The best places to get second-hand books in Oxford.
Oxford is keen on books. It has literary tours, two pubs named after Thomas Hardy novels and beneath its streets run the many levels of the underground “bookstacks” where the Bodleian library keeps some of its millions of books. And whether you’re looking for a faded volume as a souvenir, or just need a quick fix to satisfy your bibliohabit, browsing through Oxford’s second-hand bookshops is a real treat.
Arcadia
Just off Cornmarket, tucked into St. Michael’s Street, is the gift and book shop Arcadia - recognisable it by the display of vintage Penguin books outside the window. Despite the good condition of the books, the prices are pretty low – rarely more than £4, and usually about half that. To the left of the entrance are a number of shelves of determinedly random books – somewhat tatty, but a price of one pound each makes it difficult to resist a peek in passing.
Once you’ve perused the books outside (and the real Penguin obsessives have used Phil Baines’ Penguin by Design to identify the cover styles...) the back room has several more bookcases, mostly of fiction and in excellent condition. The shop also sells vintage prints and literary gifts.
Blackwells
Though most of Blackwells on Broad Street is dedicated to new books, the very top floor is their second-hand and rare book department. Blackwells do a lot of business with students who are selling their course books back, so the collection is always weighted towards academic books and whatever literature is most in vogue at the University. Particularly good times to shop here are the weeks at the end of each term, when the term’s study volumes are being converted into cash for the holidays!
Oxfam
Forget the usual sorry parade of charity-shop books – the dog-eared comics, the Mills and Boon, the Good Record Guide from 1982 – Oxfam has two shops in Oxford (on Turl Street and St. Giles) specifically dedicated to good quality second-hand books. Obviosly the prices are higher than one would expect at a charity shop, but the range is impressive. They’re particularly good in the arts and literature, and both have a substantial section of modern fiction.
Be aware that the stock changes over pretty quickly, though, particularly the plums selected for the window of the St. Giles shop. In fact they have recently introduced a system whereby anyone posting a note through the door when they are closed can reserve a book for forty-eight hours, if they’re worried someone might buy it before they can come back!
Waterfield's
Near the end of the High Street is Waterfield’s, an old-fashioned bookshop. (Their idea of a trendy window display seems to be a selection of Tolkien’s studies in Anglo-Saxon poetry, or C.S.Lewis’ theological apologetics...) Meticulously arranged in categories, and tending towards the academic or intellectual end of the market, Waterfield’s books aren’t astonishingly cheap, but they are good value if you find what you’re looking for. They also have a case of Everyman editions for the bargain-hunter, and a shelf of detective novels for lighter reading.
