Newham Bookshop logo (2015)

Open Tuesday to Saturday from
10 am to 5 pm.

We can send books by post, usually £3 in the UK.
Newham Bookshop logo (2015) The Wanstead Tap logo
Newham Bookshop events at The Wanstead Tap, Spring/Summer 2024
  • Thursday 18 April at 7.30 pm

    Sarah Wise
    The Undesirables

  • Thursday 25 April at 7.30 pm

    Andrew Whitehead
    A Devilish Kind Of Courage

  • Thursday 16 May at 7.30 pm

    Viv Groskop
    One Ukrainian Summer

  • Wednesday 29 May at 7.30 pm

    Iain Sinclair
    Pariah Genius

  • Wednesday 5 June at 7.30 pm

    Laura Laker
    Potholes and Pavements




Newham Bookshop by Pete Fallan
Newham Bookshop, Pete Fallan, March 2021.


Thursday 22 November at 7.30 pm
at The Wanstead Tap


The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers
The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers
is published in hardback
by Virgin Books at £16.99
on 25 October 2018.
Buy ticket online
Tickets £8 online
(FREE for under-18s)
from Newham Bookshop
The Wanstead Tap logo

Great range of beers and sophisticated soft drinks
Bobby Seagull returns to The Wanstead Tap, but without the quizbook
Bobby Seagull
Photograph of Bobby Seagull
by Lloyd Mann, University of Cambridge

Can maths change your life? Here’s your starter for ten…

Bobby Seagull
The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers

Once you know how to see them, numbers are all around us – buried in the dimensions of buildings and encoding the data on our favourite gadgets. They’re a beautiful system of patterns and codes, but also an essential tool that can guide our daily decisions, change our behaviour, and even predict the future – if we can just learn how to use them right.

Long before his rise to cult fame on University Challenge, Bobby Seagull was obsessed with numbers. They were the keys that unlocked the randomness of football results, helped him organise his time, directed his social life and opened up the world of music. Told through stories from his life, Bobby illuminates the world of numbers and brings his infectious enthusiasm to everything from the mystery of magic numbers, the improbability of probability, the right number of friends to have, and how prime numbers control everything from credit card encryption to cicada hibernation habits.

The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers will fill you with wonder, change how you see the world around you, and help you use numbers to make better choices and decisions every day.

If there’s anyone to help champion the joy of numbers, it’s Bobby Seagull. He’s the man helping the BBC Breakfast presenters study for their maths GCSEs; he’s an ambassador for National Numeracy alongside Rachel Riley; he’s the face of a new Open University course helping young adults manage their finances; he writes a guest column in the Financial Times and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Puzzle for Today – all while doing a PhD in numberphobia at Cambridge.

Bobby Seagull became a cult star as a contestant on University Challenge in 2017. He is now an obsessive quiz enthusiast, a secondary school maths teacher, a doctoral student researching maths anxiety at Cambridge University and a long-suffering West Ham fan.

Watch out for online events


Family lessons for
Writing and Reading Newham
available here

On the Record logo

Interested in learning more about Newham Bookshop and some of the people connected with it? We have four lessons for classroom or family use developed from On the Record’s oral history project centered around Newham Bookshop, Writing and Reading Newham. Click here for full details.


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Newham Bookshop is LoveReading’s
Bookshop of the Month

We are proud that Newham Bookshop is LoveReading’s Bookshop of the Month. The article features a Q&A with Vivian Archer, which you can read here.


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