Better Books

Better Books was an independent bookstore. It was founded by Tony Godwin and was located at 94 Charing Cross Road, London. The shop was a significant location in the 1960s counterculture movement in London, and included a stage, a cinema and a gallery area.

It was founded by British publisher Tony Godwin who took over the premises at 94 Charing Cross Road, London, in 1946.

In 1964, Tony Godwin visited San Francisco and the City Lights Bookstore. He met Lawrence Ferlinghetti and suggested a work exchange, whereby Ferlinghetti would send "one of his Beats over in exchange for an English salesman who needed some education". City Lights store manager Dick McBride moved to the United Kingdom for six months to help "bohemianize" Better Books.

Better Books had a string of influential managers including Bill Butler, Bob Cobbing and Barry Miles, who set about ordering a large quantity of books from City Lights and Grove Press. Another manager, of the American and underground wing, was David Kozubei, who was later invited to the United States to run and radicalize a bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from whence he was recruited by the Borders brothers with a promise of a partnership which never materialized, to set up, stock, and manage their first flagship store, also in Ann Arbor.

Better Books was once described as a "mini Arts Lab", and served as stage, cinema and gallery. Its cross-disciplinary approach welcomed new art forms such as assemblage, performance art, and radical poetry. Together with other alternative galleries, including 26 Kingly Street and Miles' Indica Bookshop, Better Books was one of the hot spots of the London underground scene.

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