Hunting for the best second-hand bookshop in London? Skoob Books in Bloomsbury—tucked beneath the Brunswick Centre near Russell Square—offers one of the city’s broadest selections of used and out-of-print titles.
Enjoy a tune while browsing.
Bloomsbury has long been London’s intellectual heartland—home to the University of London’s central precinct (Senate House). Surrounded by University College London, several University of London’s colleges, the British Museum and the British Library a short stroll away in St. Pancras, Skoob is perfectly placed.
A mix of students, professors, researchers, and publishers keeps the streets humming with seminars, book launches, and late-night study sessions—it is an ideal ecosystem for a serious second-hand bookshop.
A short staircase from the Brunswick plaza leads down to the basement shop. We were quite excited by the subterranean maze vibe afforded by the tunnel-like space.
By the doorway, rows of tightly packed spines signal you’re about to browse seriously. There is a shelf dedicated to Penguin’s classics.
Penguin’s iconic orange-and-white tri-band design—introduced in 1935—was the house color for general fiction, part of a wider genre color-code (green for crime, dark blue for biography, etc.).
Skoob is best known for deep academic stock—especially philosophy, literature/literary criticism, social sciences, art, history, and politics.
Aisles felt tight at the time (early evening just before closing), though the depth of subjects largely makes up for the limited space. Apparently, there are 70,000+ books in the shop, plus many more available to pull in from their online catalogue.
We both came away with mixed impressions: the atmosphere and the warren of tightly packed shelves—”organized chaos” from floor to low ceiling—are great for slow browsing, but the basement footprint is smaller than we expected while it is maze-like.
Apparently, Skoob runs a sizable online operation with a warehouse outside London supporting an inventory that far exceeds what’s on the floor.
Shelves are labeled by broad subject, but there’s little further subdivision. That suits the stock: many titles are niche or highly specialized, so finer categories would be unwieldy. The setup rewards slow foraging and serendipitous browsing.
Skoob began in 1979 when staff from Poole’s (Charing Cross Road) launched their own shop; early locations included Neal Street, Sicilian Avenue, and Bury Place before the move to Unit 66 at the North end of the Brunswick Centre.
Near the till there’s a small glass-fronted cabinet with the pricier/older finds—modern firsts, signed copies, and the odd curiosity.
A small table of recent arrivals yielded a gem: a 1997 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition catalogue on Hiroshige’s prints (shown in the photo, standing on the table). In Japan I’d seen plenty of Japanese-language monographs on his work, but this English volume—with beautiful reproductions and detailed captions, was a real find; and I promptly bought it for 12 pounds only.
If you love the thrill of discovery, Skoob’s maze of shelves—and its deep academic bench—make it a quintessential London book crawl.
In case you missed it, “Skoob” is literally “books” backwards.
Speaking of classics in terms of design, the most timeless/iconic second-hand shop we’ve visited is Libelle mit H&B in Basel, Switzerland—discover it in our post here.
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