I love the bookstalls underneath Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames. You never know what you might come across and I’ve seen books there that I haven’t seen for years. This market is packed away each night, open every weekend and some weekdays. It has been a part of the whole South Bank Centre since the early 1980s, at the suggestion of the director of the British Film Institute. It appears he wanted the dark under bridge space enlivened somewhat.
However, this riverside London book market is put in the shade by the Paris version along the Seine. The Bouquinistes have been there for the last 500 years with regulations put in place in the 1850s that detail the size and colour (dark green) of the book containers that are attached firmly to the walls. In 1992 the banks of the Seine, with its books, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.