If you’re anything like me, you’ll love a good book, and obviously, a good bookshop. I’ve had the opportunity on a few occasions to browse the beautiful bookstores of London, but with another trip to the capital ahead of me, I thought that I’d outline all of the marvelous places there are to go to!

The London Review Bookshop is tucked away next to the British Museum, and spread over two floors with an adjoining café. As you’d expect from a shop owned by the London Review of Books, it is carefully curated, with great recommendations tables pairing best selling and more unusual books. Its politics, current affairs and history section at the front of the shop is brilliant and approachable, even if you aren’t an expert. Alongside the extended fiction section you’d expect, there’s also a varied selection of poetry, plays and criticism, as well as philosophy downstairs. They run brilliant events here, securing incredible speakers and often have preview events for the latest releases with the authors themselves. The café is lovely, and does great coffee and cakes. It’s definitely a ‘must-go’ for when you’re next in the big city.

If you’re buying Harry Potter or Oscar Wilde, Daunt Books’ Marylebone branch is the perfect spot. Daunt was an instant success when it came on to the London bookshop scene, laid out not by fiction and non-fiction but by country, whatever the nature of the book. It makes it a fabulous place to browse, and you can come across wonderful surprises here as biography, history, guidebooks and novels share shelf space. The Marylebone branch is the most beautiful location and has a long gallery and is airy, light but faintly antiquarian, giving it a touch of an Oxford feel.

Now, this is a ‘must-see’! Hatchard’s is the oldest bookshop in London, having been established in 1797 by John Hatchard, a young bookseller who had been plying his trade in the ‘literary coffee houses’ of London since his adolescence. Hatchard’s has been a landmark on one of the finest and most famous streets in the world, Piccadilly, since Georgian times, occupying the current building, number 187, for over two centuries. What’s more, for a budding historian like me, the building continues to look as if it was still part of the Georgian era. I’ll be sure to wear my top hat when I head along here on my next trip into London!