Edinburgh Dairies

Bookshops trails

The whole city is like a museum to me.

Neat, nicely laid stone buildings with smartly placed newer buildings, including the glass ones.

Every corner can become a postcard.

Everything is picture-perfect except the roads. The roads remind you of suburban Mumbai roads ( and not the downtown SoBo roads ). Water logging, broken (but not with moon carters like suburban Mumbai).

No flyovers, slow-moving traffic, multiple signals: all this makes the movement slow.

Buildings dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries can be a compelling reason to deep dive into history, architecture, social-political undercurrents, town planning etc etc.

I want to explore bookshops selling old books.

This may help me to have a fleeting glimpse into what is available in print format.

I have browsed and made one list

1)Edinburgh books @ West port EH3 9DP

2) Armchair books

3) Tills bookshop

4)Blackwell Bookshop

5)Transreal fiction

6) Mc Naughtans’s bookshop

7)Amnesty bookshop

8) Peter Bell

9) Main bookshop

Princes (with one S missing ?! ) Street

I get down and decide to walk. As I walk through the princes street gardens, the map tells me to take the route through magnificent The Parish Church of St Cuthbert.

At the end of King’s Stables Road, there is a board of Edinburgh farmers’ market. I make a mental note to come here on Saturday morning.

Edinburgh Books: The first stop

145-147 West Port

EH3 9DP

Nice place with two floors. The basement adds to the charm.

The books are arranged subject-wise, but still, there is required randomness. The owner/attendant (? ) is very helpful and he has been to Andhra Pradesh. He still has memories of crowded trains and people travelling on rooftops of trains and buses.

He suggests a few books on Scotland. The second-hand books are reasonably priced. Usually, one can see the selling price written in pencil. Overall, the range starts from 2 pounds and can go up to 20. The real old/antiques can easily cost in three digits.

There are sections on world history covering England, Europe, Africa etc.

One section on the Subject and science of Map making keeps me engaged and then I realise that I have many more bookshops to visit.

Most of the history books(which I could browse) cover history from ancient times till 1940/1950

I am not able to see any book which covers the 50s to 2000 kind of period.

Next door is Levant Sweet and as a foodie ( now a kind of reluctant one ) I end up exploring and talking to the owner.

2) Armchair books

Walking distance from Edinburgh book.

It’s a nice place with a few sections, all on the ground floor. I can see interesting books in the science section. I resist buying a couple of thick ones as I do not want to carry books to Mumbai, India so I note down the names and put them in my wish list.

The Scotland section has a good number of old/antique books.

Overall I feel their pricing is a little more than Edinburgh books.

Peter Bell’s books

The notice is loud and clear: Open by appointment only

So decide not to try any jugaad and move on.

Main point books

Closed

All four bookshops are within the same vicinity and easy walking distance.

I have a long walk on the periphery of the meadows. Here one can walk past several runners. In my long walk of 1.5 km, a few of the runners crossed me in their second/third loop.

I have the company of Runners,

cyclists and a good number of students as this is next to Edinburgh University.

At one end

3)Till’s on the meadows

It’s a nice place, small but fascinating. It has two sections. On entry, you have a large rectangular area with a lot of fiction books. It has a good collection of Sci-fi books. There are comics and graphic novels and one small section for kids. The inside section has a rare & antiquarian section.