Juxtabook

40% off Book Sale - today only

For Monday 22nd April only we're having a 40% off sale. Scroll down for your discount code and further details and then browse our site.

 

 

 

The Brothers Powys by Richard Perceval Graves - signed

Oxford University Press, 1983. Hardback. 370pp. Inscribed by the author, “With best wishes, Richard Perceval Graves, March 1983”. First edition. Biography of three of the Powys brothers, John Cowper Powys, Theodore Francis Powys (rural novelist often compared with Mary Webb), and Llewellyn Powys (author of Earth Memories, Dorset Essays etc). A insight into this fascinating literary family. Includes a note on further reading. Indexed.

 

40% off books in stock* - today only

Use the code 40April19 at the checkout for a 40% discount on our book prices on Monday 22nd April only. There is no minimum purchase and no limit to how often you can use the code on the day so browse our site and enjoy!

There are a small number of exceptions - please read the 'small print' below.

Please feel free to pass the discount code onto friends or to your students.

 

 

No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock by Marina Warner - signed

Chatt & Windus, 1998. Hardback. 435pp. First edition. Signed by the author to the title page. Two selections of colour plates. Some integral black and white illustrations.

 

For more book highlights please see our sale newsletter here.

 

The Small Print :

Valid until midnight on Monday 22nd April 2019

The offer does not apply to the small number of new books that we stock including Bay of Ghosts and An Almshouse for Linton.

Postage is extra. Because of the sizeable discount we cannot subsidise postage so large orders from outside the UK might require increased shipping costs. We will contact you to explain if there are any additional costs once your order has gone through, or you can email us before placing an order. You will be able to cancel the order if you're unhappy with the extra shipping.

Where is Arkholme?

For the first time I will exhibiting at Arkholme Book Fair on 23rd June. It is a very pretty spot, easier to get to than one might think, especially if you're anywhere near the M6 in the north of England as it is about 15 minutes from junction 35 of the M6. Or, about an hour from Skipton if you're coming from this part of Yorkshire: A65 to Kirby Lonsdale and turn left on the B6254.

In the light of its relatively little known merits I thought I'd ask Mr J, with his heritage and landscape writer's hat on, to give you a taste...

Book lovers considering visiting Arkholme Book Fair might ask themselves (if they have never been before) just where this little known village is, and what are the nearby highlights. After all, after a few hours perusing hundreds of wonderful books, what better than to explore the locale?

Arkholme is in Lunesdale, the Lune Valley, between the cobbled yards of Kirkby Lonsdale (a few miles upstream) and the historic port of Lancaster (downstream). Arkholme itself is a little gem. Its main street lies away from the busy traffic on the B6254 Carnforth to Kirkby Lonsdale road, and so the village is an oasis of calm and serenity. Barns, farm houses and cottages sit cheek by jowl with Victorian mansions and modern homes in as pleasing a mixture of styles as you could want, and the whole ensemble culminates in Arkholme's neat little parish church with a Norman motte – a large earthwork designed to repel invaders – standing in the church yard. The main street then spills out onto the fields of the Lune flood plain to a spot where, in former years, the river was forded and the road continued on to Melling and beyond. It's a charming place, and no mistake.

 

 

Hornby, a mile or two away, has another ancient earthwork – Castle Stede. This is an example of a Norman motte and bailey castle, with a great mound piled up to guard what once would have been a wooden palisade with a tower to guard the river crossing at Loyn Bridge. Nowadays the site is crowned with a rather incongruous World War II pill-box, but in the Middle Ages it formed part of a system of such forts across Lancashire and beyond. The village of Hornby possesses Hornby Castle which saw action in the English Civil War, but it was extensively remodelled in the Victorian period to give it the romantic aspect it enjoys today.

 

 

Upstream at Kirkby Lonsdale visitors gaze from the parapet of Devil's Bridge to the triangular cut-waters below where the Lune babbles beneath three mighty arches. This is the last gasp of the Westmorland Lune; only a few yards downstream, past the rocks where summer visitors bask, the river enters Lancashire and becomes a broad and majestic presence in the landscape as it meanders through a scene of pastoral beauty, a typically English patchwork of fields with hawthorn hedges separating pastures, lanes and copses.

A mile or two away are the little hamlets of Over Burrow and Nether Burrow. Here, two millennia ago, stood the Roman settlement of Calacum, now no more than tell-tale marks on the ground. For centuries historians and antiquarians had no knowledge of this busy Roman station. Indeed, all that remained was the lore of the local people which insisted that on this spot stood “a city”. No doubt many a sophisticated urban intellectual laughed at the fairy stories of these backward Lancastrian farming folk. Until someone tested the theory with spade and trowel that is!

So Arkholme is set in a fascinating area, full of beauty and history. As you drive to the Book Fair, don't ignore its lovely setting. Lunesdale is a charming spot, well worth a visit. Perhaps make a weekend of it!

 

 

Arkholme Book Fair is on 23rd June, 10am-4pm and you may download a complimentary ticket here. The full address is Arkholme Village Hall, Arkholme, Carnforth, Lancashire LA6 1AT.

Photo credits (copyright for the photos remains with the photographers): the first two, showing Arkholme church and then Hornby Castle, are by Matthew Emmott. Matthew blogs on castles, towers and fortified houses in Westmorland and Cumberland and you can visit here.

The last photograph is by my fellow bookseller and PBFA member Brigid Irwin of The Book House. Brigid organises the Arkholme Book Fair on behalf of us all and you can browse previous years' photos on her website here.

40% off all books in stock - today only

 

Use the code 2017apr40 at the checkout for a 40% discount on our book prices on Monday 17th April only. There is no minimum purchase and no limit to how often you can use the code on the day so browse our site and enjoy!

Please feel free to pass the discount code onto friends or to your students.

 

 

 
Pictured is Man and Literature by Norman Nicholson - a first edition

Book catalogues you might enjoy:

Authors A-Z
Fiction
English local history by county
Children's Literature
Poetry and Criticism
Novels and Criticism
Classics
Language Studies
History
Philosophy
Movements and Themes in Literature
French Literature

 

 

 

 

Pictured is The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves

The small print: valid until midnight on Monday 17th April. Postage is extra. Because of the sizeable discount we cannot subsidise postage so large orders from outside the UK might require increased shipping costs. We will contact you to explain if there are any additional costs once your order has gone through, or you can email us before placing an order. You will be able to cancel the order if you're unhappy with the extra shipping.

Tiding the philosophy shelves

 

I spent the day tiding the Philosophy Shelves; there is a selection above, with lots more on Ethics and other subjects on the website. Tidying a bookcase can be an enjoyable thing but for booksellers it is a frequent necessity. For secondhand booksellers in particular you can suddenly have an influx of new stock in what was previously a category of just a dozen or so items. Space has to be made. Equally you can suddenly sell a lot of books leaving gaps - the gaps are never where you need them!

Both things, buying and selling in quantity are a tremendous pleasure. Buying books? Well unpacking a few hundred books feels like Christmas every time, even though I know I'm only their temporary owner. And selling? It is the Christmas pleasure in reverse - how great to pass books on, however much I'll miss them, to someone who appreciates them.

 

40% off Books - Flash Sale

For Saturday 29th October only we're having a 40% off sale. See below for your discount code and further details and then browse our site.

Use the code 2016oct40 at the checkout for a 40% discount on all our book prices on 29th October only. There is no minimum purchase and no limit to how often you can use the code on the day so browse our site and enjoy!

Pictured is The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World by Hilary Putnam

Please feel free to pass the discount code onto friends or to your students.


Book catalogues you might enjoy:

Authors A-Z
Fiction
English local history by county
Children's Literature
Drama
Poetry and Criticism
Novels and Criticism
Classics
Language Studies
History
Philosophy
Movements and Themes in Literature
French Literature


The small print: valid until midnight on Saturday 29th October. Postage is extra. Because of the sizeable discount we cannot subsidise postage so large orders from outside the UK might require increased shipping costs. We will contact you to explain if there are any additional costs once your order has gone through, or you can email us before placing an order. You will be able to cancel the order if you're unhappy with the extra shipping.

York Book Fair

 

 

York Book Fair is huge! Hundreds of dealers on three floors with thousands and thousands of books for sale. Are you going? Browse some of the books I'm taking here and you can down load complimentary tickets here. Convenient from almost anywhere in the UK there is even a regular free bus service running from near the railway station to get you to beautiful York Race Course where it is staged - Knavesmire Suite, York Racecourse, YO23 1EX

There are both beautiful and collectable books as well as just plain readable books, ranging from a few pounds to thousands of pounds in price. The cheapest book I'm taking is £2 so please don't think it is just for those with deep wallets - there are plenty of good books at good prices.

If there is anything you would like me to bring from our stock please let me know. There will be someone back in the office most of the time who can arrange for books to come in even once the fair has started.

40% off all our books

For Thursday 30th June only we're having a sale offering 40% off all our books. See below for your discount code and further details and then browse our site.

Use the code 40June16 at the checkout for a 40% discount on our book prices on Thursday 30th June only. There is no minimum purchase and no limit to how often you can use the code on the day so browse our site and enjoy!

Please feel free to pass the discount code onto friends or to your students.

 

 
Pictured is The Tusk That Did the Damage by Tania James from our Fiction shelves.

Book catalogues you might enjoy:

Authors A-Z
Fiction
English local history by county
Children's Literature
Poetry and Criticism
Novels and Criticism
Classics
Language Studies
History
Philosophy
Movements and Themes in Literature
French Literature

The small print: valid until midnight on Thursday 30th June. Postage is extra. Because of the sizeable discount we cannot subsidise postage so large orders from outside the UK might require increased shipping costs. We will contact you to explain if there are any additional costs once your order has gone through, or you can email us before placing an order. You will be able to cancel the order if you're unhappy with the extra shipping.

40% off Books - Flash Sale

I didn't intend to hold such a large sale so soon after the last one but having bought rather too many books this week (increasing our stock by 25% in less than seven days!) we need to make some room!

So ...

For Tuesday 30th June only we're having a 40% sale. See below for your discount code and further details and then browse our site.

Use the code june40 at the checkout for a 40% discount on our book prices on Tuesday 30th June only. 

Book catalogues you might enjoy:

Authors A-Z
Fiction
English local history by county
Children's Literature
Poetry and Criticism
Novels and Criticism
Classics
Music
History
Philosophy
Indian Literature
Scottish Literature

Adventures at the York Bookfair

Rob and I have just returned from the PBFA York Book Fair. This January fair is the smaller of the two fairs that the PBFA run in York. This one had a mere 120 or so dealers offering around 400,000 books. We've been to this fair before but only as customers, this time we were exhibiting our own stock at stall number 61.

It was hard work, as we knew it would be, but we benefited from lots of advice before hand from the lovely Heather and Jeff at Peakirk Books as well as from the fair organisers. It was lovely to meet lots of new customers as well as the other dealers. It was also lovely to meet one other book blogger, the writer Martin Edwards from Do You Write Under Your own Name.

Speaking to Martin, it occurred to me that though I often read posts by bloggers about a wonderful bookshop they've been to, or a great library, or even what they've bought from a charity shop, I rarely see posts about book fairs. In fact Martin is one the few people I've seen write about bookfairs (and again today, you can read his review of York). In an age when the economics of selling mean that so many sellers, like myself, can only trade from behind a keyboard, a book fair is great opportunity for buyers to chat to dealers and browse the physical books.

Why do bloggers not go to bookfairs then is the burning question? Have you ever been to one, PBFA or otherwise? Did you enjoy it? Do you know how to find out about book fairs? I'd be interested to know!

On that last question at least I can help:

For PBFA Fairs you can browse the PBFA's fairs calendar. There are fairs coming up at Stratford, Poole, Cambridge, Durham and Edgbaston in the next few weeks and many more throughout the year. They're all over the country including Scotland and Ireland.

For other fairs you can try the monster The Book Fair Calendar from the The Book Guide which lists PBFA fairs along side many other major book fairs plus many smaller independent fairs. There are fairs listed for Lewes, Sherborne, Winchester, Preston, Kinver, Tenterden and Long Melford for this month alone.

As to our own recent experience we nearly sold out of Tony Harrison and Leonard Woolf, and sold lots of Bronte and Ted Hughes items as you'd imagine in Yorkshire, plus lots of William Morris, and best of all we had a great time. We've just got to unpack the book boxes now!

 

40% off books until midnight

 

Flash Sale: a quick reminder that you've just a few hours to take advantage of our offering 40% off book orders totalling more than £10 and UK-based customers can get free postage too! Scroll down for details.

Your discount codes

Spend £10 or more on books before midnight Friday 28th November and receive 40% off!

UK-based customers use the code nov40uk and get free 2nd class P+P too.Europe, and the rest of the world, please use code nov40.

 

Browse our site

 

We're able to offer UK-based customers free standard postage on purchases of more than £10 - this matches Amazon's current offer. Use the code freepost14 at the checkout. Valid until 24th December.

Pictured is Thomas Mann Diaries 1918-1939. You can browse more Thomas Mann volumes here and German literature here. We also have quite a lot of German history in stock here.

Books with free UK postage until Christmas

Reminder: Free UK Postage Until Christmas

We're able to offer UK-based customers free standard postage on purchases of more than £10 - this matches Amazon's current offer.

Browse our site and then use the code freepost14 at the checkout. Valid until 24th December. You may use the code as often as you like.

Our books are arranged on virtual shelves so here are a few categories to get you started:

1900-1960 Novelists

Art and Photography

Blyton, Enid

Dickens, Monica

Decadence, 1890s, Fin de Siècle

Ecocriticism, Ecology, Green Politics

Eliot, T. S.

Fiction

Hardy, Thomas

Harrison, Tony

Hughes, Ted 

Indian Literature

Nineteenth Century Novelists

School Stories

War Poetry, Fiction, Criticism

Women in the Past

Introducing our new online bookshop with lots of book competitions and offers

With enormous thanks to William, Clive and especially the brilliant Andrew at Crystal Thought we're delighted to say that our new website is up and running. We're really pleased with it and we hope you will be. Thanks too to Kathryn Widdowson whose wonderful photographs of our books which appear at on the homepage slider, make (we think!) the site look so stylish.

 

 

 

Read on for lots of news and offers including two competitions, a 30% off code, and a small free gift for orders during our official opening week...

There are:

• 100s of books with new lower prices
• Over 2000 books with re-written descriptions, new keywords, or new photos
• Nearly 1000 books newly added online

The big change is with keywords. Keywords now appear at the side of a book and are clickable meaning you can do cross-curricular searches very easily for concepts such as identity, democracy, stream of consciousness, mysticism, sexuality, Romanticism, taboo, etc.

The checkout should be much easier, and you can now checkout as a guest without having to mess about with passwords.

For bargain hunters we still have a £1 and under shelf, which has been joined by a £5 and under shelf.

We hope you'll like the new site so whilst you're looking about we're offering everyone a 30% code (scroll for details) for the next 7 days, and exclusively to newsletter and Juxtabook blog readers we're offering a mini pack of our CL Hawley Collectable Books Notecard Set with every order.

It is a new site and though it has been tested there may be glitches, so if you have any problems please let me know. Thank you for your patience.

 

30% off all orders until midnight Monday 29th September

Thank you so much for your patience and support during this transitional year for us. As a small thank you we're offering 30% off all orders via our website or direct by phone or email.

To order use the code website30 at the checkout. You can logout as a guest or, create a new account. Your old password won't work as this is a complete new system. Sorry.

The discount is off book prices only, postage is extra. It can be used as many times as you like until Monday 29th at midnight. Browse our categories for ideas on how to spend it!

 

Competitions

We've two competitions for you including one for children.

1. Win a £30 gift voucher to spend in our online shop

Answer the following three questions by email and if you're correct your name goes into our prize draw for the £30 voucher. Closing date - Monday 29th September

• As whom was the writer Mary Ann Evans better known?
• Which literary protagonist must deal with Grendel's mother?
• Which was published first: Parade's End (first pub. of Some Do Not ...), To the Lighthouse or Ulysses?

2. Children age 8-13 win a set of 6 Roald Dahl books for your school and a £10 gift voucher for yourself to spend in our online shop*.

 

Answer the following three questions by email with a parent or guardian and if you're correct your name goes into the draw for the set of group readers for your school and the £10 voucher. You must be aged 8-13 and have your parent's permission to enter. Doing research is allowed! Closing date - Monday 29th September.

 

• What is JK Rowling's first name?
• Where did Roald Dahl do most of his writing famously?
• Which was published first: The Secret Garden, The Wind in the Willows, or The Railway Children

*A parent or guardian will need to spend the voucher on your behalf. You should get the fun of choosing though!

The free gift is exclusively for our newsletter subscribers - but it is not too late to subscribe for book news and offers throughout the year to ensure you receive a pack with your order too.

Collectable Books Notecards - a gift from us

For every order placed by a customer registered to receive our email newsletter we will send a small free gift: a mini pack of three cards and envelopes from our collectable books notecard range, which is exclusive to us.

The cards are useful for all correspondence and can be given as a gift.

We have new cards added to the range so even if you've bought one of our packs before you may get something new to you.

Just place your order and we'll do the rest.

 

A Small Rant about Small Labels, and How to Remove Them

I've been selling books for over 14 years and in that time I've catalogued many thousands of books but never once have I had the urge to stick a label on one. If professional booksellers can manage their pricing and stock taking without sticking these annoying little things everywhere why can't charity shops?

The BBC had a piece on the website this week about M&S switching to lazering labels onto fruit to cut their carbon footprint. Apparently 7 tonnes of waste alone is generated from M&S labelling just their oranges. How much waste must these stickers on books produce? It is not just the enviromental consequences of the label but the manufacture of the paper, label and ink (the better class of charity shop have labels printed with their logo) and the shipping of the same for manufacture and then the shipping of the finished product. And then the removal...

Labels on oranges don't hurt them, they peel off easily and you can throw them away with the skin. Labels on books damage them. Lots of charity shops show no discrimination on whether they put them on modern paperbacks or antiquarian volumes. This copy of Dickens' Dream Children which has a lovely paper paste-down had a blue price label plastered down hard onto it when it found its way to me. It took hours of soaking solvent through the label to ease the thing off without damaging the fragile front of the book. And this adds to the enviromental cost.

 

Today I have been removing labels from paperbacks. Some have more than one label as they had been bought and re-donated to several charity shops. There are costs to the removal: financial, environmental and slightly to my health (book glue solvent if not pleasant to use).

Worst of all is when you ease the label finally clear and discover the charity shop worker had priced the book AFTER putting the label on, imprinting the price and date forever on the book below.

So, you may say, it is a free country, don't go and buy books from charity shops. Well most of the charity shop label removal I do is on books purchased as part of private collections from post-graduate students or academics. They've bought from charity shops and I get the label problem passed on to me. Or they've tried to remove them, failed and left either a sticky mess or the surface torn off the book.

Charity shops do a good job of recycling books. I donate books to charity shops too. But this label habit they're wedded to really should be coming to an end. If you're buying in a charity shop why not politely point out the wider costs of these labels? A pencil, wielded lightly on a prelim, is all most professional sellers use. There is no need for anything else.

How to remove labels

Please read to the end before starting, and remember it doesn't always work. Do not attempt it on a book that is important to you. I accept no responsibility for you trying this!

I. For modern paperbacks or for laminated dust jackets you need to warm the glue. A hairdryer used sensibly is your best friend here. Hold the hot air over the label for a couple of minutes (not too close, and don't dangle your hair in the vent as you lean over!) and then try a corner. If it comes away fairly easily keep going. If not reheat and try again. Removes 90% of labels without damaging the surface but might leave some sticky residue.

2. Sticky residue: use a *sticky stuff remover according to the safety instructions. This stuff is a bit nasty and I would avoid if you have lung or skin problems. I always do this by an open window. Stuborn labels can be soaked with this from a cotton bud if the hair dryer hasn't worked.

Don't heat a book that has glued-on decoration, like a paste-down - you don't want that loosened. The soaking method can work here if you're sure the decoration is colour fast, and if you're careful.

Do make sure any surface you use solvent on is colourfast. Laminated surafces should be fine. Be extra careful with matt surfaces or older books. Some solvents can leave an oily mark on matt surfaces too.

Good luck!

 *Lakeland, Viking, Betterware and lots of other places sell different brands of stick stuff remover. Try your chosen one on something unimportant first.

40% off books and more news

We've lots of news about CL Hawley Books in the coming weeks. Behind the scenes we're establishing a new database which should make helping you find books on the most obscure topics so much easier. From your point of view we're also launching a new website in a few weeks time which should be easier to use with a quicker checkout. Whilst we're busy with this we're combining our book of the month offer and our newsletter together in a Bank Holiday sale weekend.

We hope to have news of the new website in time for June's newsletter.

If you haven't signed up for our newsletter yet you're missing 40% off all our books this bank holiday weekend. It is not too late to sign up and you'll be able to use the code until midnight on Monday.

In other news we've a review of amazing and original Borrible trilogy on Gifted by Juxtabook and colleague Nigel Smith has written an interesting piece on publishing an ebook on the Ibooknet blog.

Book news and book newsletters and supporting independent booksellers

Keeping up with news from small, independent family booksellers (new or used books) is a good way to support those businesses.

Newsletters remind you that we exist when you've forgotten which bookseller was so helpful and gave you really good advice though you didn't buy anything, or packed that book for your mum's birthday so well, or made the extra trip to the post when you ordered a book at 4.45pm that you needed the next day for a major deadline, or waded through knee-deep snow to get a inexpensive book that meant a lot to your wife to the post office in time for your wedding anniversary even though there was less than £1 profit in the sale! (I've done all those things!)

Many booksellers have email newsletters - do ask your favourite sellers and sign up!

As lots of you know I have a book newsletter that goes out by email roughly once a month. This is news of new stock that I've bought as well as some wider booknews that may be of interest to my core newsletter readers (who are mainly academics in the arts and humanities). There are also a number of offers the last being a massive 50% off for a day that was exclusive to my newsletters subscribers. I also include offers on newly published books as well as on my secondhand stock.

In addition to my main newsletter there is also a Book of the Month email most months with 20% off an interesting volume.

If you haven't signed up yet to receive News from CL Hawley Books but would like to you can do so here. Although I mainly sell academic books I do stock fiction and literary biographies etc., that many readers of this blog would enjoy.

As the main newsletter focuses mainly on my academic stock I have decided to do occasional newsletters on children's books, twentieth century poetry, and local history. If you've bought a children's book, or a book on Yorkshire or Lancashire from me in the last 12 months then you'll be on the list to receive a copy of the relevant email. If you would like to receive one of these specialist emails then you'll need to sign up for the main newsletter here. If you're already on my mailing list but haven't bought a relevant book in the last 12 months then please drop me an email and let me know if you want to receive the children's, Lancashire, Yorkshire or twentieth century poetry so I can add that to your email account with me.

It goes without saying that your email address is between you and me only and I never, ever share details.

Thank you for signing up!

 

End of an Era

Something very sad is happening today. For those who do not know Jane Badger Books is ceasing trading and Jane writes about the decision here. Jane is one of the most knowledgeable specialist booksellers in the country. She ran her pony book online shop alongside a formidable bibliographical website providing encyclopaedic knowledge of all things pony book including, amongst a wealth of illustrations, profiles of over 1,100 authors. Many of you will be aware that she has recently published a book on the genre Heroines on Horseback. As well as being fascinating for the lay reader, for booksellers, or for anyone enrolled on the growing number of MAs in Children's Literature, it is a much needed resource in an under-explored area.

Jane has been a friendly and supportive colleague in the five or so years I've known her. We're both members of Ibooknet where she has been invaluable, and she was a strong and hardworking chairman during a difficult time. We've commented on each other's blogs and swapped jokes on twitter. We've discussed books, and selling, and customers, and dogs and hamsters, and on one occasion sparkly shoes and the possible addition of welly socks which explains where we both are sartorially! I got Jane onto twitter. She got me onto Facebook. We're not fully losing Jane because she will be keeping the informative side of what she does going, so she is not going away, but the fact she is no longer trading upsets me greatly. I buy my Flambards books from this woman for heaven's sake! The laws of supply and demand are getting it wrong if this kind of bookshop can't work!

What is particularly sad is that Jane ran a specialised shop with great expertise. Another very experienced bookdealer told me many years ago to specialise as it is the only true way to compete with the pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap model, or indeed what Jane calls the model of 'now' that has come about with the internet age. If a specialised dealer like Jane can't drag a reasonable living out of her expertise then, well, I'm frightened. Not just for my own business but for what the trade as a whole will look like in ten, or twenty years' time.

I know there has been a bit in the blogosphere this week about the impact of a certain website on book sales and book sellers. It is focused mainly on the new book trade but both sides of the trade are suffering together. You can read a lot of debate on Simon's blog here. Simon was on the wrong end of some unfortunate vitriol. That's not on. We need to debate this without blaming anyone. As Jane says it is not as though every bookseller in the country hasn't bought something from you-know-where.

Beyond that, I don't know what to say. I can't imagine what will happen next to our trade which supports reading for pleasure and education, supports collecting and completing and preserving, and is frankly dying on its feet.

In the meantime, if you would like to buy your literary criticism and theory from an independent dealer you know where I am. And you can sign-up to be the first to hear about new stock and discounts here.

And I do sell new books too ... just ask!

The Last Bookshop

"One day, a small boy's holographic entertainment fails, so he heads out to explore the streets of abandoned shops outside. Down a forgotten alley he discovers the last ever bookshop... "

The Last Bookshop is a charming short film (20 mins) that imagines a future where physical books have died out. There are some really delightful moments: when the boy first sees the massive wall of books, when he gets lost amongst the shelves, and when he tries to open the book using touch screen movements! What are stories? What are customers? What is money? The boy asks.

I was also amused to see that bookselling attire clearly is not anticipated to change much in the next fifty years! Of course I sit here everyday in tweeds, a tie, and pince-nez!

After a strangly balletic start, the dystopian future plays out in a bookshop ignored by the giant multinational corperation who now owns all the rights to all written words. Provided no money changes hands, the shop is permitted to exist, and the owner becomes oddly threatened by the enthusiasm of his new customer.

The message, I guess, is that we'll get the bookselling and retail future we deserve.

New in stock

A recent book buying trip has meant we have rather more fiction in stock than usual. I thought you might like an early peep ...

These copies of Philip Larkin's novels Jill and A Girl in Winter, in matching red and grey Faber paperback editions are rather tempting me. There a bit faded to the spine but I still wish I could keep them!

Another nice pair are these David Storey novels in dust wrappers. Flight into Camden, which won the 1963 Somerset Maugham Award and was Storey's second novel, Radcliffe was his third. Storey is best known for his first novel This Sporting Life, about a rugby league player, which was filmed staring Richard Harris.

We have a few new works in translation in stock including these: Memoirs of a Korean Queen by Lady Hong and The Swing and Other Stories by Vera Cacciatore.

Other new fiction includes this nice hardback in dust wrapper of The Bell by Iris Murdoch which is a very early printing but sadly not a first edition, and a Virago edition of The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West.

We also have these less well known works by Christopher Isherwood and Wilkie Collins. Basil by Collins is in the old style Oxford World Classics series, and A Meeting by the River, here in a Macmillan paperback, is a novel set in India.

Also of interest are this volume of short stories and other odds and ends by Mary Shelley, which is a substantial volume rather nicely illustrated, and this UK first edition of Seek My Face by John Updike.

We also have a range of other items in by early to mid-twentieth century writers, in both paperback and hardback, plus quite a few from Heinemann's African Writer Series. They should be catalogued some time in the next month when they can be viewed on our new website! Should you wish to jump the gun however please just drop me an email.

New Stock in: Decadence, T S Eliot and modernism, the thirties and forties

I've uploaded a lot of new stock over the last few weeks. Amongst the literary criticism there's quite a few items on the 1890s and decadence:

We've also quite a few things by and about Arthur Symons in stock.

Also newly in are some more items on T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound:

 

I've sold a lot from this Pound / Eliot shelf of late and am always interested in buying more books on these writers should any of you be having a clear out.

We've a also quite a few books in that focus on the literature of the thirties or the forties, as well as a range of books on key writers of those deacdes such as W. H. Auden:

 

New Books: New in Stock

I have been a busy bee sorting through the enormous number of new books we have now have in stock. I have made a start on cataloguing and thought I'd show you what we've got:

Lots of Ford Madox Ford

 

Lots of classic criticism including works by William Empson, Raymond Williams, Terry Eagleton, Northrop Frye, F. R. Leavis etc.

 

The F. R. Leavis books include For Continuity which, as it has never been republished, is quite hard to find.

 

I have lots of books on David Jones, the poet and artist

 

And by or on Donald Davie, poet and critic

 

And lots of books on or by C. S. Lewis

 

And lots and lots of books on Thomas Hardy

 

We will also have lots of books about Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh available with more catalogued every day, plus more general books on catholicism in literature.

 

When I have catalogued the sea of books on the bookroom floor then we will have an enormous selection of books on modernism and Victorian literature in stock so if you are looking for anything please ask!