This photo comes to us courtesy of Nigel Beale’s ever expanding archive of bookstore photos.
Now, I am all for toying around with new concepts and initiatives that help the independent bookstore stay relevant and succeed but this combination stopped me in my tracks. I contacted Beale to try and find out more about this intriguing photo. He told me that he took it a few years ago on a visit to London and the bookshops on Charing Cross Road but couldn’t remember the name or any other details about the shop.
Next step was to contact my colleague Nigel Burwood, the creator of the popular Bookride blog, and proprietor of Any Amount of Books, which is also located on Charing Cross Road.
Though unfamiliar with the image one of his staffers was able to provide this:
“It’s Lovejoys, almost next to the Spice of Life, it’s been there for 25 years at least. Rubbish bookshop mostly DVDs now. I’ve never been downstairs and its quite possible no-one ever has.”
Of course, then I couldn’t stop thinking of all the possible tag lines:
Lovejoys : Bargain Books and Cheap Sex
Lovejoys : Old Books and Women
Lovejoys : Where Between the Covers meets Between the Sheets
Lovejoys : Fine Books and Women
Lovejoys : A Place For Your Mind and Body
Lovejoys : Used Books and Women
Lovejoys : Books Bought, Women Sold
then I had to stop.