What inspired you to set up Lutyens & Rubinstein?
My partner Felicity Rubinstein and I had been running a literary agency for many years, but we were inspired to set up a bookshop by our own consumer need for a bookshop in our neighbourhood that sold the kind of books and authors we love.
How do you judge excellence in a book?
Completely subjectively.
Why did you choose your Notting Hill location?
We wanted to be in the middle of everything so that our customers can drop in and buy a book while they are buying veg in the market, going to the doctor or picking up a newspaper.
Do you have a typical customer?
All our customers are different – and they like reading and choosing many different books – but a great many of them live nearby.
What effect is the mass market having on reading?
There has been a mass market ever since the first paperback was published but I think its true that the choice of books in the big chains – and now supermarkets – has become more limited and generic and that the online retail environment, which has a huge range of stock, is not the easiest place to seek out new authors and surprising books.
Which authors should we be picking up?
I have really enjoyed Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, Philipp Meyer’s The Son and Donna Tartt’s forthcoming novel, her first in a decade, The Goldfinch. But don’t miss Mark Billingham’s latest Thorne thriller The Dying Hours or Hannah Richell’s new psychological suspense The Shadow Year.
What’s your favourite book and why?
There are so many but I do re-read Georgette Heyer to a quite unhealthy degree.
Kindle or paperback?
Paper for me.
Any go-to west London haunts?
The Tin Shed in All Saints Road and Ukai on the Portobello.
