|
Join us for an insightful Powerpoint presentation by Sarah Anderson, writer and founder of the famous 'Notting Hill' bookshop on How I became Hugh Grant
"Richard Curtis was a customer and neighbour. One day he came into the shop and said he was thinking of writing a film set in a bookshop, could he sit and take notes. Still photographs were taken of the shop, a set was built and filming in the local area began; the film Notting Hill starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant opened in May 1999. Life in the bookshop was never the same again.
But what were the origins of the Travel Bookshop? How and why did I set it up? I describe my early travels and what it was like to run the shop; in retrospect realising that the early 80s was the Golden Age of travel writing: Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Colin Thubron, Jonathan Raban, Norman Lewis, Dervla Murphy and Patrick Leigh Fermor among others, were all writing travel books. I met them all. Lonely Planet had just begun – as had Rough Guides and Eland, Century and Penguin began to publish travel reprints.
The bookshop, renamed Notting Hill Books, is now the 5th most visited film site in London – and with queues waiting to get in, somebody often has to be employed to keep people out …"
- Sarah Anderson, December 2025
|
