London & Bath Book Adventures
If you’ve been reading any of these posts, first of all, thank you! Secondly, you know that I love England—specifically Bath. In 2022, I traveled across the pond for the third time, and tromped around these beautiful city with my sister and best friend. When I got back, I had some exciting book-themed stories from London and Bath. While I can't say I hopped into every bookstore I found, I definitely hit three great ones that had lovely displays and lots of books to peruse.
Anyone following my Instagram has probably seen the handful of London and Bath posts I've thrown up there. Needless to say, I'm terrible at taking photos while on trips and even worse at keeping up with social media. I also hate being a tourist, so, as you'll see, I take a lot of photos while walking—to get that perfect, blurry touch.
A Trip To London
I've made no secret of my love for London on this blog, and it was just about time for a jaunt back across the pond. This trip was sort of a last minute thing. My best friend had texted me way back in March 2022 asking if I wanted to go to London, which was an automatic YES! But we never did anything about it, and later learned that my sister would want to go with us whenever we went. So after months of talking about it but doing nothing, the three of us decided to just buy our tickets and go for it!
And then the Queen died.
Literally, like a week after my credit card buckled under the weight of the price of the flight, the Queen passed away and we were scheduled to be there the week leading up to and during the funeral.
But it was okay! It would all be good, and we already had plans to get out of the city for a day (Hello, Bath!). We honestly weren't worried about it, and we were actually kind of excited to be there for this chunk of British history. So we hopped on a plane (or planes, because my sister was flying from New York while my friend and I were going from Maryland).
Once in London, we had one rainy day and then enjoyed six beautiful, blue-skied days exploring old favorites and new areas around London and Bath.
Daunt Books, London
On one of our very first days, we made a bee-line for Marylebone. Having been in the area before, we already knew the gorgeous Daunt Books and needed to get back there. Pretty as ever, Daunt has three floors (one is a gallery of sorts), and seemingly every book you could ever want. Including various and sundry publications of Jane Austen's novels and Sherlock Holmes' adventures.
PC: Elaine Atherholt, austenetc.com
Daunt had a number of almost-buys for me, but I ended up taking home The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer.
Persephone Books in Bath
Persephone was a cute little bookstore/publisher in Bath. They publish copies of already published works, but make all the covers gray with house-made patterned paper as the pastedown inside. Each book was assigned its own design which can be seen in the below photo.
PC: Elaine Atherholt, austenetc.com
My almost-buy here was Tea with Mr. Rochester by Frances Towers.
Mr. B's Emporium Bookshop
My second trip to London and first time in Bath, I spent a frustratingly small amount of time in the city of Jane Austen's books and Roman history. This time around, I was determined to spend as much time as possible. We wandered around for a whole day and it was glorious. Which meant more than one bookstore in Bath.
Mr. B's Emporium Bookshop had a bathtub in the middle of one of its main rooms, and shelves and shelves of books. It was a great stop and I will definitely be heading back there when I'm next in Bath.
PC: Elaine Atherholt, austenetc.com
I had no take-homes from this store, but my sister bought a version of Persuasion (I'm slowly converting everyone to my side of things when it comes to that wonderful book).
Anyone else have favorite bookstores in other countries? I'd love to hear about them! Comment below or tag me (@austen.etc) in your Instagram stories!
Happy reading!