I spent one day combing the shops in Portland and having a whale of a time. There are four bookshops and (I’m told) four op shops, I found all four bookshops but only three op shops and took photos of some of the above for you. The bookshops range from the run of the mill with mass market paperbacks and giftware to the literary and very interesting. I just happened to be wearing my Tintin tshirt that day, you could tell the real book people from the general workers as they noticed. Let’s have a look at the pre-loved market first.
My first visit was to Chesterwood Books. This is located in one room of a Tea Gallery. They had tea, coffee, scones and other food goodies for sale but we never managed to actually eat there, I think they also had an art gallery but again, I never saw any of this as I only saw the books.
The owner is a lovely man and I could happily have talked books for hours with him but I had some fresh chicken in my bag and needed to get that back to the fridge in our room. He’s only got 2,400 books there and keeps them at the lowest price he can possibly do so there’s a very good chance of getting a good bargain. I bought the Who’s Who of Agatha Christie for $3.
My next stop was Paper Nautilus Bookstore. A much bigger shop opposite the beach, the building is one that was built in the 1880s so you have these wonderful blue stone blocks both inside and out. It’s great for insulation and looks really fabulous.
As you can see, the four bookshops divided quite nicely into two pre-loved and two with brand new books. The Little Bookshop has a literary bent and has some mass market paperbacks but also some other stuff as you can see from the photos.
Portland Books & Giftware is branching out and trying to make money by also selling giftware. In their book section they mostly have mass market paperbacks but I did find this lovely Mr Men Library and Little Miss Library there.
That concludes my little trip around the bookshops in Portland. I would have gone back and bought more had I actually finished the book I took with me but I only finished that a couple of days ago, quite some time after leaving Portland. Quite glad I only took the one book with me.