There's nothing like it anywhere in Hamburg: Robert Berridge's used bookshop selling only English…read morebooks. Mr. Berridge himself reminds me of a hobbit, and if hobbits were capable of living in complete chaos, they'd feel right at home in this shop. Overfilled, dusty and musty, the cheap (and mostly dangerously leaning) shelves are packed in no particular order with used books in English, in wildly varying states of decomposition. However, despite the haphazard state of his shelves, Mr. Berridge has surprised me time and time again by laying his hand on the book I'm looking for within seconds. If the shop were slightly cleaner and more organised, it'd get a five, but it's simply the only place to go for a large selection in Hamburg, so a three will have to do. As for the attached "English Foods" shop, I can't really judge. I've never been impressed enough with English cuisine to bother going in it, but I guess it'd be a comfort for poms over from the island.

First, the facts: I used to live right around the corner…read morefrom this place; it couldn't have been more than a five-minute walk from door to door. And I'm an avid reader; although I read in German, too, I definitely go through a pile of English books each year. These two facts, taken together, would seem to indicate that I would have become a regular of English Books. This, sadly, was not the case. Maybe I don't understand British humour or shop customs, but to put it simply, I never hit it off with the owner, and I never felt welcome or comfortable in the shop. Once or twice he made jokes at my expense, and poor ones at that (I was looking for Dostoyevsky's Idiot; you can imagine the rest). It's too bad, because I would have loved to like the place.