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For the Love of Secondhand Books: A Continuation

A second meander around some nearby bookshelves, which are almost ready for Christmas.

I’m almost ready for Christmas here. To my partner Sarah’s amusement, once I’d finished my work on Friday, I went down to the Oxfam shop nearest to where we live and did what she calls my Christmas shopping. Mostly second hand books, and quite a few. Enough to see me through the quiet days when, like the majority of us, I’ll pause from my work and enjoy myself. Which in my case means I’ll be reading.

Not all the time of course. There’ll be some talking, quite a lot of walking around, some writing maybe, and of course quite a lot of music. But to quote Devon Sproule, one of my favourite songwriters:

“I’ve got the bookshelves loaded”

So all is calm, all is bright and, as I said, I’m almost ready for Christmas.

Not that I’m not reading already of course. It’s been the weekend and so the first of Friday’s purchases has already been read. Much like ‘Stoner’ by John Williams, the last secondhand book I wrote about on here, this one is an apparently quiet story about a seemingly unremarkable life that’s not so unremarkable at all. Continue reading “For the Love of Secondhand Books: A Continuation”

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For the Love of Secondhand Books: A Digression

It’s a perfect example of what it is, a secondhand book. It’s got other well used books on its cover, it’s on a ‘vintage’ imprint and I bought it from a secondhand  bookshop.

It is also, by the way, a perfect book. Tom Hanks says it as well as I ever could in his review quote inside the cover:

“It’s simply a novel about a guy who goes to college and becomes a teacher. But it’s one of the most fascinating things that you’ve ever come across.”

Read that aloud, please, in your best dry, wry and enquiring Tom Hanks voice and I think you might both get the idea and want the book. Which you can have any day soon if I give you its catalogue number: Continue reading “For the Love of Secondhand Books: A Digression”

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Buying LPs again

It’s started. After a 23 year gap I’m buying LPs again.

Not that I’ve got a turntable mind. That won’t come ’til next week. But it’s ordered.

A record shop, with LPs. Probe Records, Liverpool.
A record shop, with LPs. Probe Records, Liverpool.

For months, possibly years, I’ve been magnetically pulled towards any turntables I’d happen to see when we’ve been in town shopping. Or rather when Sarah’s been shopping and I’ve been loping along beside her. Because I don’t really ‘shop’ and have very little need for ‘things.’ My birthday present this year was, well, nothing. And I was very happy with it because there was nothing I wanted. If it was relying on me the economy would be in an even worse state than it is.

And in charity shops, ostensibly there to recycle our books, I’d find myself flicking through the second-hand LPs. Until fondly reminded that I no longer possessed a turntable to play them on and hadn’t had one for many years.

Well there’s a turntable been ordered now and I’ve been to the Smithdown Road Oxfam and flicked through the second hand LPs with renewed vigour. Because I’ve found that I want LPs back in my life. Continue reading “Buying LPs again”