Belgravia Books
Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine writer left us many famous phrases about his passion for libraries and endless shelves of books. His fascination with the idea was such, that his most famous short story The Library of Babel involves, well, a library conceived as an entire universe. Just imagine a place filled with books in galleries that multiply themselves over and over again. An idea sometimes hard to picture, but here are the opening lines of the story in the hope they take you to a place like this:
The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors.
Now, take this idea and apply it to bookshops. It is true we do not have the hexagonal galleries that go on forever, but we do have thousands of stories with characters waiting to come to life in your hands. We like the idea of a book as an object containing a story that deserves to be told. But, have you ever wonder what happens to the characters when you close a book? The German children’s writer Michael Ende, author of the famous The Never Ending Story thought of it constantly. He believed that characters in books deserved a life of their own in order to accompany the reader throughout the story. He wanted characters to be impossible to forget and therefore able to exist beyond the pages of a novel. So next time you are about to close your book, listen. Do you hear them saying ‘hey, carry on, we don’t want to stop!? Will they get bored, tired or sad waiting for you to turn the pages once again?
If you happen to find yourself near Victoria station, make your way to Ebury Street to find a piece of paradise. Let us find you your next unforgettable read with characters able to exist beyond the pages. Here’s why: It is known that 80% of people who go to bookshops are browsers and don’t know what they want. Isn’t that a luxury? In this day and age where time is everything and life is lived rushing, it is very refreshing (and sometimes necessary) to simply take a moment to be amused, to browse, to see what is out there. Walk in, look around our bookshop. What catches your eye? Is it the cover? The title?
Bookshops are depositories of stories, thousands, millions of them. How amazing it would be if people walked into our shop and say “I’d like to go to 17th century France and explore the court of Louis XIV with my own eyes, please.” To what we’d respond “Sure, The Sun King Conspiracy by Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée can provide that service.” Just like in Borges’ library containing the universe, we have the ability to take you to any part of the world, any period in history and in fact we can even take you into the future and even out to space! Our book selection has the power to do so.
Belgravia Books has a great range of books from crime fiction, children’s books, historical novels, classics, modern classics, nonfiction and literature in translation. We are also the home of independent publishers Gallic Books and Aardvark Bureau.
Find us on 59 Ebury Street, London SW1W 0NZ and on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online.
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