“A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.”

Terry Pratchett, ‘Guards! Guards!’

In a small, terraced house in Medway, there is a spare bedroom full of books. There’s also a bed and a chest of drawers in the room, a cupboard, and an old Victorian fireplace. But the books take up most of the space and they’re everywhere. Not in a gorgeous, floor-to-ceiling-shelves, fairy-tale-library kind of way, but in a boxes-upon-boxes-of-books-amassed-over-many-years way. There are books in cardboard boxes under the bed, in the drawers in the chest, on top of the cupboard and in plastic crates on the floor. If you stood in the limited amount of empty floorspace in the middle of this room and looked around, you’d think that whoever lives here is either a wannabe librarian, or someone with a serious book-hoarding problem.

Well, one of the people living in the house is me, and it’s my lifelong love of reading that has led to the creation of this booky black hole.

I wish I could tell you that the boxes are at least beautifully categorised and organised in such a way that I could lay my hand on any book I want, at any time. But they are not. The books are just in boxes because there’s nowhere else in the house to put them right now. I couldn’t tell you which books are actually in a particular box without emptying it. And yes, that means I can’t find a book I want very easily. It even means *whispers shamefully* that sometimes I have bought a book, put it thoughtfully into a box to read at a later date, and then forgotten I bought it. To make matters worse, some of the books don’t even have a box. Some of them live on top of the chest of drawers in teetering piles. At least I can find those ones.

My dream is to have proper, elegant, wall-to-wall bookcases. What I really want is the library that the Beast gives Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. But a smaller, terraced house version, because I do like my little house, and – as far as I know – there aren’t any fairy-tale castles with massive libraries available for sale in Medway.

The other inhabitant of this house is my husband, the Man of Kent. There are some books belonging to him in the spare room, but his portion of the territory is tiny. He has done his best to fend off the continuous accumulation of books over the years, gently pointing out that we have no bookshelves, and the spare room is rather full already, and perhaps it might better to read one of the (so far) unread books instead of further adding to the pile. But he is fighting a relentless and exhausting battle against an unstoppable force: me. The Man of Kent can take no blame for the spare room situation. The responsibility is mine, and mine alone.

But where did all these books come from, you may wonder? Well, I’m lucky to have wonderful friends and family who know what a voracious little bookworm I am. They generously buy me books for birthdays and Christmas, or loan me ones they think I’ll like, lovingly enabling my book-collecting habit. But one of the great things about Medway, and Kent more widely, for a reader like me is all the lovely bookshops around here. I’ve spent many a happy hour perusing them since moving to Medway. Some of my favourite bookshops have been around for years, but it’s been exciting to see new ones opening more recently too. Today, I’m sharing some of my favourite local booky haunts. I hope you’ll find as much joy in them as I do.

Baggins Book Bazaar, Rochester

Baggins is, hands down, my favourite Medway bookshop. A delightful rabbit warren of second-hand books on pretty much every subject imaginable – fiction, non-fiction, travel, history, poetry, sport, the local area and more. It’s a bookshop big enough to get lost in (and I have lost people in it – sometimes deliberately). In fact, it’s so big that I had been going here for years before I discovered there’s a whole section of hardback fiction and cookbooks at the back of the lower ground floor! I love meandering through aisle after aisle, idly browsing while listening to Classic FM (which is always quietly playing in the background). Over the years, I’ve found some absolute treasures here – including once a copy of ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ signed by Douglas Adams himself! An absolute must-visit if you’re ever in Rochester.

Store 104, Rochester

One of the newer arrivals, Store 104 opened in Rochester in 2020. Sophisticated yet traditional, it’s a place where you can confidently go to find the perfect read for anyone in your life, from your most hipster friend to your Great Aunt Marjorie. It carries a wide range of contemporary and classic books, and sells yarn and other knitting supplies. I particularly like its excellent choice of arty greeting cards and gift wrap from Cambridge Imprint and similar makers. It’s recently added a coffee shop on the ground floor too; it’s like it’s trying to get me to move in.

The Chaucer Bookshop, Canterbury

Situated on the splendidly-named Beer Cart Lane, the Chaucer Bookshop is homely, cosy and snug, calm and reassuringly traditional – everything you want a second-hand bookshop in a cathedral city to be. I tend to head straight for the paperback fiction section, making sure to inspect the little piles of books standing on each step on the way upstairs, but it also has a broad range of children’s literature, prints and maps, and fine bindings. A lovely, quiet nook to browse in amid the bustle of Canterbury.

The Crooked House – Catching Lives Books, Canterbury

You can’t helped but be charmed by the wonky exterior of this shop on the corner of Palace Street. It’s dinky, but has a fine selection of reasonably priced second-hand books. It’s run by a team of volunteers from local charity Catching Lives, and money from your purchases will help homeless people in Canterbury and East Kent. Just be careful not to photobomb any tourists taking pictures of the house on your way in.  

The Margate Bookshop, Margate

If reading at the seaside is your thing, you’ll love this beautiful independent bookshop that’s just two minutes’ walk from Margate beach. It has a superb range of titles from underrepresented authors and works in translation, as well as classic and modern fiction and non-fiction. It regularly has signed books by local authors too. I was very pleased to nab a signed copy of Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee here; a book set in Margate, bought in Margate – serendipitous!

After you’ve been to the Margate Bookshop, why not pop along to The Old Bank Bookshop, where all purchases support The Pilgrim’s Hospice? You can also find art, photography and nature books at the Turner Contemporary shop.

Harbour Books, Whitstable

For me, no trip to this delightful seaside town is complete without a trip to Harbour Books, a pearl of a bookshop right next to the seafront. I love its light-filled interior and thoughtfully curated collection of contemporary titles. It has a great range of LGBTQ+ fiction and non-fiction works too, and a compact but charming children’s collection. The Man of Kent is usually to be found coveting new recipe books in its excellent cookbook section.

So there you have it, a small selection of the many bookshops in Kent and Medway. Have I missed one of your favourites? Tell me in the comments so that I can visit it!