Victoria Park Books was set up in 2005 by us, Jo and Cris De Guia. It was a response to our changing circumstances; we had a baby and wanted more control over our lives.

We returned to our strengths. Jo grew up in a family run independent bookshop in Limpsfield, Surrey and completed a Publishing Production Dilpoma at the London College of Printing after her degree. She worked for Waterstone's during the '80's and then went on to hold a number of posts from running several small restaurants to managing a Training Department for one of the Inns of Court.

Cris is an IT specialist and worked for several years as a Network Administrator and IT Assistant Manager for an international bank in the City before joining DGT. He manages the IT requirements of the company and created, manages and hosts the Bookshop website.

We had lived in the area for a number of years and having our own child meant that we had direct experience of what was available for children to read. We sold our house, bought 174 Victoria Park Road and moved into the flat upstairs. A year later, the building completely renovated, the door on the ground floor was opened for business.

With our feet firmly placed in East London we feel we have a strong grasp of local enthusiasms and tastes. We know the local schools and their priorities and interests and are working hard to become an irreplaceable resource. (See Schools page for further details).

As a local independent bookshop it is also very important to us to know what everybody reads and we are proud of our ability to source adult fiction and non-fiction from bestsellers to out of print books.

But most of all we are childrens' specialists. For much of the inside knowledge we rely heavily on our daughter Tilly, who samples all the stock and determines our books of the month from amongst our stock of picture books, mostly on colour … the current favourite being Very Interesting by Yokococo primarily on account of its being pink!

Victoria Park Books
174 Victoria Park Road
Hackney
London
E9 7HD

Telephone no. 020 8986 1124

Fax no. 0871 994 0947

Email: info@victoriaparkbooks.co.uk