Browsing the Bookshelves

It's just not possible to have too many books. It's a theoretical impossibility.  You can have the wrong books, bad books, silly books.  And 95 per cent of books have no resale value at all.  But you can't have too many books. No, my problem is that I don't have enough bookshelves. And the reason I don't have enough shelves for all those lovely books is that I don't have enough space.  Books line every wall, stand in piles on the floor, wait in stacks on the stairs for a more permenant home, not to mention the two rooms in the house that have been given over to book storage totally.  But we still don't have enough room for books.

So, today, I looked at local storage solutions.  Of course, everyone knows that land and property of any sort is expensive in London (although, thankfully, not as expensive as Japan) but even being prepared didn't make the task any easier.  The local council offer decent units at a reasonable-for-south-east-London price, but insist on a 5 year minimum lease. Yelp! I might have flown to the moon by then.  The commercial world clearly moves faster as the three units I tried to visit later this afternoon had all be taken by the time I got there. Perhaps I should invest in skates rather than storage.  I rather depressing day.

But tomorrow promises more. I have found a small, local storage company who rent out space in small chunks at just about affordable prices and who, bless them, only need a week's notice. No lease, no solicitors, no service fee, no premium, nor any of the other costs than everyone else seems to want to add.  So tomorrow I shall visit and inspect. I'm assured the unit are dry, but then I was assured that one of the units I visited this afternoon was dry. When pointed to the somewhat obvious hole in the roof and the tell-tale damp spot on the floor, the agent suggested that perhaps I might not put books under the hole.  That one got struck off the list very quickly.

There are days when I wish bookselling could be just about selling books.  Today was one of those days.

Well, almost a day off.  I might decide not to work, but folks, god bless them, still buy books, and those books still need picking, packing and dispatching.  But after my daily trip to the Post Office, that was it. Packed up and ready for fun.  Bring it on.

Started out with a trip to Denmark Hill where we stocked up with so many plants for our empty garden that the car looked like a mobile florist even before we hit the Dulwich Pot and Plant Centre. We'd been there a couple of years ago and drooled over the most exoticly tempting selection of garden pots, rich and deep colours in classic shapes.  The Pot Centre has, we discovered, changed hands since we'd last been and, although the selection of pots was still good, it wasn't the breath-taking abundance we'd remembered.  The selection, and quality, of plants had however improved greatly and we scooped a handful of herbs together with a new strawberry pot - you really can't have too many strawberry pots.

Then a late lunch at the ever-delightful Dulwich Picture Gallery. They make the best fish-cakes south of the River.  We toured the Gallery itself just a couple of weeks ago, so contented ourselves with lunch without pictures, but the visit reminded me that I must finish reading the books I bought on my last visit: a nice little local history book, and a treasure-trove of a catalogue for last year's exhibition of the works of William Heath Robinson (ok, so this post really is book related now).  Then home for tea in garden, with scones from the restaurant brought home in silver foil. 

After all that excitement, a couple of hours in front of a good film seemed in order. I read Beloved a couple of months ago, so was looking forward to seeing the film.  If you think the book is weird, the film is more so. The emphasis is very much on the para-normal aspects of the novel, at the expense of the moving, heart-wrenching account of slavery in the American south.  It's not a film I'll watch again.

We recently bought a delightful little collection of Alison Uttley books, all illustrated by Margaret Tempest.  These little children's books, such as Wise Owl's Story and Little Grey Rabbit books are wonderfully evocative of the innocence of childhood and while not particularly valuable are quite desirable and often find space on the shelves of those who collect children's books or illustrated books.  We were well pleased with our auction purchase and delighted to be able to offer a selection of Alison Uttley's books on our website.

That is until we got an email from a lovely gentleman who had bought a handful of these books from us for as a birthday present for his wife.  One of the books was an early printing but he'd noticed that the dust jacket was from a much later printing.  And we hadn't noticed.  I detest the practice of marrying dust jackets with books not only because it's often done to defraud buyers but precisely because it's very difficult to get it right. Only in this case it was damned obvious - and I'd missed it.  So, not only do I have an aggrieved customer but my professional pride is taking a punch or two as well. And it get's worse.  The next day, and another email from the same gentleman reporting that another of the Uttley books he bought had exactly the same problem.  Arrggh. This is just a disaster. 

Of course, well make it right with our book collecting customer as best we can, but I just hate it when things go wrong. Particularly when it's all my fault.  I've been had, and I didn't even notice.  And now I will have to check all the rest of those books and just sit here with fingers crossed that no other books from this lot that we've already sold have the same problem, or we'll have more angry customers over the next fews weeks.  Why do people do it?  Still, the books remain quite lovely.

On line bookselling is subject to constant change. Gone are the heady days when, for those with an early internet presence, books seem to fly off the shelves faster than they could be replaced and readers and book collectors around the world discovered titles that previously had been tucked away in a dark corner of a tatty second hand book shop in a sleepy English market town, available only to those who by serendipity crossed the threshold and had the time and inclination to browse, often uncomfortably, through endless rows of random books.

These days the on line supply of books far outstrips demand. Large numbers of dealers all over the world have catalogued their stock and diligently upload those horrid data files each day.  But the influx of mediocre stock is largely the result of the hobbyist, encouraged by the likes of Amazon and ABEbooks, to offer their paltry selection of tatty, valueless paperbacks to the Mammon god of international commerce.  Do a couple of searches for commonplace books on any of the major listing services and, if the sheer weight of numbers doesn't put you off, the poor, often inaccurate descriptions, arcane shipping options and illegal returns policies will!  Each day, it gets harder and more time consuming to sort the wheat from the chaff and, with over 60,000 dealers offering stock on the net, gone are the days when most booksellers, and buyers as well, knew most of the other booksellers operating in their area.  Of course, the big guys still stand out: the incomparable Maggs Brothers, in central London; the estimable Peter Harrrington, with their opulent selection of antiquarian and illustrated books; the delightful Any Amount of Books, who always seem to manage to have the very book you must have, although until you saw it, you didn't know you wanted it. Yet for the most part, book buyers have no way of telling if they book they are looking at is being offered by a respectable antiquarian or second hand dealer, an inexperienced but well intentioned novice hobbyist, a fly-by-night rip-off outfit or a downright fraud. So, too many book buyers are disappointed with their on-line purchase: the order is cancelled because the dealer failed to update their stock; it doesn't arrive, or arrives late; it's not in the condition or it's not the edition promised.  In its early days, ABEbooks (originally the advanced book exchange) was almost entirely the preserve of the respectable and professional bookseller, but those days have gone and now, more than any other service, the ABE website is flooded with penny sellers, poor sellers and phantom books.

So, what prompted such musings on the state of our industry?  Well recently a group of UK second hand book sellers have been working hard to ensure that help is at hand for readers and book collectors alike. The Independent Booksellers Network (ibooknet), the only UK based co-operative of second hand booksellers, launches it's new book selling site next month.  Ibooknet members actually own the site and determine policy, ensuring that their listing service is tailored to the needs of book buyers (which of course is the best way for book sellers to do well). No mark ups and no middlemen, book buyers can make direct contact with sellers who emphasis quality and professionalism with accurately described books and up-to-date listing.

We're members of Ibooknet (so we would think it's great). But don't take our word for it. Try it out. And tell me what you think.

  Came across this super little book, Mother Goose of The Old Nursury Rhymes, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, while cataloguing today (the life of a bookseller is not all fun, you see). Greenaway is one of my favourite illustrators and remains collectible, although she is not nearly as popular now as she was in the last decade of the 19th century when books with her illustrations sold by the thousand both the UK and the United States.

Born in London in 1846, Greenaway was the daughter of one J Greenaway, engraver for the London Illustrated News.  She studied art at various London Institutions, including the Slade. She first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1877 although her earliest published works date from 1871.  She drew the attention and support of Edmund Evans, a leading printer and publisher, with her ability to capture a sense of enchanted worlds with a child-like innocence.  Greenaway died in 1901.

This copy (left) of Mother Goose illustrated by Kate Greenaway is an early but undated edition published by Frederick Warne. Sadly it is a well worn copy and a little loose, but the charming illustrations which appear on every page are delightful and still clean and crisp.  A nice to brighten up a very dull and rainy day in London.

Would love to hear from others who admire Greenaway's illustrations.