Armchair Books

Armchair Books has traded from two adjoining buildings at 72-74 West Port, on the edge of the Grassmarket, for more than fifteen years, run as a partnership by Jaclyn Kaye and Andrew Govan-Prini. Number 72 holds fiction and general stock; number 74 next door is given over to factual books and older, antiquarian titles. Shelves and rugs fill both buildings, and the shop is accredited as a Living Wage Employer. West Port has been a bookselling street for generations, and Armchair Books continues that trade as a single, independently owned shop rather than a branch of a larger secondhand book business. Stock turns over through customer sales and buying in collections rather than a fixed catalogue, so available titles change from week to week. Opening hours run daily from ten in the morning to half past six in the evening, though the shop notes occasional last-minute closures outside that schedule.