The joy of books and secondhand bookshops.

Whilst there can be no doubt that the Internet has made it easy and cheaper to buy books, with the competition between the big book retailers bringing down the price of books to the advantage of us, the buyers, to my mind there is nothing like going into a proper bookshop. I use the internet for my new book purchases generally, and occasionally that hard to find secondhand one has been purchased online as well, but I have to say that when looking for old books to buy, I do have to feel them, smell them and just see them properly really.
So it has been sad to see so many of our favourite haunts closing down and changing to selling their books via their websites. We would eagerly look forward to an hours' drive and a morning spent in a favourite bookshop, but now there are so few to choose from, half of our favourites have closed down.
However some still remain, and one close to home being only ten minutes away. The shop has been run by the same lady for thirty years now, and is a real treasure trove. We used to visit regularly, but haven't been for years when suddenly, last Saturday on a wild, wet and windy morning, we decided to abandon the chores we had planned around the house, and visit this bookshop instead.
You walk in and are surrounded in the first room by fiction mainly, and lots of childrens books, plus cookery and craft. Into the next room where you find history and topography, gardening and wildlife. Out into the hall and there are some more special and specialised books, plus more gardening and nature and geography. Upstairs you will find classics and music and theatre in one room, together with old newspapers, old prints and musical scores. Another room houses more history and religion, and another has a miscellany of books, a real hotchpotch which haven't been able to find homes elsewhere. These are great shelves for browsing, you never know what you may find here.

There are also modern books, secondhand, like the Kate Atkinson and Diana Athill above. The beautiful leatherbound copy of Rebecca, which is illustrated (see end of blog) cost me less than half the price of a new paperback of the story I bought at Christmas - it is in my mind to read more classics this year you see, at the moment it's an old favourite, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, a small, illustrated cloth bound copy which is old and well-loved, with a lovely smell and feel when it's in your hand, something modern books don't have. And the top book is another oldie with a beautiful cover, by ELIZABETH JANE HOWARD, published by the REPRINT SOCIETY in 1956.

Then there were two more books to add to my ANNE OF GREEN GABLES collection. I never read these books by LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY as a child, never even heard of them until I happened to see a Canadian television production of the first book on television, and I was hooked. I have all the stories in paperback, and am now collecting the hardback, but only with dustjackets, though I will buy a clothbound if I see one, to replace with a dustjacketed one likewise. The one on the left is from 1961 bearing the rubber stamping of DERBYSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL SCHOOL LIBRARIES and the one on the right is much earlier, being inscribed inside 'With love to Cecily, December 1941'. I do have a preference for books which have been inscribed.

Now I know you can buy those lovely little Observer books on just about any subject, but I am so happy when I find one on a subject which interests me, but is something different, like the above. This has some lovely illustrations inside as you can see from the two examples below.

Plus it's a smallish book, and I like those very much. Fortunately the print in this particular instance is easy for me to read, it's not always the case of course, with small books.

Along similar lines is this flower book, again a great handy size and lots of lovely illustrations.

Below is the book on the top of the pile..

and this is one of the illustrations from the REBECCA book ...

So I got quite a nice selection, with change from twenty quid... can't be bad!

Just to say that the next posting will be my 100th, with a giveaway, more of which later.

Thanks for dropping by again.