Oxford used to have a great range of bookshops, not surprisingly for a university town, but when I arrived it seemed they were steadily closing. Fortunately that trend seems to have reversed.
Caper
Mostly children's books, but some books for adults (especially cookbooks) and some cards, etc. Will have an event space in back.
Gulp Fiction
New paperbacks, mostly fiction and history. And top-notch coffee. Stays open late when the Covered Market is open late.
Daunt Books Summertown
A branch of the London independent. Has a really excellent selection of books — an extensive children's selection, great world literature reach, and lots of history — in a nice spacious layout that makes browsing comfortable. The books are organised by country and region — so the Netherlands travel guides and non-fiction are alongside the Dutch fiction.
The Last Bookshop
This is a mix of secondhand books and new ones - the latter are mostly £4 (up from £2 in summer 2014) or three for £10.
Notable finds here (or in older incarnations of the shop) include novels by Wolfgang Koeppen, W.F. Hermans, and Gert Ledig. Mostly they have stacks of the same title, but they have occasional "one off" titles - a nice hardcover copy of Elias Khoury's Yalo, for example, and a hardcover copy of Menezes and Mendeiro's An Introduction to Auction Theory.
Book Stop
A reincarnation of the old Last Bookshop. A discount shop, with most books £4 to £5.
Blackwells
This is Oxford's best known bookshop. Spread over four levels - and three shops, with a separate Art/Poster on the other side of Broad St and a shop in the Westgate shoping centre - Blackwells has a great academic and specialist range. It's also spaciously laid out, with armchairs for reading scattered throughout, and has a Cafe Nero attached to it. (For Sydney-siders, Blackwells has as many books (100000+) as Abbeys (55000) and Gleebooks (?) combined, but in at least twice the space.)
There are occasional shelves of sale books: my finds here include Ancient Sukhothai for £1 and Israel's History and the History of Israel for £10. Upstairs is a small antiquarian and secondhand section.
Waterstones
The Oxford Waterstones has a good range of books, spread over several floors, and a nice layout, with show tables highlighting themes e.g. literature in translation, first novels. There's a Costa's Coffee attached. Waterstones is much better than any of the Australian chain bookstores (such as Dymocks or Angus and Robertsons).
Oxfam Bookshops
The specialist Oxfam bookshops on St Giles and Turl St are both excellent. The people running them know how much books are worth, though, so real bargains are hard to come by.
Charity Shops
Most of the charity shops - and Oxford has many - have a bookshelf or two of books.
On Cowley Rd, the Oxfam shop gets some nice books in. I picked up one of the Clay Sanskrit Library volumes, the Gitagovinda, for £2 here. And the Age UK shop is decently curated. The Barnardos and Helen & Douglas House shops seem to collect less interesting books.
St Philip's Books
St Philips's specialises in theology and church history, but also has some general history. It's a bit cramped and not that much fun to browse in, so I don't visit that often. The web site is easy to use, however.
Antiques on High
The front is dedicated to antiques, but the back rooms have quite a decent stock of books, mostly antiquarian/collectible.
St Andrews
A Christian bookshop.
Others
What have I missed? And no, WH Smith doesn't count as a bookshop!
Closed
Borders, the Inner Bookshop, Barefoot Books, Paradise Books, the Albion Beatnik, the Book House, ...
I read your review of "conscious explained". I just wanted to say thank you for your input and it was a very will written synopsis of the book. I appreciate your efforts.
Hi Danny, so you've settled in Oxford. The daughter of the friend of my mother lived in Oxford during the nineties, and I've visited her and her husband 4 or 5 times during the nineties. Oxford is a nice city, so I can imagine you're pleased to live there. In those years there was also a very nice secondhand bookstore in London, called the two jayes. Maybe it's still there. Enjoy your stay, Erik
[...] all the books he'd bought on Charing Cross Rd the day before, Cosma found room for five more from the Last Bookshop. He's a bibliophile after my own [...]
I hope you've discovered in London, Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street--highly recommended. (Bond St tube station or bus from Oxford stopping in Oxford Street near Selfridges).
"WH Smith doesn't count as a bookshop!" Neither does Waterstones in my opinion, since it only has drivel like celebrity chef books and Katie Price.
My understanding is that every Waterstones is different. Certainly the Oxford one is an excellent bookshop, with a broad range of stock. (It's not Blackwells, but that would be asking too much.)
The Last Bookshop on New Inn High Street
Is now new books. The used bookshop will now be found in a shop nearby.
Contact the owner for details.
The Last Bookshop has always sold new books, just ones that are heavily discounted or remaindered. They've put their price up to £3, though, or 2 for £5.
Hi Danny,
Thanks for your favourable indeed glowing review of our Last Bookshops. I have nothing to add except I wish all readers well and hope to see you in the shops in the near future.
Happy browsing!
Patrick
Hi Danny. This is very helpful list but I'm surprised that it doesn't include Oxbow Books, 10 Hythe Bridge Street. This is a specialist bookseller and publisher, concentrating on archaeology, history, the classics and related subjects. They have extensive stock, a wide range of remaindered titles at reductions of between 50 and 90% and some secondhand stock.
Kind regards,
Nick
Thanks Nick, I've added Oxbow Books (and taken the liberty of copying your comment text to my entry for it).
Thanks for this very helpful post! Here are my impressions, in case anyone finds them useful, of a few Oxford bookshops from an August 2016 visit.
The Last Bookshop: The Walton Street location is quite good: plenty of used and rare books in a variety of subjects at mostly reasonable prices. The New Inn Hall Street location was a disappointment: at least in my area of interest (literature), there were plenty of generic paperbacks but virtually no hardcovers and no academic books.
Blackwells, of course, is excellent. Nothing to add except that the so-called “secondhand” section is distinct from the antiquarian section. In Classics, the secondhand section is small but worthwhile.
Oxfam: I found the St. Giles location not to be terribly interesting with a fairly limited selection. Worth a stop, though, if you’re in the area. The Turl Street location was more rewarding.
Oxbow: Really a hidden gem; if not for this post, I probably would never have found it. Unlike The Last Bookshop, Oxbow does have many, many academic works. It is slightly inconvenient that no prices are marked, but the prices can apparently be extremely low (as Nick says): I purchased a hardcover academic book from Cambridge for ten pounds that sells new on Amazon.com for $105.
St. Philip’s: I would add that there is a substantial Catholic emphasis in the stock. Very good selection in patristics and biblical studies, very little in Classics proper (unless I missed it).