Basically, a British corner shop removed from any small town in the UK and transplanted into…read moreHamburg. Pretty bloody essential, as one could go mad here having to drink German 'tea'. You can also pick up most of the ingredients for a full English breakfast, real crisps, and....wait for it... bitter! Yes indeed, for a paltry EUR3.60 you can savour a bottle of Theakston's Old Peculiar, a Tim Taylor's Landlord, or a Moorhouses' Old Speckled Hen. Makes living in Germany seem not half as bad really...

There's nothing like it anywhere in Hamburg: Robert Berridge's used bookshop selling only English…read morebooks. Mr. Berridge himself reminds me of a hobbit, and if hobbits were capable of living in complete chaos, they'd feel right at home in this shop. Overfilled, dusty and musty, the cheap (and mostly dangerously leaning) shelves are packed in no particular order with used books in English, in wildly varying states of decomposition. However, despite the haphazard state of his shelves, Mr. Berridge has surprised me time and time again by laying his hand on the book I'm looking for within seconds. If the shop were slightly cleaner and more organised, it'd get a five, but it's simply the only place to go for a large selection in Hamburg, so a three will have to do. As for the attached "English Foods" shop, I can't really judge. I've never been impressed enough with English cuisine to bother going in it, but I guess it'd be a comfort for poms over from the island.

Cohen's is a fantastic little bookshop just behind Knust on Sternstrasse. They stock a lot of…read morecoffee table material on art, architecture, design and what have you. In fact, we even found the bus stops designed by my friend V when we came! There is a small English section with a selection of classics and some modern stuff, but this is primarily a German-language shop.

I've always loved this little independent bookstore for its eccentric selection of books. Even…read morethough not much is available in English, what they offer in German is often so cute, I can't walk by without buying at least one book each time.

From the owner: stories! Die Buchhandlung ist 2008 in Hamburg gegründet worden…read more Unser erstes Geschäft eröffneten wir im Falkenriedquartier - nach knapp drei Jahren machten wir mit unserem Konzept den Schritt in die Innenstadt. Dort sind wir seit 2011 zusätzlich im traditionsreichen Hanse Viertel an den Großen Bleichen vertreten.

Odd that this shop hasn't been reviewed yet…read more Schanzenbuchhandlung is the classic in the area, with a nice mix of fiction and nonfiction, periodicals and a small books-on-CD selection. What makes this place special is the service and the politics: it's a very tolerable, very decent place to shop at, and - I imagine - to work at. Still another small, owner-run shop that manages to hold its own against amazon and the big chains.

The best 1st hand bookshop in the area. They have an interesting sectioning with e.g. USA, South…read moreAmerica, Spain, Benelux authors. Due to their location (and history?), you will also find 'leftist' books here on the Spanish Civil War, the colonial period of Germany and even an occasional Marx or Lenin. There is also a small section with books in Englishd

From the owner: Der Firmengründer Carl Rubow hat de Bücherstube aus seinem Wohnzimmer heraus begründet, ist dann…read more1930 an den Erdkampsweg gezogen - zunächst gegenüber dem Gymnasium Alstertal. Seit 1980 findet man die Bücherstube am heutigen Standort Hummelsbütteler Landstraße - Ecke Erdkampsweg.