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The shop in Oxford Street is huge - on the ground floor are many luxuary cosmetics and perfume counters, and the whole area smells lovely (-: All the international top brands such as Christian Dior and Yves St. Laurent are there, and some English brands, such as Floris, that are very good but harder to find.

On other floors are a big dressmaking and haberdashery department, two huge floors of clothes, furniture, books, electrical things such as CD players and PCs, books, domestic appliances, glass and china, etc.

The clothes here are good - the shops stock a number of designers and sell their own brand, which is high quality and good value.

This is the type of shop that call sell you almost anything you might need, and you can trust in the quality and price you buy from here. The customer service is also extremely good.

The big John Lewis on Oxford Street is just west of Oxford Circus - the Peter Jones shop in Sloane Square is another John Lewis branch, and very similar.

IN the new category, there are several choices - Foyles, Waterstones, and Books Etc. Foyles is an odd place - it has almost every book you might want, but you have to *find* it first. They file books by odd things such as publisher, rather than sensibly by author / subject. This can make it hard to get what you are looking for. It is a good place to browse, though, as there is such a comprehensive range.

Waterstones and Books Etc, which are chains with branches all over the UK, are much more user friendly. They carry fewer items than Foyles, I believe, but have most things you might want. Waterstones have a better selection of serious academic books, in history, geography, etc, and Books Etc do more fiction and travel. Both have helpful staff and systems, on the whole.

There is also a small independant femininst / lesbain writing bookshop called Silver Moon, near the junction with Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street end of Charing Cross Road.

Charing Cross Road is really famous for its second-hand stuff. There are a large number of small second-hand and antique book shops which are a joy to browse through. A couple sell old maps, prints and frames, as well as books. My father bought me a later 18th century copy of Foxes' Book of Martyers here while I was studying Tudor history at school; it is a fascinating volume.

IF you love books, you must come here during your time in London!

The shop has also moved with the times – there are areas devoted to computer games, educational software, and for the deep-pocketed parent, remote controlled planes, miniature cards and jeeps, and climbing frames for the garden. It’s a wonderful place to visit as a child – and quite a lot of fun still as an adult! It isn’t always the cheapest place to buy things, though, so if you see something you like it might be worth looking elsewhere, if it’s a standard kind of toy.

The nearest tube is Oxford Circus (Central and Bakerloo lines).

As well as selling maps for everywhere you’ve heard of, and a great many places almost no one’s ever been to, they also see an extensive collection of travel guides and writing. All the normal books are here (Lonely Planet, Rough Guides etc) and in addition a great many other guides – including single editions about specific places that are not part of a series. The basement has a large collection of fascinating travel writing, and I’ve spent far too much in both time and money here!

On the ground floor, near to the maps section, is a photography section. They sell many of the most amazing books I’ve ever seen, with colour photos most people would give their left arm to be able to take.

The shop’s in Long Acre, near to Convent Garden tube (come out, turn left, and the shop’s about 200 yards along on the left-hand side of the road.) It’s a traveller’s dream!