Cool Bookish Places: Judd Books in Bloomsbury, London

I was waiting for a train recently and had some time to kill when I stumbled upon a gem of a used bookshop in London, Judd Books.

Judd Books was founded in the early 1990s and is close to the British Library and Euston train station.

It’s two levels of used book awesomeness. They are a traditional bookshop, and they don’t have their stuff online. They simply have great stuff.

I’ve posted before on some of my favourite used bookshops around the UK and I’ve definitely found a new contender. When you enter Judd Books you are smacked in the face with a wall of books but it’s not in a way that appears overwhelming.

Customers quietly pull books of the shelves and squeeze past the narrow gaps between the display tables and the cash register. It’s a really magical space to be in on a cold November day.

Neatly organised and complete with ladders for customers to use in order to reach the higher shelves, Judd Books has over 50,000 titles, all of them in excellent condition.

I could have spent hours there, wandering around, getting lost in the basement and ground floor levels. The staff were extremely nice, funny and helpful to me and the other customers in the shop, and there were many.

It’s no wonder that the Guardian listed it amongst London’s best bookshops. If you find yourself in London with an hour or two to spare, you need to check out Judd Books, it’s a stop you won’t regret.

You can follow Judd Books on Twitter @JuddBooks