The Edinburgh Bookshop

Ok so I’d already reviewed this place, but I’m not sure if it moved up the street or what but a slightly different address is now being listed as «closed» so, here’s my review for the «non closed» listing:
The thing with a bookstore is that they have to do a lot to compete with the likes of Amazon. Unfair? Maybe, but true. It’s just so easy to order online, and you know that you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for. When you go into a bookstore, you risk them either not carrying or being out of what you want.
BUT — when you buy online, you miss out. Have you ever wandered into a bookstore for one thing and come out with an arm-​full? I do that, a lot. I can’t help myself. Books I’ve never head of are cleverly displayed which makes me pick them up and read the jacket and realise that it sounds fabulous, so I buy and subsequently love it. Now that’s an experience you wouldn’t have online.
Anyway… the Edinburgh Bookshop manages to serve up the benefits of going to an actual bookstore (paired with incredibly lovely, helpful, and impressively knowledgeable staff — bonus!) with the convenience of shopping online. By that I mean that they will happily order anything you like. And, if they can’t get it for any reason, they’ll let you know how and where you can order it yourself.
Seeing as it’s located directly next to my bus stop, this makes it *more* convenient, and certainly more enjoyable than shopping online.
I’m definitely a convert.

I’ve never quite grown out of children’s books — it seems that what you read earliest in your life is often what stays with you longest. For me, therefore, my visit to the Children’s Bookshop in Bruntsfield was a real nostalgic pleasure, as I stumbled across old favourites and reminisced about being 12 years old again.
Obviously, the shop mainly caters for those who are still actually children now, and so stocks plenty of recent children’s literature alongside much-​loved classics. The shop is well laid out, with titles arranged according to age range, and an atmosphere conducive to browsing, while the staff are knowledgeable and used to making helpful suggestions if you’re stuck for a gift for a juvenile nephew/​little sister/​other small person of your acquaintance.
I also always feel pleased about supporting an independent bookshop, and while the Children’s Bookshop might not offer the massive range or discount prices of retail giants such as Waterstones, it offers instead a more personal way to buy books.

Another brilliant independent bookshop for children — and their parents! — is The Children’s Bookshop in Bruntsfield. Established in 2007, it’s a quirky shop with bright and colourful books enticingly displayed on wooden bookshelves and tables. There’s picture books and alphabet books for toddlers, short stories and educational aids for four, five and six year olds and a mix of fiction and illustrated books for school children. If you look closely you’ll also find, science fiction and young adult novels for teenagers.
A labour of love, TCB is owned and run by Vanessa and Malcolm Robertson — who also run childrens publishing company Fidra Books. Their fingerprints are clearly all over the shop from the imaginative window displays to regular events with high profile authors like Neil Gaiman and Cathy Cassidy.
If only I was seven again…

This shop is definitely one of a kind in Edinburgh. It’s a really quality bookshop with both fiction and nonfiction, hardback and paperback and the most thoughtful staff ever. I definitely recommend talking to the staff, ’cause they’re really passionate and really quite frighteningly knowledgeable.
A friend of mine worked there for a bit and she said that during her interview they grilled her a la interrogation-​blinding-​light style on her knowledge of literature. Which is quite comforting, because I do get bit put off a bookshop when they don’t know as much as I do about literature (being a meager English Lit. graduate). And it definitely demonstrates the kind of passion you don’t often find anymore.
The bookshop itself is very clean and tidy (so don’t go there expecting one of those second-​hand bookshops you could get lost in), and their books are obviously carefully picked out.
It’s admittedly pricey, but if you can afford to give to an independent book seller, than you should (just for the sake of keeping the business going).