featured-image

It’s not hard to see how – the classic which is this month celebrating its 25th birthday – has endured. The top-line (boyishly charming, divorced Brit falls for Hollywood movie star); an eccentric flatmate who mistakes mayonnaise for yogurt; the greatest filmic sequence soundtracked to Bill ’ ; the insertion of “whoops-a-daisies!”; friends who feel like family. Yet it is the setting of the meet cute between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts that I believe deserves special attention: the independent bookstore in all its shabby-around-the-edges glory.

Unlike the film, I’ve never met a significant other in a bookshop. But they are unmistakably . Since arriving in the big smoke, aged eighteen with a wild imagination to make up for a lack of income, it has been a constant source of comfort.



The happiest of places. Here, I am just a girl, standing in front of a bookstore, asking it to love her. When you think about it, there’s something sort of lustful about being surrounded by other people’s stories (made up or otherwise).

Taking your time to search for The One amongst the heaps. As supermodel slash lit-fluencer the Kaia Gerber says, ‘reading is so sexy.’ She’s not wrong.

So, where to begin? Everyone has their place. Daunt Books in , say: in my student days I’d bump into a well-tailored Bill Nighy browsing the shelves (curiously, now I often spot him at my local café, usually solo, often with some elegant paperback beside him). Hatchards in , one of the olde.

Back to Fashion Page