St Giles Hospice Book Shop

With just a few hours before I was due at the airport for my honeymoon, I urgently needed a city map of Washington DC of all things. Who’d have thought a sweet little second hand book shop in dear old Mere Green would be the one place to help me out?
This place has everything. I was particularly drawn to the travel section, but could have spent hours browsing Gardening, True Crime and Biography but I had a plane to catch.
The volunteering staff are very helpful and add to the charm of the place. That this shop is popular with locals is down in no small part to its window displays. Christmas is always a treat, with wonderful evocative children’s books creating a festive scene worthy of a big city department store. I even walked past today to see a wonderful display about the England football team and Euro 2012. I can’t wait for the Olympics!

I moved away from Sutton about four years ago. One of the sad side-​effects is that I don’t get chance to visit the wonderful little shop as often as I’d like to.
If, like me, you’re the kind of person who will travel to a certain part of town purely to check out the charity shops then it’s worth hopping on a 902 or 905 from Sutton just to go and have a browse at this place. Whenever I do, I never fail to come away with something: Last time I went I think I left with three Dutch EPs of birdsong (bird’s singing, not the Faulks novel) tucked under my arm.
Charity book and record shops, whoever invented them, are a stroke of genius. This particular one has a vast selection of books from Mills and Boon to Shakespeare criticism to football annuals to leather-​bound historical studies. It’s not the sort of place where you can walk away with something for 10p, but if you like your books, this is the sort of shop you want to be getting yourself to.

J R Hartley could have saved himself the bother… this is the place to come for second-​hand books.
Quality, choice and even collectibility is high, with some items commanding a price that, if not premium, is still a small jump past the pound or two with which you must part for a curio, a rush of nostalgia, a reunion with a well-​thumbed friend, or your first foray into a new subject. All that, or something about Ronnie Corbett and a Worzel Gummidge annual. But it all happens in the knowledge that your purchases support the regional St Giles Hospice charity, which also has shops elsewhere in town selling more general ware.
Here, the books are divided into subject, with history and travel being particularly impressive. A comfy armchair awaits those who want to try before they buy.
Vinyl records — some desirable and attractively priced — are a real draw, although a bargain bin of VHS tapes may not hold massive appeal. Still, it remains a browser’s paradise and well worth visiting with a friend to share the inevitable I-​used-​to-​have-​this Proustian rush. Ideal for hard-​to-​buy-​for people or stocking fillers. Great deals are to be had on collected works and sets.