Thursday 19 July 2007

Blackwell's Book Shop, Oxford

I still do not have my photos of Oxford sorted yet but to be going on with I have a couple of photos of an amazing bookshop in Oxford.

Blackwells Bookshop was opened in 1879 and was 12 foot square. It is now Oxford's largest book store. There are 200,000 books in stock catering for every subject, discipline and interest.
There are 4 floors in all, the top floor being given over to second hand books. The whole place is a book readers dream. We made 2 visits and of course there is a coffee shop where one can browse the books before buying if wished.

The above photo shows The Norrington Room that was opened in 1966. This is a vast subterranean chamber which is actually under Trinity College. It has a place in the Guiness Book of Records for the largest display of books for sale in any one room in the world.
It has 3 miles of book shelves.

For an avid book reader like me who just loves books, it can be heaven and hell in equal measure. I did spend quite a bit of money.

The above book I found in the second hand department. It would not interest many people, but to me it was a treasure. It is an account of a Royal around the world Tour in 1901 as seen through the eyes of one of the ships Mates. As you will see below, it is written in long hand and he was obvioulsy an artist too as it is illustrated throughout with his artwork.





Next came the biographies



Then my purchases to help me in a deeper study of the times of the Bible



And lastly some books for Grandson Oliver. There are a number of books that I cannot show you as they are Christmas presents.

http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oxinfo/blackwells/index.html








15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow - that is some book store! There is a used bookstore near me that is going out of business. They advertise that they have some 400,000 books to clear out! Good thing I'm car-less today!

Anonymous said...

Great! I do love bookshops. The first thing we do in a town abroad is to look for a bookshop. I've been to Blackwells many years ago. I like the interiors of the "old" English bookshops. The last ones we visited were this May in Scotland. I'm looking forward to reading more of Oxford..
Bye bye,
Barbara from Switzerland

Anonymous said...

Hi Barbara, you can feel free to email me at grb312@sbcglobal.net. I would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Naturegirl said...

"Every book every volume we see has a soul!" taken from the Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon..a book I thoroughly enjoyed reading!

This library reminds me of a page from this story! Thank you for sharing! NG

TO BECOME said...

I have many people in my family who would love to go to that book shop. They would probably spend more than they should also. But they would sure have a good time while they were doing it.lol connie from Texas

Susie said...

Wow! Three miles of bookshelves. You could truly spend days in a place like that and not see it all!
(Love that itsy bitsy spider book!)
:)

Susan said...

Oh Barbara, I would love this place. I'd have to leave wallet, and credit cards at home though because it would be a very expensive, dangerous place!!!
Susan

la bellina mammina said...

Thanks for sharing the photo - they are beautiful!! And all those books!!

Jeanne said...

What a fabulous book store...........
Fabulous!

Diane @ A Watered Garden said...

Wonder if my daughter ever went there when she attended Oxford her Jr year of college. Looks neat. I also wanted to let you know I have returned to blogville with a new name and address. You can now visit me at: www.awateredgarden.blogspot.com. I will be back for a visit and to catch up on reading postings made during my recent sabbatical. Blessings, Diane

lorenzothellama said...

Hello Barbara. Hope you are not flooded with this latest monsoon. I feel so sorry for all those people trapped on the M5 overnight.

Love bookshops too. We have a small local bookshop so if I want a new book I go to the big town, and get the ISBN number of the book I want and then ask my local bookshop to order it. I don't want her to go out of business.

Did you see the last but one blog on my site? It is about an old book I had found of my mother's. I have since found more and some of my grandmother's too. Am so excited about them.

Anonymous said...

WOW! You really found some great treasures. I would love to visit that bookstore!

Sigrun said...

Good morning barbara, some years ago we wanted to visit oxford, and than it was under water! What a petty! But now you show me some photografs.

Sigrun

Linda said...

My favorite place to go-bookstores. I miss the ones from the States and the few in Paris for those wanting books in English. Amazon just isn't the same.

TBM said...

Ohhh. Being an avid journal keeper, I would LOVE to read the Royal Tour book! And I adore Bill Bryson ;-)