in those type of rare books. I went straight to the children's section, and looked for Peter Pan. The only one I found was in a case-this meant $$$. It was an illustrated Peter Pan book from the early 1900's with gold leaf pages priced at 450 pounds! Needless to say, I didn't buy it. But I did find a book called Poster Journeys that had Abrams Undergroud art posters for 10 pounds! For a receipt, they typed out an invoice with my name and address, really making me feel like I had bought something special (it was neither rare, nor antique). I decided that working in a bookstore like this would go under the column of one of my dream jobs!

I had thoroughly gotten lost trying to find Sotheran's (for the first time I actually resorted to carrying my map out in front of my face as I walked and looked at street names), so when I came out of the store, I had NO idea where I was. Turns out, I was right around the corner from another bookstore-Hatchard's and the famous non-bookstore Fortnum & Mason. I went into Hatchard's 5 story building (it may have been more, but I only went up 5 stories). It was not a rare or antiquariun bookstore, but more like Daunt. Around since 1797, the building had great architecture and tons of unique books. I figured after this, I might as well visit my original bookstore-Daunt-and make it a book day. So I took the tube to Baker Street, and had a look around. On my way back to Bob's, I went to Leicester Square to return my Greece travel book at yet another bookstore and bought some Underground posters from the Transport Museum. It was a great day without much of a purpose but finding cool old bookstores-Perfect!

http://www.marlboroughbooks.com/

http://www.sotherans.co.uk/

http://www.hatchards.co.uk/

Knightsbridge & Harrods

Wasn't really in a picture taking mood today, but you can't pass up the opportunity to take a photo of a 7 foot tall Harrods bear in a Beefeater's outfit. And I sure wasn't the only one! I had to wait in line to get a picture, and I was the only one who wasn't taking one of people posing with the stuffed animal (saw more adults, than children posing...)

Princess Diana memorial in Harrods near the Egyptian elevator (There was a 9 foot tall gold Sphynx across fomr this memorial to give you a better mental picture of my surroundings).

Chocolate section in the food hall-took this photo for Kim!

Tea Section-And there are items on sale. Didn't know Harrods had sales (recession)!

Found this store last time I was here (ok, technically I saw it in a travel guide and walked all over Knightsbridge looking for it) and actually stumbled upon it this time. Has great things like vintage tube maps from before the early 1900's, but it's a little pricey!

Couldn't fit all of Harrods in the frame even from across the street, but you get the picture. It's HUGE!

They happened to have a lot of telephone boxes on Brompton Road

Love these buildings down the street from Harrods

See the Harrods delivery truck in the bottom of the frame? It seemed so small in comparison to how much is in the store. Restocking must suck!


So the past few days have been pretty lazy- trying to recover from the coastal tours in Devon and Cornwall. Yesterday, Bob and I decided to go out on a walk even though it was on the verge of raining. We walked down to Clapham Commom and got Bob his gelato, which then fueled us to walk quite a bit further. In our 2 1/2 hours, we made it down Wandsworth Road (past Lavendar Hill-sadly no lavendar), past an ASDA-a British Wal-Mart!!!, and all the way to Clapham Junction railway station so I could look up trains to Banstead and Hampon Court. We were so tired after this unexpectedly long walk, that we took the bus back to Clapham South station, and then another bus back to Bob's.

Today, I decided to go on a hunt for a few items which I had seen on a London blog. This took me back to Baker Street via the Bakerloo tube line (great name-Bakerloo). I again walked past the wax museum which seemed to be even more packed with people queueing up to go in and have their photos taken with wax celebrities! The health and beauty store I was looking for was on a side street off of Thayden St. However, I didn't not realize that this was actually Marylebone High Street. So I ended up walking all the way down Marleybone Street from the Baker Street tube stop, and hitting the Marylebone tube station. Too proud to look at my map until this point, I realized then that they were actually the same street, and it was only one or two streets past Baker Street. So I make it down there again, but unfortunately the store didn't have what I'm looking for (oops-the blog was from Feb 2009). I did get to go back in Daunt Bookstore though which made it ok!

Next on the list of things to do was to go to Harrods to look at their gift section (only part of their store I don't feel like a fraud for being in because I can semi-afford a few of those items!). It was PACKED, and much more expensive than I had remembered-I'm even getting too poor for the gift section! So after taking a great picture of one of the 4 Harrods big bears, I headed out hoping to find the bus station that had the 137 bus back to Bob's. I did not find this. But, I did find the Map shop and another entrance to the Knightsbridge tube station (this must be a HUGE tube station because it was a mile or so from the one that spit me out at Harrods door step). Oh, and little fun tidbit-Jennifer Aniston was at Harrod's on Wednesday unveiling her new frangrance. With all my Friends watching I'm doing over here (E4 shows about 10 Friends episodes a day, and if I miss them, then E4+1 shows them an hour later!), I would have liked to go and see this! The newspaper had a funny quote from her saying that she's not a woman who wears perfume (yet here she is getting people to try to buy hers!).

Baker Street, Marylebone High Street

Baker Street-Known for the home of fictional character Sherlock Holmes (as seen in the tube stop decor)

More from the tube stop!

Cool Art Noveau dedication sign at a school

This school also had a rather lovely door!

One of my new favorite stores-next to Noah's Ark and Liberty of London

So many great books I've never seen anywhere else! Their travel section was two levels!

Designer's Guild on Marylebone High street. They have one store triple its size on King's Road. This makes me miss my Eames chairs!

I love the metal chair and the little mid-century modern night stand behind it

So after a good few days staying in at Bob's doing laundry, catching up on Hollyoaks, and researching immigration (yes, I'm having some major issues), we finally decided to head out to somewhere on my list of places to go. This place happens to be Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street. As I love book shops, and this was one listed in my design books as particularly good for design and travel books (not to mention a nice interior), we decided to take a look. Once we got past the massive crwod at Madame Toussard's wax museum (does that not creep anyone else out-wax figures?), we foudn Marylebone High Street. We only went into a few shops as rain was threatening above, but I codul have spent hours in Daunt! I will definitely be back!