Description

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This book, which is a mixture of fact, anecdote and quotation, describes the author's meandering exploration of some of the best of England's provincial second-hand bookshops, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Isles of Scilly. Judged by the contents of the author's bookshelves, he has a strong but highly selective interest in sport, with rugby union, cricket and bowls foremost, and the odd place allowed to football and golf. There are biographies and autobiographies from Bernard Shaw to Alan Ross; a dozen volumes by W. H. Hudson, greatest of naturalists; travels with Henry James and Paul Theroux and Edwin Muir; books on cinema Westerns; essays by Ford Madox Ford and Edward Thomas; a novel or two; and a little poetry. The bulk of these books are dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on fact, suggesting, correctly, that their owner is a journalist.

Praise For…

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“A mixture of fact, anecdote and quotation, this book describes the author’s exploration of the best of England’s provincial second-hand bookshops – a splendid personal view of hours spent closeted among shelves filled with every book imaginable.”  —The Oldie

“I would say that bookselling is the most humane, sociable, ill-organised, yet absorbing form of commerce to be found anywhere.”  —Eric Moore, Hitchin bookseller

“Five million books are published in the world every year. Only one per cent of them are any good, and settle, and they end up in second-hand shops.”  —Victor Suchar, Camden Books, Bath