Brighton is a place that has its fair share of literary connections. Greene’s Brighton Rock, Hamilton’s, Hangover Square and more recently Nigel Richardson’s Breakfast in Brighton are notable highlights in a distinguished canon. Suffice to say that with such a tradition and an upwardly mobile population and two universities Brighton also does well for bookshops.

In recent years the bookscene, however, has suffered from the arrival of two giants. Waterstones has grown into a huge emporium at the clocktower and Borders, on Churchill Square, offers it usual excellent stock and attitude. The casualties have been the smaller bookshops that offered a little more in the way of personal service and eclectic choice. Notably Read All About It on East Street and Robinson’s (latterly Blackwells) on Bond Street. Both are sadly missed, to my mind.

However, in the North Laine, second hand bookshops do abound with an extraordinary selection of material. There are several on Trafalgar Street and the new Oxfam bookshop on Kensington Gardens is a boon. There is also an excellent discount bookstore at the clock tower and one literally piled high just along Queens Road.

It is also worth checking out the Sunday Market at the station on the off chance. I don’t know much about antique bookshops but there are many of those too, for the collector