Report this Review

Waterstone's is a lovely place to while away an hour and of course, spend your wages. There's loads of choice book selections, you can browser through the bestseller lists, classics, crime fiction, and they have a great reference selection too, of all manner of subjects. The staff are friendly, knowledgeable and really know their way around the place, really, ask them for their help with locating an item, finding a specific genre, or to double check which title is the next in a series - they'll know. My particular favourite things about Waterstone's are their ordering service, which is fast, has never let me down even with obscure titles, including one that was out of print, and they send you a cheery text message when your book arrives. Then there's the café - utterly delicious, homemade cakes, comfy chairs, big pots of tea -what's not to like? It may be a little more expensive, although not much, really but the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, you can peruse your purchases, and very often there's a smiley lady outside who hands out flyers for special offers. Its a marvellous bookshop, in gorgeous surroundings of the old Carlton cinema. My single gripe isn't even really about Waterstones itself, and that's that smaller independent book shops find it almost impossible to compete with such large groups, and I find that a shame in general, its to Waterstones credit that they have managed to create the sort of intimate and friendly atmosphere of such a bookshop within a chain store, and they usually reminds me to hand over my loyalty card to be stamped