The 50 best bookshops

From Hackney to Hay-on-Wye, Rhiannon Batten browses the country’s best bookshops and uncovers counterculture classics and coffee-table tomes in friendly outlets with local colour

Saturday 09 October 2010 00:00 BST

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This week’s panel

Boyd Tonkin is literary editor of ‘The Independent’;

Chris Conway is managing director of the Book Partnership, which runs www.localbookshops.co.uk;

Philip Jones is deputy editor of ‘The Bookseller’ ( www.thebookseller.com);

Glenn Patterson is a novelist. His last book was ‘Once Upon a Hill: Love in Troubled Times’ (Bloomsbury, £9.99);

Aurea Carpenter and Rebecca Nicolson are co-founders of Short Books ( www.shortbooks.co.uk)

Reader email: 50best@independent.co.uk

Click on the image to launch our guide

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The 50 best bookshops

From Hackney to Hay-on-Wye, Rhiannon Batten browses the country’s best bookshops and uncovers counterculture classics and coffee-table tomes in friendly outlets with local colour