Interview with a Bookstore: London's Lutyens and Rubinstein

Two friends opened a shop that only sold the books they loved to read: sixteen years later, they’re a staple of Notting Hill. The women behind Lutyens and Rubinstein talk regulars, snow flurries and their favourite bookshops

Interview with a Bookstore from Literary Hub is part of the Guardian Books Network

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Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein have been running their eponymous literary agency since 1993. By 2009, they had been talking – not entirely seriously – about opening a bookshop for some time. Changes in the industry, and in particular in the trade meant that the kind of books that are the backbone of their agency were finding less and less space in bookshops. Publishers were voraciously looking for the kind of books that fit into the Waterstones 2-for-3 offering, and the supermarkets had gone into selling paperbacks in a big way. Lutyens and Rubinstein’s magical thinking was that a shop that exclusively sold the kind of books they and their friends love to read might actually fill a gap in the market. From the moment its doors opened seven years ago, Lutyens & Rubinstein has enjoyed an ever-expanding band of loyal customers, in spite of the rise of Amazon and the Kindle.

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