Did I go and see Kiss Me, Kate for a third time this week? You bet I did. And did I take the opportunity to have a good old nosy in their shop. Why yes. I even bought something (a t-shirt not a book, I was fresh from a three book trip to Waterstones Gower Street), but they have books and it’s an interesting selection
The fiction selection has some of the usual suspects – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and the Dolly Alderton for example, but also some stuff I haven’t seen like Big Swiss and some of the books in translation.
Then there’s a lovely section of London-set books of all sorts, from novels to walking tours to non-fiction.
There’s also a music section – on the first picture you can see there’s another shop on the top level – and that is mostly records, but the downstairs shop also has records, including The Slits album – which reminded me again how good Viv Albertine’s memoir is.
There’s also lots of art and trinkets and some really nice prints of the Barbican or that fit with the brutalist style, but I’m back on the books – this last table has some more of the more regularly spotted literary fiction. All in all a good selection if you’re looking to pick up something in a rush!
Have a great weekend.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
I love museum and theatre gift shops. They always have something a bit different. I’m surprised by how many books this one has though although it’s years since I’ve been to the Barbican. I do love Kiss Me Kate. Such great music to go with the story.
It’s such a good production of it – and the good news is that they appear to have filmed it for cinema release – which means it may yet turn up on TV at some point like the Anything Goes (also at the Barbican) and The King and I (at the Palladium) have done.