Books by and for independent women

Swan & Edgar in London

Sometimes it’s hard to find enough time to read. I devour short stories on the bus to work, associate baths with novels and love booky items like those pretty Penguin mugs. The Swan & Edgar pub has taken my love affair with the written word one step further; it’s a bar built with books.

Although it’s located right behind Baker Street in a weird hinterland of cheap Sherlock Holmes, the pub is on a quiet street and, even on a busy summer evening, there were tables outside and inside. Inside is where the shabby gorgeousness starts; chairs are covered in papier-mâché newsprint and the bar is constructed from vintage paperbacks.

If you can get past the death-defyingly narrow, steep stairs, you’re rewarded with another cosy bar; with velvet cushions and walls that alternate between bright blue, newsprint and another enormous stack of books. I sat against this wall to avoid the temptation to pluck one out; I don’t think they’re fixed!

All this, and the bathroom floor’s made of Scrabble tiles; an idea I’m going to recreate if I ever own my own bathroom (unlikely). Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the Swan and Edgar’s scotch egg bar snacks and cheap but tasty house red. What a place.

Guest post by Sarah Drinkwater. For more from Sarah, read her beautiful blog: The Enchanted Hunters