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 30 October
at 7.30 pm at
Bishopsgate Institute

Bishopsgate Institute logo

Tickets £12,
£10 concessions, from
Bishopsgate Institute
Tel 020 7392 9200
or online.

Cover of The Girl Next Door
The Girl Next Door
is published by
Hutchinson
in hardback at
£18.99
Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell
50 years of Wexford

Veteran crime writer Ruth Rendell celebrates 50 years of Inspector Wexford books, and discusses her new novel The Girl Next Door.

Claire Hazelton wrote in The Observer: “Shortly before the second world war, a man nicknamed Woody murders his wife and his wife’s lover. In an act of psychopathy, he cuts off the couple’s hands and buries them, in a cookie jar, in tunnels that the local children play in. Veteran crime writer Ruth Rendell’s new novel, The Girl Next Door, is strangely detached from the crime it opens with. Set 70 years later, when the hands of the victims are unearthed, it focuses not on the murder but on the children — now elderly — who are reunited by the resulting criminal investigation. Although mysteries from their pasts are revealed as memories are pieced together, Rendell is more interested in the new relationships formed within the group.

“Instead of exploring psychopathy as one might have expected, Rendell gives an acutely observed portrayal of old age through her characters’ regrets, losses and bewilderment. Her realism renders the novel bleak at times but moving too. Difficult themes such as death, usually dressed up in mystery in a crime novel, are real, hard-hitting and constant.”

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.


LoveReading logo

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.


Thank you poster