The Daunt bookstore almost diverts attention from the substantial collection of volumes it is stocked with. Situated on a quiet road in Marylebone, a London suburb, it was formerly an Edwardian antiquarian bookshop. That ambience has been retained: a gorgeous oak gallery, old-fashioned skylights that pour mellow light into the main hall, time-worn staircases to access the upper floors and the tomes: floor to ceiling bookcases stacked with new titles, old titles, authors read years ago and forgotten, and also authors one has never heard of.
Daunt is former banker James Daunt’s piece de resistance. He opened the Marylebone outlet in 1990. Now there are nine Daunt bookstores across London. For sheer atmosphere, it is hard to beat the Marylebone store. It specialises in travel literature, tracked by country, not by author. There are books galore in the general category, in fiction, gardening, interior decoration, cookery. In its well-stocked children’s section, young mothers often read stories aloud to their little ones. However, Daunt is where the travel aficionado make for to pick up a Bruce Chatwin, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Jon Krakauer or Bill Bryson, or just a guidebook for their next vacation.
People stand here and there, by the round tables, by the bookshelves, turning pages over, absorbed in whatever they are reading. Just out of eyeshot, but very much within earshot, comes the rhythmic sound of steps on the stairs. Customers or browsers on the upper floor look expectantly to the head of the weathered stairs but there is no one… is it perchance the bookstore ghost?
Upstairs there’s a section dedicated to the Bard, next to the poetry section. There are travel guides and phrasebooks carrying the faint fragrance of antiquity. Signed copies of Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky beckon browsers; so does Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Journeys by Caroline Eden, also duly signed. Recommended Indian fiction titles include The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese and Anita Nair’s new Borei Gowda mystery Hot Stage.
Daunt offers their stores to hold events, talks with authors and the Daunt Book Festival that is held every spring. The bookshop chain’s cotton and canvas bags have attained the status of ‘IT’ bags, with actors, models, celebs toting the statement tote, which was originally meant to carry a hefty pile of books. Purchases above GBP 80 gets you one of those for free, others pay upwards of GBP 10 for Daunt bags, which are incidentally made in India by Re-wrap, a social enterprise; the Empire hits back? In 2010, Daunt began its publishing arm to bring out literary fiction, non-fiction and some out-of-print books.
What else can a bookworm do at Daunt but turn, the pages?