One Tree Books

So, I just downsized from a HUGE house to a TINY flat. This required me to downsize my beloved book library to a mere seven boxes, which have since obviously snaked back up to being stored in book cases (hurrah!) and window sill and chair (boo). So when my my mum recommended this place for me and my boyfriend to inhale a restorative cup of coffee to fill the gap between train arrival and being picked up by parents en route to family party, I was a bit doubtful.

It took precisely 15 minutes for me to buy a book in that shop, and that was only because I ended up talking to a friend of my mum's for 14, see my boyfriend was laughing at a book, think "Buying a book for someone else is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT to buying a book for myself!" and then thrust my card in the cashier's face.

One Tree has grown exponentially since I last wandered in about seven years ago. It's a lovely independent book shop with a great selection (where Waterstones has fan notes from staff primly attached to the shelves, One Tree puts recommendations on notes on the back of books and spreads them around tables for people to pick up and read).

It also has a lovely big coffee shop at the back, tables out the front and more table room upstairs. We were advised not to sit upstairs as it was a bit boring that day - that from the staff!

Being a Saturday, the shop was filled with families clearly bursting with relief at having somewhere nice to take the children that the parents didn't hate with every fibre of their being. We had a very nice pot of Earl Grey, my boyfriend and I ignored each other while reading book/Keith Richards in The Times, and then my mum came and picked us up. Just like school.