The Notting Hill Bookshop

I have this little tradition with The Little Prince. Whenever I find a bookshop I really love, I look for a copy. I never need another one, obviously, but I still like finding a different edition, a different cover, something slightly new about the same story. So when I finally walked into The Notting Hill Bookshop, I already knew what I was going to look for first.

Okay, yes... I went because of the film

I mean... of course I did...

When I was little, if you had asked me what my favourite film was, I probably would have said Notting Hill.

I think that film is actually where a lot of my obsession with London started.

I used to romanticise the city so much when I was younger. The little streets, the houses, the bookshops, the idea of just walking around and somehow ending up somewhere that felt straight out of a film.

And I think, without really realising it at the time, Notting Hill had a lot to do with that.

And then I finally went

The first time I went to the bookshop, I was about six years old.

I obviously did not understand the whole film connection in the same way I do now, but I remember loving the place. It felt small and special and a little bit magical in that way things sometimes do when you are a kid and you do not overthink them.

And somehow, it stuck.

Even now, whenever I am in London, I still like going back.

I usually end up buying another edition of The Little Prince, because apparently I have decided that one copy is never enough.

Then I wander around the area, find somewhere nearby to sit with a coffee, and make a little thing out of it.

It has become one of those tiny traditions I never really planned, but somehow kept.

What I actually love about it

I think what I like most is that it never really feels like a place I have to “do”. I do not go there with a list or with some big plan.

I go in, look around, pick up books I probably do not need, spend far too long deciding which edition I like best and then eventually walk back out into Notting Hill with something new in my bag.

And honestly, that is kind of the whole point.

The film is what made the place special to me in the first place, but I do not think that is the only reason I still go back.

Now it is tied to my own memories too.

The first time I went when I was little. Going back years later. Finding another copy of The Little Prince. Sitting somewhere nearby afterwards with a coffee.

At some point, it stopped being only “the bookshop from Notting Hill”.

It just became one of my happy places in London.

Το άρθρο έχει εκπαιδευτικό χαρακτήρα και δεν αντικαθιστά την εξατομικευμένη ιατρική συμβουλή.