Secondhand and Antiquarian Bookshops in the UK and Republic of Ireland
About thebookguide
Ancient history
Going back more than seventy years, there have been book series that
aimed to list the second-hand and antiquarian bookshops of Britain.
Among the first was the Sheppard Press Dealers in Books series, which
appeared in new editions every few years. Skoob Books issued a similar
directory in seven editions between 1987 and 2000. Probably
best-known, if not notorious, are the several editions of Drif(f)'s
Guide, a deliberately chaotic, scurrilous and often very funny book
recording the author's love of books and hatred of the book trade,
or at least significant parts and aspects of it. The last edition
of Drif's Guide appeared in 1995 and since then he has been elusive.
(As chance would have it, days after writing this I bumped into and
chatted to Drif - surely a good omen for the site.)
The original site
thebookguide was launched in 2001 by Mike Goodenough 'in the spirit of
Drif' as a listing of the second-hand and antiquarian bookshops of the
UK and the Republic of Ireland. It also listed book fairs, book
auctions and bookbinders. We no longer list these on the main site, but
fair and auction links are listed on our main
listings page.
Our Facebook page also posts
a monthly rundown of the latest reviews with shop photos.
Mike maintained the site over nearly twenty years but closed it in March
2020, making the content available to anyone who would continue it in
some form. Roger Blake preserved and hosted the site content and registered
the domain thebookguide.info, and Jon Morgan listed the shops with submitted
changes on our associated Facebook page.
The new site
This site aims to include Mike, Roger and Jon's work and acknowledges
their help and contributions, plus the reviews submitted by many users
over the years. Currently most of our reviews are submitted by a dedicated core group,
some of whom cover much of the country on book-buying trips.
The listing content has been brought up to date with changes since lockdown, but we
rely on our readers' help to record new changes.
In 2024 the reviewer who modestly wishes to hide behind his username Booker T started
to send in large numbers of new and unrecorded shops, greatly boosting the guide's
completeness. Many he knew from past visiting; others he has discovered and researched,
giving trustworthy and well-judged entries.
The site needed a new interface to restore the interactive elements.
Users of the old site could submit comments on a bookshop, and could
submit new shops and changes to existing shops, and this has been
reinstated.
The twenty-year-old layout has been redesigned to take advantage of
new larger screens and to allow better display on smartphones.
Major thanks are due to
Bytemark Hosting who are sponsoring the hosting of
this site, allowing it to be free of advertising and commercial
exploitation of its visitors.
