News

The absence of news posts in the last few months fortunately reflects constant activity at John Sandoe’s rather than idleness, despite what might be thought! We’ve been buzzing about in Blacklands Terrace rather than inconstantly lounging on the shores of the Black Sea, or languishing artistically in Bergamo, drinking coffee in Bratislava or even viewing pavilions in Brighton… So where to begin? With, perhaps, two splendid novels that are coming out soon for which we…

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We cannot count the ways the summer has gone bananas – and, foul as it is, we don’t wish to restrict our remarks to the weather, as Mrs Dashwood so exhorted Margaret to do in Emma Thompson’s fine script for ‘Sense and Sensibility’. Jane Austen, wit and novelist of all delight, who died two hundred years ago last month, has recently been celebrated by the leader of the House of Commons as “one of our…

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Before we get on to our ‘alternative’ bestsellers (NB these ARE real ones, just our own, rather than taken from trade lists; take note, Kellyanne Conway!), we want to share a gloriously mad telephone call with an aged and rather deaf customer, Lady X: it went something like this… {ring ring} Hewie {picks up telephone}: John Sandoe Books, good morning! Lady X: What was that? My grandson? Did you say you are my grandson? Hewie:…

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Being the fourth Thursday in November, it’s Thanksgiving today; the handful of American customers well known to us who have been in today are still holding their heads and wondering what has happened to their world – our world too. It’s as if Constable Dobbs had coshed Jeeves on the back of the head, rather than the other way round, leaving Jeeves coming to and rubbing his head. And remaining polite. (vide Wodehouse’s The Mating Season.)…

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We had the pleasure and honour of welcoming Rory Stewart, MP, to Sandoe’s this week, to give a talk about his new book, The Marches. He was precise, articulate, funny, thoughtful, more concerned as an author to tell us what he thinks than what he feels, and to allow his encounters and experiences to speak for themselves. His book is mostly – but far from only – a memoir about his late father, an account…

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We are thrilled to be chosen for Slightly Foxed’s ‘Bookshop of the Quarter’ feature. Here is the text: Bookshop of the Quarter: John Sandoe Books Few bookshops in London have the density of books, informed staff or seductive atmosphere to compare with John Sandoe’s. It opened in Chelsea in 1957, and has recently expanded into the third of the Georgian cottages that make up its shop front. The intimate premises retain their striking atmosphere of bibliographic profusion:…

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After a fortnight of trying – and so far failing – to come to terms with the sense that the known world has suffered an economic and political earthquake that has left us all in a very different position, we hope that our summer list may bring our customers some relief, even consolation. (Click here to view). With this in mind, a title that slipped the net of our list is the exquisitely named Divine…

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We’ve just published our ‘Spring 2016’ list on our website – please have a look at our ‘Browse catalogues’ page: http://johnsandoe.samsara.us.positive-dedicated.net/…/John-Sandoe-Books-Spring-2016-List.… As always, it has been hard to keep it short – the length is not unreasonably determined by what can fit into an A5 envelope and still count as letter post. The list covers books that will be published over the next three months – in this case April to late June. The list…

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