ABOUT US

Very nearly alphabetised chaos

Armchair Books ekes out its intense and blustery existence on Edinburgh’s hallowed West Port…ancient home of booksellers. In view of the castle, above the Grassmarket, it bakes under the torrid Scottish sun. The dangers are manifold; our overburdened shelves groan like masts in a squall, our threadbare and quasi-oriental rugs may distractingly catch the eye or foot. Books in the window may spontaneously burst into flames, and the Managers must be kept locked in at all times… Sporadically under feeble but sinister attack by the government, we struggle under goad of Fear, towards Beauty.

Location and Opening Hours

Smell the old books for yourself…

In addition to our Edinburgh shop, we deliver internationally via our AbeBooks online shop. Digital gift vouchers are available for use in the shop and online (just email us if you’d like to use them on our AbeBooks shop).

Come visit us at:

72-74 West Port
Edinburgh
EH1 2LE

Open from 10:00 to 18:30 every day, more or less.

PLEASE NOTE: If you stop by during opening hours and the shop is closed, check @armchairbooks on Twitter for updates. Things happen.

ACCESSIBILITY: We want everyone to feel welcome at Armchair Books! Practically, this is the current situation:

• MOBILITY: We are not yet fully wheelchair accessible, but are working towards this (in March 2024 we widened several corridors in anticipation of this goal but as we do all this construction work ourselves we haven’t quite managed the ramps yet). We have two separate internal steps; one step can be avoided entirely by having us open a separate street-level entrance for you, the other does need a ramp. (We’ll get one soon; in the meantime if you have a folding one you are welcome to use it when you visit.) You can access roughly 75% of the shop without a ramp. The floors are covered in a variety of overlapping rugs that could require extra caution for those using walking sticks and crutches.

• TOILETS: We have one gender-neutral toilet that customers may use. It isn’t wheelchair accessible but there are several gender-neutral wheelchair-accessible toilets two properties up the road at the Edinburgh College of Art on the corner of Lady Lawson Street and West Port.

• SEATING: For the most part we’re not a great shop for sitting down, but we do have stools and a couple of chairs throughout if you need a rest. We’re surrounded by lovely wee cafés on all sides if you want to sit down longer with something nice to eat or drink.

• NOISE: The noise in the shop varies with how busy it is, but it’s usually at a polite murmur. We can’t change the volume other people speak at, but we are absolutely happy to turn down the music at your request. (If you know what time and day you are coming you are welcome to let us know in advance and we can keep the music down/off for your visit.)

• LIGHT: The lighting in the shop is from a combination of bare and paper lampshaded bulbs. There is more natural light towards the street entrance of the shop, more warm lighting (slightly darker) towards the back of the shop.

• IMMUNE CONDITIONS: The shop can get quite busy, especially during school holidays and during the festival season. By special arrangement we can sometimes open the shop early/late for private browsing sessions, which we offer free of charge to our customers with health conditions that limit their ability to attend at other times (you can bring a few friends with you, too). Please send us an email and we’ll do our best to figure something out. You are always very welcome to wear a mask, though we no longer require staff or customers to cover their nose and mouth.

selling books

Too many books? We can help.

If you’d like to sell us books, please follow the instructions below. Please do not bring in books to sell without emailing us first.

Whether you’ve got 5 books or 500, we may be happy to purchase some of your collection and help them find a new home. Here’s how it works:

If you have some books to sell…

Please email us a high-quality image of your books, spines out—all lined up on a bookshelf is perfect. (Photographs from most modern smart phones are acceptable. Please ensure titles on spines are legible. If your books are especially unusual, we may request more details.) This will allow us to make a provisional offer on your books before you bring them in.

We must be selective about the books we purchase and appreciate your understanding that we may not be able to purchase any/all of the books you would like to sell.

We are a small team working as fast as we can and we get quite a lot of emails from people selling books, so please note it can take up to 10 days for a response. We appreciate your patience.

If you have so many books you don’t even know where to start (approximately 200 or more books)…

If you live in/around Edinburgh (accessible via public transit) and have shelves full of books needing re-homing, we may be happy to arrange a visit to your home. Please email us with some details about your collection (e.g., age, genre, language, quantity) and we will respond as soon as we can to set up a visit.

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As a small shop with limited space, we regret we cannot accept drop-offs of large quantities of books and are only able to accept books we believe we can resell. We are unable to dispose of unwanted books.

Working At Armchair Books

One of us! One of us!

We do not currently have any vacancies (really! we wouldn’t lie to you, you’re not like the others), but if any become available they will be posted here and on Twitter. Please do not send unsolicited applications.

Armchair Books is staffed by Edinburgh’s finest book people who brave the shop’s untraceable noises and unique microclimate to help you find ‘that blue book with the gold writing on the spine, possibly with a drawing of an elephant or a tornado on the cover’. Each member of our team brings a wealth of knowledge to the shop—as artists or designers or students of fascinatingly obscure stuff—so please feel free to ask us questions about our favourite books or sections in the shop.

A note about internships and employment: Armchair Books is a partnership jointly owned and managed by Jaclyn Kaye and Andrew Govan-Prini. We are proud to be an accredited Living Wage Employer. For ethical reasons we do not employ unpaid interns or volunteers, or age-rate staff wages.