Today I’m on a mission to find what touts itself as ‘the biggest second-hand English bookshop in Germany.’ Subway map in hand, I set off in search of the elusive Gneisenaustrasse U-bahn station, which the bookshop website claims as its closest but doesn’t seem to appear on any city map.

Once there, I figure out why. It’s a forgotten old slum area, with shelled-out buildings (granted, they just be tumbledown, but I’m a sucker for war stories), an oversupply of 65-cent döner street vendors and all the signs in Arabic.

It’s hard to tell if I’ve crossed into East Berlin somewhere on the underground or if it’s just a dodgy part of the west. Coming out of the station I nervously skirt a gypsy woman who proffers me her baby, and fretfully mumble something incomprehensible to the two grubby boys who ask if I’ve a day ticket they could ride on.

Then I realise I’ve left the directions to the bookstore in my diary at home. I start looking around for approachable-looking people to ask for directions, and, finding none, eventually corner a young guy with bleached hair and a surfboard under his arm. He reminds me of the surfer dudes back home who are always either stoned enough or docile enough to be harmless, so I feel that it is safe to approach.

And indeed, his directions turn out to be faultless, though looking back perhaps I should have been more wary of the surfboard – Berlin is well inland, after all.

Needless to say, after the pains I’d taken to get there, the bookshop itself is a grave disappointment. It seems promising enough when I enter, with walls of books – very handy, given the nature of the establishment – and those comfy old brown chairs that everyone likes. Even the store guy peeling a sack of potatoes at his desk doesn’t put me off.

I’m not really startled until, ducking under the rafters to get to the back of the store, I barrel straight into a homeless fellow carting a pot of stew – or haggis, or possibly sauerkraut, it’s hard to tell – up from a ragged set of cellar steps. It seems the place has a makeshift kitchen-cum-homeless shelter in its basement, and old Gunther at the front desk is readying spuds for the shindig they’ve planned for the evening.

I don’t buy anything, in the end. All the books, though admittedly quality reading, are in highly dubious condition, and I’m not fond of reading in my rubber gloves.