I have lost count of the amount of times I have seen people I follow on Instagram talking about bookshops in Oxford. I had only been to Oxford once when I was younger and that was to explore the colleges. So seeing all of these incredible bookshops that were only an hour away from me, I knew I had to visit. As my birthday fell on the Bank Holiday and we're still being on the cautious side, we decided we would go to Oxford on the day after as a part of my birthday. Here is my Oxford Bookshop Crawl trip.
Blackwell's Art and Poster, Oxford
First stop on our list was the Art and Poster branch of Blackwell's. This houses an entire floor dedicated to graphic novels, manga and comics. They also had a pretty decent selection of posters and knick knacks. I didn't have a specific list for my trip, just whatever takes my fancy kinda deal. Though I did tell myself I was only allowed to get 5 books. Spoiler- I got 8, which I consider to be pretty decent. I bought myself Bloodlust&Bonnets by Emily McGovern, a graphic novel set in the Regency period about some queer vampire hunters. I really enjoyed it! A solid first stop.
Blackwell's, Oxford
Next on our list was Blackwell's. There were three stores next to each other, but I think we went in the main one (it was the middle one). They had fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, YA, children's literature. You name it! They even had a whole section dedicated to Tolkien as he went to university in Oxford. I would have loved to have bought one of the fancy editions of The Lord of the Rings, but I'll make do with my little paperback boxset. Here I bought The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow. I loved The Once and Future Witches, which I read last year, so I decided to get this. I also bought a little postcard of a sketch of the outside of the shops. It was just too cute!
Bodleian Library Shop, Oxford
 |
| This isn't actually of the shop, I forgot to take one, so this is a pretty building opposite |
The Bodleian Library is a part of the University of Oxford and is it's main research centre. According to a quick Google search, it is one of the oldest libraries and holds millions of print editions. A bookworm's heaven. We have plans to go back one day. I went here as I knew they had a selection of Tolkien themed items and they did not disappoint. My mum and I got a copy of Letters from Father Christmas by Tolkien, which I'm looking forward to reading this Christmas. We also got a book shaped Christmas decoration for our tree. I bought two cards with drawings inspired by Lord of the Rings and a postcard of the Bodleian Library promise.
Arcadia, Oxford
This was one of two places I actually didn't end up buying anything. A mix of a gift shop and second hand bookshop, this small shop was quite delightful. As it was so small, it was quite hard to look at the books and the ones I saw didn't really make me want to get them. But if you are looking for some good quality, second hand books, then I would recommend this little shop.
Bookstop, Oxford
Do you like cheap, brand new books?? Then look no further than Bookstop. This is a sister shop to the Last Bookshop (which I'll talk about later) and they sell cheap, brand new books. They had a pretty decent selection. My mum found a copy of the last Witcher book to add to our joint collection. I bought a copy of A Discovery of Witches as it's set in Oxford and I've wanted to read it because of the TV show (which I have not seen). The only downside is that when I removed the sticker from my copy, part of the cover came with it. This was very sad.
Eagle and Child Pub, Oxford
Sadly this has been closed since the start of the pandemic, so we only got to see it from the outside. This pub has a literary connection to J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis to name a few as they were members of the Inklings, a writing group of students from the university. It's actually owned by the university. It would have been nice to go in and have a drink, but we got to look at it from the outside.
Oxfam, Oxford
Oxfam is originally from Oxford, which was something I didn't know until I began researching for this trip. Oxfam is a charity and part of their charity are the specific branches they have dedicated to books. This branch was much bigger than the one in my town. I got one book, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, which I have wanted to read for a while and is a frequently found book in charity shops. I also bought a tiny copy of The Ballard of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde as it was 50p. My mum stumbled across a set of five Tolkien books that she had never heard of, so we went back after all our shopping and bought them. We got a lot of books between the three of us and we don't have any shelf space.
Waterstones, Oxford
We ended up having a little bit of lunch in the cafe in Waterstones, which naturally led to us buying books. I had saved up on my points card so I have £20 to spend. I bought three books in Waterstones, which with my savings came to about £1.20 in total. I bought a copy of The Wolf Den for my mum and I to read. I then bought myself The Mercies and The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. I've heard good things about both of these books and they sounded like something I would be interested in.
The Last Bookshop, Oxford
Coincidentally, this was also our last stop as it was a bit off the beaten track. As mentioned earlier, this is the sister shop to Bookstop. So it has the same premise. I was very sad when we got there that there was a sign saying "be back in 5 mins". We waited for 10 mins and nobody turned up, so like The Eagle and Child pub, we only got to look in from the outside. Probably for the best as I had already broken my "I'm only going to buy 5 books" rule.
Oxford is such a beautiful city and one I can't wait to explore properly on a non-book shopping trip. I would like to go back and hit up some of the shops I missed, such as Daunt Books as it was too far out of the city for us to visit. I want to give credit to the What's Hot Blog which has a list of 12 bookshops in Oxford and was the list I based my own off. I'll link it here, so you can go and read it yourself. I actually made a reel out of my trip, if you'd like to see a little video about it. It's on my Instagram (@carenzaonbooks).
