Best bookshops in London on a rainy day
In a literary city like London, an abundance of bookshops is a good problem to have. When the weather leans into the London stereotype of grey and rainy, there are only three acceptable places to pass the time – your home, the pub, and a bookshop.
From one bookworm to another, here is a selection of the best bookshops in London to while away the hours on a rainy day. Requisites for this selection are seating that encourages hours of reading or a bookshop café that serves the rainy day accompaniment of a hot beverage or a tipple.
Libreria
Designed by José Selgas and Lucía Cano, the architects of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, Libreria looks more spacious than it is, this is achieved by a reflective ceiling that mirrors the bookshelves that line the walls in an undulating wave. There’s no Wi-Fi, no recommendations, and no standard categories. Instead, Libreria arranges books by broad themes that can contain a multitude of genres.
If you’re looking for a place to spend a rainy afternoon, there’s no place better than a bookshop that encourages you to lose yourself among the books, in genres you wouldn’t otherwise consider. The quiet of Libreria, its unusual approach to arrangement and the strategically placed chairs make it easy to lose track of time.
Spitalfields, E1 | libreria.io
Clerkenwell Books
A small independent bookshop with coffee, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, comfy seats, massive windows for people-watching and a resident cat named Ziggy. Show me a better recipe for the best bookshop in London on a rainy day and I'll be well impressed. The books' fragrance and coffee aroma blend, it's cosy and warm, the lighting is soft, and watching the rain come down outside the shop whilst a ginger cat pokes about is an ASMR experience in itself.
Clerkenwell, EC1V | clerkenwellbooks.co.uk
BookBar
Blackstock Road’s BookBar is a neighbourhood spot through and through. A place for bookworms who want their wine bar and bookshop to be under the same roof. Whilst the booksellers are happy to recommend books, it’s also the kind of place you can show up on a rainy day, order a coffee or a glass of wine, and read for hours uninterrupted.
If you’re feeling blue, embrace the weather with a selection from Shelf Medicate Prescriptions, bespoke book collections that will have you leaning into the rainy day activities of book browsing and sipping wine after a cup of coffee.
Highbury, N5 | bookbaruk.com
The Book and Record Bar (at the Gypsy Queen)
The boundary between used books and vinyl records is tenuous if not outright illusory. West Norwood’s Book and Record Bar at the Gypsy Queen is the pub-turned-living room where you can switch back and forth between browsing for used books and viny, whilst the resident selector plays a soundtrack that always fits the mood.
If your home, the pub, and a bookshop are the only acceptable places on a rainy day, the Book and Record Bar combines a feeling of all three. Come for the books and vinyl, stay for a drink, and have your reading soundtracked by somebody who knows how to read the room.
West Norwood, SE27 | The Book and Record Bar Instagram
Rye Books
It’s not innovative by any means – small, cosy, with warm lighting and warmer coffee – but if you want abstraction or something unusual, then go to a modern art museum. When it comes to bookshops, the tried and true is the best: quiet ambience, the fragrance of books and coffee, and the allowance of lingering among the merchandise – for hours.
Rye Books is the quintessential neighbourhood bookshop you want to hunker down in, warm and comfortable, while the world outside glistens wet and grey. I once saw a little girl plop down on the wooden floor right before a bookshelf and realised that this is the exact desire you experience when in Rye Books.
The icing on the cake? Rye Books is dog-friendly – because sipping coffee whilst reading a book and patting your dog’s head is the ultimate comfort.
East Dulwich, SE22 | ryebooks.co.uk
The Common Press
One of London’s best LGBTQIA+ bookshops functions as a café and event space, and they don’t stop there, offering standout books by authors from a wide range of marginalised backgrounds, from seminal works of Black history to books on disability activism. You’ll find all sorts of refuge from a rainy day here, from coffee and books to yoga classes, dance classes, and book clubs.
The Common Press leans into a colourful Scandi aesthetic that’s minimal without sacrificing comfort, encouraging book browsing and coffee drinking in a space that’s a warm and welcoming respite from the wet grey world of Shoreditch on a rainy day. It’s not just an escape from the rain, it’s the epitome of a safe space.
Shoreditch, E2 | commonpress.co.uk
John Sandoe Books
Chelsea doesn’t strike me as the kind of place to harbour a picturesque old bookshop but John Sandoe Books has been around since the 1950s and the interior is even more warm, welcoming and inviting than the exterior.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, including shelves in lintels, wooden floors worn by time, and that most amazing fragrance – books. Taking shelter from the rain in John Sandoe Books is like entering the dry, warm confines of a rabbit warren filled with books old and new.
All I can say is that you can trust such a long-standing independent bookshop that has worked with museums, institutions, antiquarians, and decorators – they know their business.
Chelsea, SW3 | johnsandoe.com
Foyles Charing Cross Road
The only non-independent bookshop to make this selection, the multi-storey Charing Cross Road location deserves a spot on this list for several reasons.
Firstly, whilst the traditional Black Books-esque cosy and small bookshop is tried and true and never wrong, Foyles have somehow managed to turn multiple levels of a building into a sanctuary to escape the pouring rain (and the throngs of tourists on Soho’s streets). It’s one of the few acceptable meeting places in Central London, in my opinion.
The top-floor café gets a little crowded with remote workers and people catching up over tea and coffee but the spaciousness within this Foyles means that you can spirit yourself away to some quiet corner, dive into shelves and shelves of books, and surface only for a tea break (with a scone) before sailing back out into the sea of books.
Soho, WC2H | foyles.co.uk
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