“It feels like someone’s home where you can buy a book. Always has, intentionally,” says owner Henry Layte. It’s distinguished by a “hand-picked selection across fiction, poetry, art, cookery, children’s and general nonfiction. Never bestseller lists, always personal taste that leads the choices. A bit radical, very left-leaning.” A favourite of Stephen Fry, it’s also a “haven for writers”, with a writers’ booth on the top floor where Margaret Atwood finished off her novel The Heart Goes Last.

Top five sellers

•My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs Kazuo Ishiguro

•Songs of Waking – poetry by Jonathan Simons, from new offline-only publisher Analog Sea

•Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge

•Ballad Tales: An Anthology of British Ballads Retold Edited by Kevan Manwaring

•Why Marx Was Right Terry Eagleton

Five recommendations

•The Assembly of the Severed Head Hugh Lupton
“Gripping, gory, fantastical - and with a heartbreaking love story to boot!”

•Devoured Anna Mackmin
“A dazzling debut by the acclaimed theatre director. A 1970s commune in north Norfolk as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl.”

•Rock and Roll Is Life DJ Taylor
“The Booker longlisted author turns his eye on the world of 1960s R&B and the explosion of British rock in the States. A beautifully observed, wide-ranging and wonderful novel.”

•The Chameleon Samuel Fisher
“Ingenious genre-bending love letter to all things literary about a book that can become any book.”

•Bogmail Patrick McGinley
“Sharp and twisted rural gothic masterpiece with a small, unforgettable pub-frequenting cast.”

The Book Hive, 53 London Street, Norwich NR2 1HL; thebookhive.co.uk