SKOOB BOOKS

66, The Brunswick

off Marchmont St

London WC1N 1AE

UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7278 8760

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Lift access, bespoke lighting, warmth, full air-conditioning and wonderful staff provide an excellent browsing environment. The used books on our shelves are priced at half or less, of what they would cost if bought new (those from our warehouse reflect the going rate online). There’s a further 10% discount for students and Wedge Card holders, also a discount for cinema goers, see below.

Skoob is on Marchmont Street side of The Brunswick, between The Flash Centre and Waitrose’s rear exit. If you find yourself in the main concourse of The Brunswick, with chain stores and cafes all around, head straight through Waitrose, admire the cheese, exit and turn left. We are the first shop you come to.

We’ve now filled thousands of requests for used books from our catalogued warehouse in Oxfordshire. If we don’t have the book you require on the shelves, and it’s available in our on-line catalogue, we’ll get it sent to the shop, post-free, for you to peruse within a couple of days (depending on Royal Mail 1st Class services or when Chris is shuttling up the M40). If you don’t want to buy it, we’ll find a space for it on the shelves. You can tell if the book you want is in the warehouse in the Search Our Warehouse page. A search here will check through 65,000 books that are ADDITIONAL to the books on our shelves. So if you’ve not found what you want on the web, that doesn’t mean it’s not in the shop. You can get down here and look, e-mail us, and we’ll have a look when we’re not busy.

If you're reading this site and have a specific interest, e-mail us and let us know. Bear in mind that there are some classes and types of books that cannot be economically accommodated in the shop. That doesn't prevent us from wanting to sell you them somehow.

2009 marks our 30th anniversary. Skoob was started by staff from Poole’s Bookshop, as was, in the Charing Cross Road. We still use some of the original shelving too. It is testament to the beneficial properties of a healthy, or at least an active mind, that many customers also go back to the days of Pooles. With chains of shops disappearing and trimming on every side, we intend to celebrate the anniversary and hold a number of events through the year. We have some ideas, but there is no masterplan as yet, any suggestions for bookshop events you’d like to see will be appreciated. More generally, please feel free to add comments by e-mail or in our visitors’ book.

The Bloomsbury Life

One of the bonuses of working at Skoob is that we come into one of the most interesting parts of London every morning. Bloomsbury, in city terms is village like. It’s mansion blocks and council flats have allowed a longstanding indigenous population to remain, not driven away by increasing house prices as in more suburban areas. Along with the ‘locals’ are those who stay for a few years, those passing through it’s hotels and the many of us who travel in to work. Rich in green spaces, university life, eating, drinking, shops, especially bookshops of course and things to go and see. From Charles Dickens’ House to The Foundling Museum and some better than average cafes, the area is bounded by the British Library in the north and the British Museum to the west. Now on the doorstep of the new euro terminal at St Pancras, if you have wheels on your suitcase or a hotel nearby, you can be wandering around within minutes.

We can now offer three books on the immediate environs of the bookshop. Streets East of Bloomsbury (above right) has only recently arrived. Its wide range both historically and in the physical area it covers is proving very popular. The Story of Marchmont Street (right) tells the story of the street next to Skoob and the characters who have stepped out of its front doors. It says everything about Marchmont Street that in a few yards it has Georgian terracing, a Holiday Inn, nice small shops ...and a dramatic 60’s building.

Whatever you may feel about the look of The Brunswick, its drama can’t be denied. The frequent crocodiles of architecture students attest to its importance as a building in the modern canon. From the rather scrappy and underloved canyon of a few years ago, it is now sleek and bustling in it’s refurbishment. Clare Melhuish’s popular book (left) is the definitive work.

Whilst these three paperbacks are new, not secondhand, like most of the fare on our shelves, none will break the bank, even now.

Cinema discount

The Brunswick has long been a destination for cineastes heading for the excellent Renoir Cinema. Refurbished and with a new lift it continues to offer both pleasant atmosphere and intelligent films.

Some years ago we adjusted our hours to allow people to browse before going to a film. We are now also offering a 10% discount to Curzon Cinema card holders.

Bookfairs

The Skoob bookstall has taken to the great outdoors—at fairs within The Brunswick, on Marchmont Street and in Queen’s Square in recent months. Rather more frequently, once a month at the Royal National Hotel, just a few hundred yards from the shop, there is a bookfair where we have a regular place. If you are interested in used/second hand/collectable books and perhaps haven’t been to a fair, the Royal National is a good place to start. There is a large range of booksellers with immensely varied stock right across the price range (if you turn up in the last hour or so there are often bargains to be had).

We usually take books that we might not normally sell in the shop or online, often things which are slightly out of the way, particular collections, or those that might get lost or overlooked in a large shop section. On the same day and currently just across the way in the Holiday Inn you will also find the PBFA Bookfair. There is considerable range here too, but with greater emphasis on Fine and Antiquarian books. You will see some splendid leather bound tomes as well as smaller more affordable fare, indeed a book a couple of hundred years old need not cost much at all. We also have a stall here. As you can see from their website, the PBFA (Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association) hold fairs up and down the country. In June the Bloomsbury fairs take a break and disappear off to other venues. See the links above (Royal National & PBFA) for details of those. The next fairs in Bloomsbury are on Sunday 12th July.