Bookshops

[Megaera]

Ok, I know this a really pathetic thing to be caring about, but I really love to read books, so. . .how are the bookshops in St Andrews? Have they got a good selection? I remember from visiting that there are a lot, but they all looked pretty small. Is it easy to get bestselling crap and hard to find good stuff?

[LG82]

I love books too! There are 3 or more good shops for new books all of which tend to have a good selection, they tend to stock a lot of the listed books for the various courses. Not sure about all of them but WHSmith are normally helpful and happy to order in books if you have specific requests and they can get it. There are also a couple of really good second hand book shops, really handy for getting nearly new marked down course texts, the costs soon escalate if you buy all new course text books. Especially for subjects you are not taking to honours level it is often really not worth buying new books. Finally...if all else fails there's always the good old internet.

[Phina]

Go to the little bookshop- Quarto - on Pilmor Links (I think)- it is absolutley wonderful- I could spend hours in there up their ladder (theres no such thing as risk assesment in this shop- enter at own risk!) rootling out old books. They sell (and buy) new and secondhand books- fiction and non-fiction. Its how book shops were meant to be. If you're lucky you get caught in a long conversation with the dear lady who runs the place... kind of interesting (perhaps surprisingly) to find out about the house clearances she does etc etc. I so want a job there.

Otherwise there are the boring bookshops on Market Street, in the Union and WHSmith on North Street. Hmph.

[Saint Sal]

There is a brilliant litle second hand bookshop down past Peter's and PM's on Market Street. I can't remember the name of it, but it has mounds and mounds of old book waiting for me to buy them and take them home and love them and read them and ...

*blinks*

It's a very nice shop, and reasonable too. Charity shops are surprisingly good, and you can pick up texts really cheap, but you have to go in regularly.

[hr]It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever

[underworlddreams]

Quarto, Golf Place; WH Smith (brrrr...) on South Street; John Smith, Market Street; James Thin, Union; dunno the second hand book shop past PMs very well, but I intend to become acquainted...

My only problem with bookshops is getting out alive - I can easily spend too much money. My record is good, though - over 100 books in the last three years, and only three or four books I've never read...

The aforementioned book shops are all well worth visits, and, if you can't find what you want, they are quite likely to take an order - otherwise, there's a decent-sized Waterstones in Dundee, and another (non-textbook oriented) James Thin's too... Haven't spent enough time there to get to know any second hand shops/stalls...

[hr]Discourage in-breeding - ban country music!

[The_Farwall]

Has anyone ever seen the one near PM's open? I swear I never have and I walk that way into town many times each week. It strikes me as one of those book shops I'd love to own if I didn't need to make a profit from it. Just get your self a nice big armchair at the back of the shop, open up around 11, close again at 5 and spend the day thumming through this mass of dusty tomes with hardly any interuptions from customers. Bliss, either that or a similar set up in a guitar shop would be two of my dream jobs

[hr]"As you pick up the toothbrush a tree outside the window collapses.
There is no causal relationship between these two events."

[underworlddreams]

Sounds good actually... Also, the lack of opening hours reminds me of the infamous music shop, Eclipse (named, I believe, due to the frequency it opens at all)

[hr]Discourage in-breeding - ban country music!

[Al]

Funny, I remember "Eclipse" as never seeming to close.

The bookshop at the narrow end of Market Street is called "Bouquiniste".

There is also "Innes" (aka The Citizen) on the corner of Church Street and South Street. It sells books upstairs but the choice isn't that great. Many "souveniry" type books. Pictures of Scotland. That sort of thing.

It also always seemed to have an alarming number of "fantasy" books. What sort of market were they going for, I wonder?

[hr]It all depends what you mean by.....

[underworlddreams]

Hmmm... 'fantasy' books... I take it you don't mean Terry Brooks, Tolkien or Robert Jordan?

As for Eclipse, I only saw it open four or five times, and never in the first term... Maybe they saw me coming...

[hr]Discourage in-breeding - ban country music!

[The_Farwall]

Eclipse's opening times have been getting gradually shorter and more eratically placed as I've been here. In my first year I would wander in several times each week for a browse, last year I didn't manage to catch it open once.

[hr]"As you pick up the toothbrush a tree outside the window collapses.
There is no causal relationship between these two events."

[lyn]

As the proverbial poor student who can only afford to gaze longingly at the new books,I joined the public library. It is small, but has a good selection of books if you look in the right places. I think you can get ten books out at time, and its in the wee square betweeen market and south streets.

[lyn]

As the proverbial poor student who can only afford to gaze longingly at the new books,I joined the public library. It is small, but has a good selection of books if you look in the right places. I think you can get ten books out at time, and its in the wee square betweeen market and south streets.

[Oli]

Eclipse is well worth the wait.

[Scunthorpe]

Bouquiniste is an absolutely fabulous bookshop if you want odd and engrossing tomes that actually help your work. Like Quarto you will come out many pounds lighter. One of the things that seems to happen here a lot is comfort book buying. I find that whenever I'm stressed i want to buy a book. Consequently my packing has been rather difficult this year.

The local library is also good, mainly for the fact that you can order in books from other branches without the crippling costs. Then again that's part of the fun I suppose.

[EviLTwiN]

every time ive been into a bookshop since april i've bought more than one book. I can't stop, and Sometimes im attracted by the cover.
Is this wrong.
I want answers!

but seriously, I reckon bookshops are dangerous and should be banned from st. andrews

[Scunthorpe]

No! No! No! Bring more bookshops into town! Fill the town with them (slopes off to read book he bought at 9.) They are v, v, dangerous.

[hr]You see! The British can be defeated! We have caught them with their pants up!

[Phina]

Go to Hay-on-Wye if you want books- its such a bizarre concept but just so amazing too... so many books that they have bookshelves outside permanently come rain (its Wales- so quite likely) or shine. So many book shops you wouldn't know what to do with them. Brilliant! Okay, so maybe a little bit far from St Andrews.

I used to love the huge Waterstones in Edinburgh as a child. Spent whole afternoons in the childrens section reading books from cover to cover. Their pop-up section was the best. Never bought anything though.

I am totally ignorant as to these little open book shops in St Andrews. Will investigate when I return. But I'm fairly sure not much can beat the chats with the lady in Quarto.

[kensson]

Never mind bookshops, I'd quite like to dispose of my disposable income in a record shop. Now, Eclipse is OK - it does open occasionally - and I did have a soft spot for Fence (nostalgia), but where are the Fopps and the Fence-type-shops-with-some-kind-of-selection that we need? Surely a town of students can support one half-way decent record shop? We've got a Christmas shop, for Christ's sake (unintentional joke) and more teddy bears than you can hack to pieces. Will someone please help?

[underworlddreams]

Certainly - I'll help you hack teddy bears to pieces

[hr]Discourage in-breeding - ban country music!

[Al]

"Surely a town of students can support one half-way decent record shop?" Why would you want only a "half-way decent record shop"?

[hr]It all depends what you mean by.....