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Open Tuesday to Saturday from
10 am to 5 pm.

We can send books by post, usually £3 in the UK.
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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 15 February at 7.30 pm
at The Wanstead Tap


The Red Atlas
The Red Atlas by John Davies
and Alexander J. Kent
is published in hardback by
University of Chicago Press
at £26.50.

Buy ticket online
Tickets £5 online
from Newham Bookshop
The Wanstead Tap logo

Great range of beers and sophisticated soft drinks
John Davies tells what the Soviet Union did many years before Google got the idea!
John Davies

John Davies
The Red Atlas

How the Soviet Union
Secretly Mapped the World

After the collapse of the Soviet Union an astonishing treasure trove came to light – hundreds of thousands of maps showing in chilling detail countries and cities throughout the world. The story of this amazing cartographic enterprise has never been told… until now!

You may not be surprised to learn that during the Cold War the Soviet Union gathered information about the West. But you may be astonished to discover just how much they knew about London and other British cities – and even about your street or your house.

This is the never-before-told story of the world’s most comprehensive mapping endeavour and, arguably, the world’s most intriguing maps.

John Davies lives in Woodford Green and is a life-long map collector and enthusiast. A retired systems designer, John is editor of Sheetlines, the Journal of The Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps.

Alex Kent is Reader in Cartography and Geographical Information Science at Canterbury Christ Church University and is the current President of the British Cartographic Society.

Soviet Upton Park
Soviet map of Upton Park, with Ньюхэма книжный магазин in the centre.

“Belongs in the collection of every map enthusiast and military historian—carefully researched, well-written, and exquisitely designed and printed, it’s perhaps the only recent map history that can be called a real eye-opener.” – Mark Monmonier, author of How to Lie with Maps.

“Utterly fascinating. A must-read for anyone interested in the former Soviet Union or in maps and mapping in general.” – Marina Lewycka, author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

“This book is a sheer delight. It also carries huge educational and historical value by introducing the inner workings of the Soviet military topography.” – Vitali Vitaliev, Geographical Journal, October 2017.

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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