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6. London's book culture
13 Plays2 months ago
Inspired by my recent visit to London, this episode contains my observations of London’s book culture. A bit more serious and multicultural like the city itself. 🫶
London bookstores mentioned:
- Hatchards
- Daunt Books
- Lala Books
- Book Bar
- Foyles
- Goldsboro Books
Books mentioned:
- Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
- Departures by Julian Barnes
- The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
- The Ex-Girlfriends Murder Club by Gloria Chao
- The Mortal Enemy Murder Club - Gloria Chao
- Anatomy of an Alibi - Ashley Elston
- Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Q Sutanto
Find me on Instagram @kristinsnextchapter
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Kristen's Next Chapter'
00:00:01
Kristin Paulin
Hi, I'm Kristen, the host of Kristen's Next Chapter, a podcast to help you find your next read and introduce you to debut authors.
Linking Books and Travel: A London Adventure
00:00:08
Kristin Paulin
Today's episode is another one about travel. In my last episode, we talked about eight ways to incorporate your love of books into your next trip. This week is a follow-up to that episode.
Current Read: 'The Mortal Enemy Murder Club'
00:00:20
Kristin Paulin
I thought I would share some bookish highlights of my trip to London in the bookish moments segment.
Bookish Highlights: Bletchley Park and Notable Bookstores
00:00:27
Kristin Paulin
And then for the topic of the day, I'll share my observations about the book culture in London.
00:00:32
Kristin Paulin
But before we get to all that, I thought I would share what I was currently reading. Right now, I'm reading an ARC or advanced reader copy of The Mortal Enemy Murder Club by Gloria Chao
00:00:44
Kristin Paulin
It's a follow-up to her 2025 book, The Ex-Girlfriend's Murder Club. When I picked up the Ex-Girlfriend's Murder Club last year, I didn't have any expectations and ended up really liking it.
00:00:55
Kristin Paulin
So I would put this book in the same vein as the Finlay Donovan Mystery Series by Elle Cosimano. And so far, I'm really enjoying the Mortal Enemy Murder Club. The author is doing a pretty good job of giving all the necessary background details from the first book in the series, but I would still say definitely pick up the first book, The Ex-Girlfriends, before picking up the newest one coming out, Mortal Enemy.
00:01:23
Kristin Paulin
And you'll have plenty of time because the Mortal Enemy Murder Club book doesn't come out until July 2026.
00:01:31
Kristin Paulin
And now onto the bookish moments segment. Some bookish highlights from my trip include visiting Bletchley Park. On the last episode, I talked about my plans to visit this historical site. It was a historical site from kate Quinn's book, The Rose Code, where women codebreakers worked during World War two I did indeed take this trip that I planned. It's about 40 minutes outside of London, and it was really interesting to visit. The grounds were...
00:01:59
Kristin Paulin
chock full of exhibits and information. and I wasn't really anticipating quite that much. And it really wasn't possible for
Exploring Six Bookstores in London
00:02:07
Kristin Paulin
me to see and read everything on display. And that's probably why the 28 pound admission price is actually an annual membership. So you can go back as many times as you want during the year.
00:02:20
Kristin Paulin
I also ultimately visited six bookstores on my trip, and four of them were huge highlights for me. So Hatchard's in Piccadilly wasn't even on my radar, but I was next door at Fortum & Mason getting some tea and biscuits, and I noticed it.
00:02:36
Kristin Paulin
Apparently, it's the oldest bookseller in the u k dating back to 1797. and it's the official bookseller to the royal family. And I'm so glad I stumbled upon it.
00:02:48
Kristin Paulin
It was the first bookstore I visited, so honestly, i was having way too much restraint during that visit, and I still regret not adding a signed copy of the correspondent to my purchases.
00:02:59
Kristin Paulin
I loved this bookstore and I will make it an intentional stop on my next trip to London. The second bookstore that I want to highlight is Daunt Books in Marleybone.
00:03:10
Kristin Paulin
It was originally on my radar, but it didn't end up making my final list for the trip. But then while I was in London, several people recommended it to me, so it went right back on the list. And I'm so glad it did. The selection was really wide ranging and I had a hard time whittling down my purchases.
00:03:28
Kristin Paulin
And the store itself is also really beautiful inside with some stained glass windows and a lot of skylight windows as well. the company is also known for their canvas bags.
00:03:42
Kristin Paulin
You'll probably spot people carrying them around if you visit London.
Vibrant Book Culture in London
00:03:48
Kristin Paulin
The third bookstore I visited is called Lala Books. It's a newer store and it's very small in the neighborhood Camberwell in South London. This store was on my list to visit because I happened to live in the neighborhood 20 years ago and i was really interested to see this addition to the neighborhood.
00:04:07
Kristin Paulin
Because it was small, the selection was highly curated. I picked up a book about walks in the neighborhood that was written by a local. And then finally, i went to Bar, Chelsea. This is the second location for Book Bar. The first one is in Islington.
00:04:25
Kristin Paulin
And this is a smaller store, but it's also a coffee shop, a wine bar, and an event space. I enjoyed sitting outside with my newly purchased book and a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning.
00:04:36
Kristin Paulin
I love bookstores as community spaces, and this one was really cute and definitely hit the mark for me. There were a few misses for me. First, Foyles This is a huge store, somewhat generic, and I was just generally underwhelmed by it.
00:04:55
Kristin Paulin
It's also owned by the large chain Waterstones, so it's kind of like the Barnes & Noble of the UK, I guess. And then the second one for me was Cecil Court.
00:05:06
Kristin Paulin
The lesson for me is don't believe everything you see on social media. I did not find this street to be a book lover's dream, nor was it a street of only bookstores.
00:05:17
Kristin Paulin
There were definitely several bookstores. They're a niche. I went to Goldsboro Books, which specializes in first editions. I was hoping this would include current books that were signed, but they were usually specially wrapped up books and they weren't new releases, and so it just generally didn't appeal to me personally.
Multicultural Book Content in London
00:05:39
Kristin Paulin
And now let's shift into the topic of the day, London book culture.
00:05:44
Kristin Paulin
As I wandered around the city and visited these half a dozen bookstores, I started to notice a few things. First, there are tons of bookstores. One day when I was walking from Foils to Cecil Court, which aren't even that far apart, I passed two bookstores on the way.
00:06:03
Kristin Paulin
and every bookstore that I visited was so busy, no matter the day or the time of day.
00:06:11
Kristin Paulin
And the bigger bookstores had a wide-ranging selection, wider than I'm used to seeing at the bigger stores in the U.S., like Barnes & Noble. And the smaller bookstores were very curated, but they were still really busy.
00:06:25
Kristin Paulin
Another thing I noticed is the UK versions of book covers are sometimes more colorful and interesting. Two examples are The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell. I'll post on Instagram pictures of the US and UK versions so that you can see the difference of these.
00:06:47
Kristin Paulin
Londoners also seem to gravitate to more serious content than Americans. At least at the bookstores I visited, the content was curated with a bent towards more serious topics than I'm used to seeing in the bookstores that I frequent in the U.S. For example, there was a big window display at Daunt Books for The Hour of the Wolf by Fatima Butoh.
00:07:09
Kristin Paulin
The display said, From acclaimed journalist and novelist Fatima Butoh, a searing, intimate memoir of grief, heartbreak, and what we owe the natural world, all learned from the dog that saved her life.
00:07:23
Kristin Paulin
Only a teenager when her beloved father was murdered, shot outside their home by his political opponents, As an adult, Fatima Butoh longed for a happy family life. And so when one day she meets an intoxicatingly charismatic man who promises just that, she falls for him and falls hard.
00:07:43
Kristin Paulin
This is the story of how Fatima
London Book Recommendations
00:07:46
Kristin Paulin
freed herself from the tight, dangerous coils of the man's manipulative charms. It is a tale that crosses continents, travels into myth, literature, astronomy, and art, and explores Fatima's own yearning for motherhood.
00:08:01
Kristin Paulin
By her side for the entire journey is Coco, a small, ferociously loyal Jack Russell Terrier. Heartbreaking yet hopeful, this kaleidoscopic memoir is a testament to resilience, self-acceptance, and the restorative power of friendship and humanity's connection to nature.
00:08:20
Kristin Paulin
I think the book sounds great, but it also sounds a bit heavy. And then my final and favorite observation of London's book culture, noticed the fiction selection is multicultural, like the city itself. And when this dawned on me, my heart swelled because that's one of my favorite very favorite things about London.
00:08:42
Kristin Paulin
When I was at the bookstores, I looked for books that I hadn't seen in the US. I also picked up ones that I saw repeatedly, sometimes featured at the different bookstores that I visited.
00:08:52
Kristin Paulin
i also tried to find signed copies just because i wanted to. And some of the novels that I kept seeing that I brought home with me include Fundamentally by Nusalba Yunus. And this one caught my eye because on the cover, the Times called it Bridget Jones in Iraq.
00:09:13
Kristin Paulin
And the description for this book is, Nadia is an academic who's been dumped by her girlfriend and disowned by her puritanical mother. Instead of going to therapy, she decides to accept a UN n job rehabilitating women in Iraq.
00:09:28
Kristin Paulin
Sarah is a sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just 15. Nadia feels inexplicably drawn to her, and as it turns out, they have a lot in common. That is, until a secret confession from Sarah threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
00:09:44
Kristin Paulin
And the second book that I want to highlight is Departures by Julian Barnes. I saw this one everywhere. The description is, Departures is a work of fiction, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
00:09:59
Kristin Paulin
It's the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It's the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.
00:10:13
Kristin Paulin
It's also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident, or intent. And it's the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes and then into memory.
00:10:25
Kristin Paulin
Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered? It begins at the end of life, but it doesn't end there.
00:10:36
Kristin Paulin
Ultimately, it's about the only things that ever really mattered, how we find happiness in this life, and when it's time to say goodbye. And then finally, the third book I wanted to mention is The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce.
00:10:52
Kristin Paulin
When world-famous artist Vic Kemp summons his four adult children to lunch with the promise of big news, Goose and his sisters drop everything, expecting he has finished the masterpiece that will be the capstone to his career. Instead, he reveals he has forsworn his Playboy ways and is engaged to a woman decades his junior they have never met.
00:11:15
Kristin Paulin
After rushing to marry the enigmatic Bella May at his Italian villa, he's found dead weeks later in a lake he knew like the back of his hand. As the summer heat wave blazes across Europe, the siblings find themselves in a waiting game.
00:11:30
Kristin Paulin
trapped under the same roof as their young stepmother, unpicking the mystery of their father's death as long-simmering resentments threaten to come to light.
00:11:40
Kristin Paulin
With wit, insight, and compassion, Rachel Joyce explores memory, identity, and sibling bonds, the hairline fractures that can appear, and what happens when they splinter, and what it might take to bring the family back together.
Reading Intentions and Community Engagement
00:11:56
Kristin Paulin
And I wanted to end this episode talking about my reading intentions until the next time we meet. I've been pretty busy with book clubs lately, and I'm feeling like I want to take a breather on that in April and mostly mood read from my TBR list. But in the meantime, I do have two book clubs coming up this week.
00:12:16
Kristin Paulin
The Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston at my local bookstore. And Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sitanto for my Classy Ladies book club.
00:12:30
Kristin Paulin
Please note, several of my book clubs have silly names just for fun. And that's it for today. Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, please tell a friend. In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram at Kristen's Next Chapter, all one word.
00:12:46
Kristin Paulin
I'd love to hear from you. Have you observed differences in book cultures of the places that you've visited? Have a great week and happy reading.