bookshops

26.10.2009

Work was absolutely dead today (now yesterday). None of the three other people I share my four desk cubicle with were in and it made me ridiculously unmotivated to do anything. Instead, I worked on finding a job. Not exactly a real fun thing to do with my lack of supervision, but necessary – oh so necessary.

I’m starting to freak out about the course I’m teaching in January. Seriously freak out. I decided to go find a couple of texts that might help me understand what I’m teaching at a legal bookstore near the Inns of Court. Another awesome thing about the location of work is it’s proximity to Chancery Lane and the Inns of Court. There are four: Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple (how very Indiana Jones-ish!). All barristers & judges who were barristers in England and Wales must belong to an Inn.

Hammick’s Legal Bookshop is on Fleet Street, quite near the Inns. How convenient. It was a heady experience to be in the presence of all those (mighty expensive) law books. And that should tell you something about how much of a geek I am. The international law section (while not as great as the law bookshop in The Hague devoted solely to international law) was quite comprehensive. I wished I had the moolah (and room in my suitcase) to buy so many books. I could spend hours at Hammick’s. I found two books that are useful to my cause.

Next stop: the London Review of Books Bookshop & Cake Shop! Tucked away on Bury Place, a short walk from Hammick’s, this place was amazing. It was not as big as I imagined, but well-stocked. The Cake Shop was packed to the gills. I got a seat and had a delicious latte (made with Monmouth coffee – the gimme coffee of London perhaps?) and a piece of passion cake. Delicious. Two cute boys from somewhere else in Europe were sitting beside me. It’s too bad I couldn’t hang out longer, but I was afraid that if I stayed, I’d spend more money. Sad, sad, sad. It took all my willpower not to buy any books at the LRB bookshop. I had to pull myself away.

After the LRB bookshop, I went to Muji in Covent Garden, where I bought a 2010 calendar (which also had the months of Oct, Nov & Dec 2009 in it – those calendars are hard to find.) At least now I am not relying on a system of post-it notes and paranoia about whether I have somewhere to be. I can put all sorts of things on my new calendar, like going to NY!! Yay!

Wish me luck with preparing for this course.