London’s Bookshop Boom Rolls On with a Hampstead Heath Newcomer

It is an exciting time to be a bookworm in London. From Camden to Camberwell, a wave of brilliant new bookshops is sweeping the capital. More than 20 independent booksellers have opened across town since the pandemic – a dozen in the last year alone. Many will take part in the London Bookshop Crawl from February 13 to 15: a good excuse to dive into the capital’s thriving scene.

But this isn’t just a London thing. In recent years, neighbourhood bookshops worldwide have made a comeback that’s both surprising and sustained – more than 400 independent bookstores opened in the US last year, marking the fifth consecutive year the country had more than 200 new bookshop launch. The internet, once regarded as the death of IRL bookselling, is now playing a lead role in its revival. From BookTok to Goodreads to “bookstreaming” on Twitch, readers are finding a growing number of outlets to express their fandom and build community online.

But digital book clubs only go so far, and London’s new bookshops are designed for real-life community as much as retail. These stores work hard to get people lingering and crossing paths – some with book recommendations or coffee and pastries, others via regular reading groups, author talks or after-dark events aimed at bringing together marginalised communities.

Among the latest arrivals is Funny Weather, which opened near Hampstead Heath just before Christmas. Co-owners Celeste Dodwell and Ed Franklin have created a space that epitomises what’s great about the new wave of London bookshops, including a cafe, space to work or chat and – naturally – a well-selected range of books.

Up front: a pocket-sized, sunlit cafe with pale yellow walls, mid-mod furniture and a soft soundtrack of ’90s alt rock. Behind that is the bookshop itself, with uncluttered shelves of judiciously curated titles (many displayed cover-out to entice) surrounding a yellow table that might be the best new place in London to pitch up with a laptop. There’s even a cosy, curtained-off kids’ nook. The combination is already bringing together a new community of local regulars, Heath dog-walkers and readers from further afield.

Many of London’s new bookshop proprietors are fresh to the trade, from Bard Books’s Vicki Shenkin Kerr (a long-serving hospitality professional) to Danielle Moylan of Lala Books (a former UN spokesperson turned-deli owner). Dodwell and Franklin are no exception: they are both actors who met while performing in a Noël Coward play in the West End.

It’s not easy opening anything in London right now, with rocketing commercial rents and business rates – so what possessed them to open a bookshop? “Just blind naivety and optimism,” Franklin says. “That sense of: if we don't do something, we’ll never do anything. The world’s on fire – just do a thing.”

London’s established independent bookshops gave them a blueprint for what could be done: the pair name-check Haggerston’s Burley Fisher and Phlox Books in Leyton. “Phlox was a big inspiration for us,” says Franklin, “seeing a couple who did it from the ground up and built a very loved local place.”

Dodwell and Franklin looked at sites in Walthamstow, Dalston, Archway and Kentish Town before finding their Highgate Road space. A former gym littered with discarded dumbbells, it wasn’t an obvious choice. “Again, our naivety served us well,” Franklin says with a laugh. “Anybody with experience of shop fit-outs would have gone: this is too big a project.” Five months of DIY followed, with friends roped in for “painting parties”, before the shop opened on December 21.

By coincidence, that same weekend saw another brand-new indie bookshop open barely a mile away: Fable and Falcon in Camden Town. Far from being rivals, the owners of the two shops have struck up a friendship – a sign of how supportive the scene is, according to Dodwell. “That’s what’s so amazing about this community. Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s do it together!’”

Here are five more recently opened London bookshops that go beyond retail, from workshops to coffee and beyond.

Occupying a former funeral parlour – hence the name – this eclectic second-hand bookshop also has space for community events, including art classes and sessions for children. It opened in September 2025.

In March 2025, the proprietor of Camberwell’s wildly popular Grove Lane Deli changed the space into a bookshop, Lala. Once the crowds came for viral sandwiches; now it’s for thoughtful literary curation – but the excellent coffee remains.

Since July 2024, Bow’s Bard has been a cosy and colourful space for reading and sipping coffee by day. Its after-dark events stretch way beyond book groups to pub quizzes, singles’ nights and poetry open-mics.

As of last June, Notting Hill has been home to England’s first romance-only bookshop. (The second, Of Books and Love, opened in October in Islington.) Here you can stock up on steamy subgenres from romantasy to cowboy romance.

This polished, pint-sized space soft-launched in Marylebone in December. It stocks globetrotting titles of all genres, from photo travelogues and cookbooks, but it won’t just inspire you to roam: it doubles as a luxury travel agency.

London Bookshop Crawl runs from February 13–15.
bookshopcrawl.co.uk

James Manning is the co-author of An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops and the author of An Opinionated Guide to London Neighbourhoods, both published by Hoxton Mini Press.