Books on the hill saint Albans is an independent bookshop, a luxury becoming increasingly scarce, founded on the 11th November 2019.
Despite the unfortunate overlap with the start of covid, the bookshop has flourished over the past five years and has become a cozy getaway situated right in the heart of Saint Albans.
In the past month I have had the privilege of attending two of their book clubs, each with different structures, hosted in the warm cafe area shown in the image.
One of these book clubs was the after hours book club, a regular occurrence at the bookshop, in which anyone attending can bring any book they have read recently to discuss and hear other people’s opinions on.
Even for novice readers who are still looking to find the right book, this is the place to go for inspiration from other passionate book lovers
The lecture style book clubs on the other hand are a bit more structured, with the local lecturer and book enthusiast Michael King coming in to host the sessions.
Each session is a discussion about a specific book and they are announced far in advance to give the attendees all the time to read the book if they have not done so yet.
The lecture I had the pleasure of attending was on the hollowing 1912 short story by Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis.
The discussion held at the bookshop covered everything about the book, the life of Kafka; the initial reception of the book, the reasons why it is as deeply melancholy as it is and the impact of this mind bending story on the authors of today.
Apart from the book club itself, the downstairs is an amazingly decorated library of thoughtfully selected books of all genres and styles.
The central table is designed to give the bookshop a more personal touch as all of the books featured on it have been selected by the staff, most of the time because they have been read and enjoyed by them.
The bookshop is also full of tags written by the staff to help give you a brief taste of the style of a book and whether it might be something you are interested in reading.
One of the main attractions in the bookshop is the ‘Curiosity cabinet’ which contains rare vintage copies of books such as the UK first edition of ‘Stoner’, an old edition of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and many others.
Even if books really aren’t your thing, the marvel of these rare pieces are really worth a visit.
Overall this book club is perfect for anyone of any reading level.
People who have never read a book in their life can be introduced to their first novels, intermediate readers can move towards more challenging books that may be out of their comfort zone and advanced readers have a cozy hideaway to discuss their passion.
