Browsing the Bookshelves

I love the house I grew up in.  It's just a normal house, in the middle of a rather quiet, rather ordinary and somewhat declining, small market town in one of England's most overlooked counties. Really, there's nothing very special about the place. Except that it is where I grew up, and I want to go back. Not to the area, or the town, but to the very house where I grew up.

It's not an attraction which I can explain. It's just there. The place is home. My home. I sometimes feel very sorry for the people who live there now. I don't know them. I don't even know who they are. But to me they are tenants. Just temporary residents. It can't be their home, because it's mine. In my mind they don't really belong there.  Some freak of nature or accident has allowed them to sneak in, just for a while, to borrow my home.

I remember vividly the evening my parents sat my sister and I down to help them make a decision. I must have been eight or nine. They calmly explained to us that if we wanted to keep our ponies, we had to move house. We'd recently lost the use of the land the ponies had been kept on and the only way to find new land for them to graze was to move house. My sister voted to move house. I voted to stay put.  We moved.  It was a defining moment which coloured much my attitude to both my sister and my parents for years. Of course, I was wrong. If I think about it rationally now, I suspect that my parents really wanted to move themselves and it wasn't just a simple matter of seeing what the children wanted.  I'm sure they wanted a bigger garden -they certainly got one, and they've made it very beautiful. My to my childish mind, at the time it seemed that my sister had been allow to have her way, as always, and that my parents care little for me or my opinion. I know that was wrong, but that's how it seemed at the time.

I swore then that I would buy my home back one day. Even though the resentment disappeared many years ago, I still intend to have my home back.  Did I say it was nothing special? Well, that's not quite true. It has literary associations - which of course as a nine year old I knew little about and cared less. But it was the childhood home of William Hazlitt, poet, essayist and friend to S T Coleridge. It still has his name. Hazlitt House. My home.

I felt like an intrepid explorer. Usually quite content in our small and quiet corner of South East London, just a couple of weeks ago, the June London Book Fairs tempted me to scramble half way across London to Hammersmith for the ABA Antiquarian Book Fair. It's on days like these that I forget that I'm a bookseller by trade and fix my collector's hat snugly in place. With exhibitors, dealers in the finest books, drawn from all over the world, I knew I was in for a treat.  And with my flexible friend in hand and husband-cum-financial-controller left at home, I was planning to treat myself as well.

Jeremy Paxman, patron of the fair, begins his introductory remarks by stating that "if the book isn't dead, it is on a journey somewhere between the intensive care ward and the mortuary".  He cites in support of his premise the growth of alternative leisure activities, the decline of high street second hand bookshops and the penetration of the internet as an informational and research tool.  Almost as an aside, he dismisses the on line availability of second hand books as a "remarkably efficient way" to find a book "as long as you don't really care about the state of thing you're buying".  Of course, I think he is quite wrong, and his unnecessarily downbeat analysis of the second hand book trade, took the spring out of my step even before I reached Olympia.  I could write an essay on this topic - but I'll spare you for now.  Anyhow, II needn't have worried. Within moments of arriving, such thoughts were quickly dispelled by a dazzling array of some of the finest books in world.

I'm no longer surprised by the attitude of some eminent booksellers but I am still irritated by it. A number of the stands were uninviting and at times I felt that I had to push my way past an imperceptible barrier of superiority and intimidation just to look at the wares on offer. As a women in a traditionally male environment I've become used to being treated with diffidence and even at times overlooked but I really was quite taken aback to be twice asked, at different stands, if I was with or buying for my husband or my father.  

The majority of course were friendly, welcoming and helpful. Adrian Harrington's stand could be compared to a man with come-to-bed eyes. My eyes were drawn to their fine selection of modern firsts including Fleming, Douglas Adams, and Agatha Christie.  The centrepiece, to my mind, was a lovely UK 1st, 1st state copy of Heller's Catch 22 in its original jacket - a little foxed and on offer for £1650.

Heritage Books is always worth a visit, even if just to feast one's eyes on their beautifully presented fine books.  This time however my credit card took a hit for a large volume of Anglo-Saxon Poetry. More Fleming's on offer.  Jonker's Rare Books was a real treat too with a superbly displayed collection of Beatrix Potter on offer, including an original watercolour on cotton of Benjamin Bunny presented in a custom made inlay box together with a first edition Benjamin Bunny. I didn't dare ask the price. More Fleming's.

A lovely American first of Tolkien's The Hobbit stood out at Peter Stern's. The publisher's promotion banner, still in place, proclaimed "Its place is with Alice in Wonderland and Wind in the Willows… the Hobbit may well prove a classic".  More modern firsts at Nigel Williams, the most interesting being a lovely 1st of Elergy on Dead Fashion inscribed by Edith Sitwell to E M Forster (£475).  Bow Windows Bookshop had a wonderful copy of Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination illustrated by Arthur Rackham but in some ways more reminiscent of William Blake. Next to it was a superb copy of Quiller Couch's Sleeping Beauty illustrated by Edmund Dulac (30 coloured plates tipped in with captioned tissues, original gilt decorated pebbled cloth, slight rubbing to spine ends and corners - £350).  Even Stephen Foster, whose stand was by far the most welcoming of all, trumped this for Rackham fans at least, with a delightful original Rackham watercolour (which was reproduced as the frontispiece for Stephen James' Irish Fairy Tales).  I was sorely tempted by the most beautiful copy of Pride and Prejudice in a fine modern binding but contented myself by reserving a William Hazlitt.

A selection of the stunning work of the Chelsea Bindery was on show at Peter Harrington's. Their signed first of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird, bound in full green morocco, would have graced by bookshelves were it not for the earlier purchases.

Footsore and weighed down by all that Anglo Saxon poetry, I regretted the absence of a  shuttle bus between the ABA fair that of the PBFA, this year being held at the Novotel a few minutes walk down the road. It wasn't until I was approaching the Novotel that I remembered I'd bought a travelcard that morning and could have just hopped on one of the buses going down Hammersmith Road.

I think the PBFA's move from the pleasant Commonwealth Institute to the Novotel is a mistake. The venue was cavernous and poorly lit with that sort of public-sector, hardwearing carpet that offers no comfort to those who mistakenly put on heeled rather than walking boots that morning.  Such conditions didn't show off the books, or the booksellers, at their best. Other than the occasional chat with friends and colleagues, there was little to make me pause as a toured the stalls.  Perhaps it was tiredness, or my still sore feet, or the temptation of an enticing wine bar at the end of road, but I left, uninspired and credit card balance in tact, barely an hour later.

A few days ago I posted a list of what we're currently reading. With the rains coming down in London at the end of week, the lure of the garden subsidied so more time for books! I finished Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven while waiting to have x-rays done in Lewisham Hospital.  The wonderful nurses and doctors their run such an efficient operation that I was in and out within 30 minutes. I have to confess to some disappointment: I was prepared to wait, equipped with a proof copy of Helen Dunmore's Ingo stuffed in my bag and I was hoping to be able to make a start but no sooner had I read the first sentence that I was called to have my mug shots!

I'm not questioning the benefits of greater efficiency in the NHS, but for the avid reader there is a downside. It's not often that one has the opportunity to read in the afternoon without feeling guilty about not doing something else.  Hospitals, doctor's and dentists surgeries, train stations and bus stops  can be golden opportunties to escape for a few minutes and indulge in you passion if you have to wait.  All this efficiency may mean one gets home earlier but it also means that the small lagoon of stillness that used to exist has disappeared.

I was struck by how few others in the waiting area were reading books. Several were reading but were content to flick through the aged and tatty magazines available or browse one of the leaflets on offer.   One lady was studying a bus timetable intently. Books, though, were apparently a rare thing.  Their was a young girl gobbling up Adele Park's latest offering with gusto and an older gentleman with a small volume which I couldn't identify. We three were the only readers in the room.  Most just sat, for the most part staring at their feet, perhaps lost in their own thoughts.

It is, I think, the first truly summery day in London. Bright blue skies, fluffy clouds scudding by on a gentle breeze and a heat that knocks you back as you walk out of the door.  Too hot for gardening - that will have to wait until this evening, so the joys of an afternoon on the terrace with a good book and cool drinks await. Perfect.

And talking of a good book, here's what I'm currently reading.

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Time Traveller's (Traveler's ?) Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (now, isn't that just one of the most wonderful names you've ever heard?)

Henderson's Spear by Ronald Wright

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

The Life and Times of Allen Lane by Jeremy Lewis, and

Phil Baines' Penguin by Design, A Cover Story 1935 to 2005

This last, Penguin by Design, arrived just recently.  I thought I'd enjoy dipping into it after a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum which is currently hosting an excellent little exhibition to mark the 70th Anniversary of Penguin Books. (The particular significance of penguin is that they were just about the first mass market paperbacks - but more on this perhaps when I've finished reading The Life and Times of Allen Lane, the founder of penguin.)

The V&A is marking the 70th anniversary of Penguin Books with a display of some 500 of Penguin's iconic book covers. Drawing on material from the Penguin archives that has never been exhibited before, the display will show how Penguin has responded to - and influenced - changing trends in British culture. On view will be classic orange fiction paperbacks, the striking monochrome cover of Ulysses and the menacing design of Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange. The display will also include contemporary covers by artists such as Peter Saville and Sara Fanelli ( Winner of the V&A Illustration Awards 2004).

In recognition of the 70th anniversary of Penguin Books, the V&A is displaying some 500 of Penguin's iconic book covers. The exhibition draws on material from the Penguin archives, much of which has never been made accesssible for the public before.   It shows how Penguin has both influenced and reacted to the shifting trends in British culture. the exhibition includes the familiar, classic orange fiction paperbacks, the striking monochrome cover of Ulysses and the iconic, menacing design of Anthony Burgess' Clockwork Orange. Also included are contemporary covers by noted artists such as Peter Saville and Sara Fanelli, the latter of whom won the V&A Illustration Awards in 2004.

Further details of the exhibition, which runs until 13th November 2005, can be found here

It's hard to believe that I finished this book over a fortnight ago. It is still so fresh in my memory. That's a good thing really, as I have only just found the time to write the promised review.  Here goes.  (This review also appears on The Virtual Bookshelf - Thousands of new, used, second hand, rare and collectible books.)

In "The White Masai", Corinne Hofmann recounts her story of holidaying in Kenya where she falls head over heals in love with a Masai warrior. Despite the enormous cultural gulf between them, not be mention the lack of a common language, Hofmann, a middle-class Swiss boutique owner, gives up western life, western comfort and western wealth to rejoin her Masai warrior and live his way of life.

The story engenders little sympathy for Hofmann, despite the enormous, and at times life-threatening, challenges she encounters. The lasting impression is one of a naive white women who thinks that her wealth and education, coupled with an all-consuming love for another human, will overcome all eventualities. While one has to admire her tenacity, there is a sense from the very start that the whole adventure is doomed to failure. Hofmann seems to accept the physical hardships of life in a Masai village with admirable disregard. In contrast, her almost total refusal to compromise towards, at times even to acknowledge, the strong social traditions which dominate the life of the Masai, seems cavalier.

The White Masai's strength does not lie in originality: there is little here to distinguish Hofmann's story from those of others who have gone native only to abandon the experiment. The little it offers terms of insight and analysis of the Masai culture or way of life is tantalising but ultimately disappointing and leaves one wishing for more. Hofmann has, surprisingly and disappointingly, decided to share little of her impressions of Kenya more generally.  This is a practical book with no airs or graces.

The writing style is journalistic - always punchy and to the point - but lacks the finesse that might have created a more evocative experience for readers. Occasional inconsistencies in the story line are distracting, although it is hard to determine whether these are the result of Hofmann's "stream of consciousness" style, or poor translation from the German in which the book was originally written.

These faults are however quite insignificant in comparison to the pleasure that Hofmann's free and frank style and engaging story engenders. I enjoyed reading The White Masai. It is a brutally honest, vivid, adventure story, infused with romance and humanity. Written with great pace, one seems to move from Mombassa, to Nairobi, to Kenya's rural villages, with an ironic ease given the difficulties that Corinne, her warriors and sundry others encounter on such trips.

Update - 15th November 2005: We have news about the availability of Corinne Hofmann's other books, Reunion at Barsaloi and Back from Africa - read more here.

If I were to post this message on the booksellers' ABE forum, I'd get seriously flamed.  It is just a rant, so feel free to skip over it. This is therapy, not information.

I usually browse the ABE forum a couple of times a week. Tonight, it made my blood boil. It's laden with complaints about stupid or fake customers, but it's not this that gets my goat. It's the downright ignorant, stupid sellers who are so pig-brained that they don't even know, or care, that they are.

First, there's a bunch of Alibris sellers shouting foul because Alibris have mistakenly charged them 20 per cent on some sales. Can't these people read? They're booksellers for godsake! Even if they have forgotten the details of the annoucements made not 2 months ago, do they not have the wit to look up the commission structure before shooting their mouths off?

Then there's the fellow who claims to be a UK bookseller, with a business which is not VAT registered. He also claims that books are not vatable items in the UK, so he can't work out why he has to pay VAT on German transactions. Does he really not know that books are zero-rated? Or that he could, if he worked out how, claim the VAT back? Worse - he's asked ABE to explain what services are provided to justify the "infliction" of VAT. Does he really not know that VAT is a national tax, or that ABE is one of the least likely places to find the right advice on it? Perhaps he doesn't even know that he pays VAT on nearly everything he buys? How can people like this run a business?

Then there's the great group of guys and gals debating how many sales per thousand per day they should achieve before considering themselves "average" or "successful". Where does one start? Do they not realise that the nature of there inventory, not to mention proficiency in description and accuracy with data management, will affect their sales rate so significantly that without taking these factors into account, it's all meaningless. And why would they care about their sales rates compares to others anyway. I betcha if I halved my prices, I'd increase my sales rate for a while. But why would I want to that. Are they looking at the wrong metrics, or am I? I'm beginning to think I must be one whose out of step.

Then there's a bunch of "old-timers". Been around since the good old days when ABE was great and there was a rich sucker for every over priced book out there. Now don't get me wrong, if it had been my decision, I wouldn't have encouraged thousands of part-time hobbyists or purveyors of new books to join ABE. But it's not my decision. It's ABE's and ABE will do whatever is best for ABE. Just like I do whatever is best for my business. If it's hurting their sales so much, to the extent that listing on ABE is no longer profitable, then why do they continue listing there?

Then there's a discussion on first edition clarification. It starts with a rather niave, but perfectly logical, question. I can only assume that the rest of the discussion, or at the least the next 18 messages as I couldn't bring myself to read further, was, with some honourable exceptions, a rather elaborate, rather cruel hoax orchestrated by booksellers with too much time on their hands. What possible motivation could they have for perpetuating such half truths and mis-understandings?

Then there's a sweet group of newbies, there's always a sweet group of newbies, who seem to think that all there is to bookselling is listing. "My inventory is there, it's indexed, it's searchable. Why haven't I sold anything? It must be ABE's fault". Do they really think that it's ABE's job to sell their books? Forgive me, but I thought we were the booksellers and that ABE was little more than an advertising hoarding - albeit it a rather large one. What's worse, it doesn't seem to matter how many times some kind soul tries to explain to them that their rather grubby and some what common Le Carre paperback really isn't worth £100, even if it has a complete number line.

Grrr. I must have had a bad day for these things, which are far from unusual, to make me as mad as this. No wonder ABE never listens to its sellers. If the forum provides anything like a reasonable reflection of the knowledge, mentality or aspirations of the average ABE seller, I wouldn't listen to them either.

If you've read this far, thank you. I feel much better now.

So ebay claim to have caved into pressure from their "community" and prohited the sale of Live 8 tickets on their web site. Setting aside the rights and wrongs of reselling these tickets, this move seems to me to be groundbreaking :  A ecommence major web site responds to popular pressure from its customers, even though it will lose money, in this case commissions, from doing so.

So why can't some of the other major e-commerce sites listen to their community base in the same way.  ABE, for instance, one of the major on line sales venue for books, who persist in following a business plan which seems to want to treat books as widgets, against the loudly and frequently expressed wishes of its core client base.  There's no denying that books are the profit source for booksellers, but what ABE's approach seems to ignore is that not all books are equal. Two sellers may both have a copy of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities but those books may be wildly different.  They may be different editions, have different illustrations, or different binding. Perhaps one is a first edition, the other a mass market paperback printed by the thousand.  They may even be in different languages. And even if both books are the exact same edition, one may be pristine while the other has been well-read, stained by a coffee spill and had the illustrations removed.   While in one sense they may be same book, they are certainly not the same product. So how can any one justify using the same picture?

Despite its widely proclaimed move into the sale of new books in the autumn of 2004, the sale of second hand, rare and collectible books still accounts for over 80 per cent of the sites sales, at least according the statistics it released earlier this month.  Perhaps if second hand book sellers had Bob Geldof on their side, ABE would listen.  Perhaps we need a champion?  Where are you now, Arthur?

I made the trek across London on Friday to visit the Olympia Book Fair - and the less spectacular PBFA fair held at the Novatel at the far end of Hammersmith Road.  Anyone else visit either?  Impressions, comments? 

Of course what I really ought to be doing is writing reviews for the last few books I've read. Why is the writing process such a chore when the reading is such a pleasure?

A few months ago, a few of us got together and formed our own reading group. We meet once a month, discuss the book we've just read, eat good food, have a few drinks and a few laughs, and select the book to read for next month. Pretty simple stuff, but enormously good fun.  The process of selecting the next book is one of the most enjoyable parts - we get to hear what others think of books and authors they've come across, often rekindling fondless for forgotten books or providing an introduction to a whole new world of wonder.

Well, this weekend I've finally got around to throwing up a few webpages so that we can keep track of what been suggested - and in particular what's been suggested but not selected.  And if it's good for us, it might just be useful for others wondering how to decide what to read next.  Selections include hyper modern and classics.  While most of the selections are fiction, there is also a smattering of biography.

Click for details of the Pimlico Book Club's book suggestions (so called because we usually meet in the Pimlico Wine Vaults).

I've just finished reading the proof copy of The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann.  A best seller in Europe for 2 or three years, it will be published in English for the first time later this year - September I think.  I'm still trying to compose my thoughts on this book, which was been highly praised and hugely hyped. I'm not yet persuaded.  There were things I found irritating, but things I found engaging and enlightening as well.  I certainly enjoyed the read - but is there really more to this book that that?  If anyone else has read it, I'd be really interested to hear what you think?

I've just seen the Guardian article reporting attempts by armed gunmen to sell advance copies of the new Harry Potter novel to the Mirror and the Sun for £30,000. (Read story here.)

The whole Harry Potter phenonema leaves me a little cold. I love the fact that Rowling's little wizard has fired enthusiasm for reading for a whole generation. I get a warm glow inside when I hear of queues outside bookshops and of booksellers opening their doors in the middle of the night and hosting midnight events to mark publication.  Our local bookshop, which will be opening at midnight on publication day, has hired entertainers to keep the queuing crowds amusing.  Wonderful I love the books too - Rowling has done much to make it socially acceptable for adults publicly to read children's books for pleasure.  And, of course, strong sales of Harry Potter titles have helped our bottom line over the last few years.  But there is something quite surreal and chilling about the fact that something as innocent as a novel can lead to armed crime.

Personally I think the high prices which first editions of the early Potter novels now attract are unsustainable. Rowling is no J R R Tolkien and Harry Potter is not a Hobbit. I very much doubt that the prices will hold. Those who have invested tens of thousands of pounds in search of elusive, signed first, will, I think, be disappointed in the long term- whether their purchases were made for profit or pleasure.  So perhaps it is inevitable that some will try to make a quick buck out of Harry Potter while they can.  But guns? Rotweillers? Really! This is a children's book. It's fantasy.  It's pure pleasure. Putting aside the moral issues of breaking embargos, breaking the law, endangering life, what these people are doing is destroying happiness and exploiting dreams. These are deep and significant sins, the consequences of which are hard to demonstrate, but nonetheless very real.  We don't what Harry Potter in our real world. We want him just where he should be, in the wonderful world of Hogwarts and muggles, witches and spells, and quidditch.  Destroying innocent pleasure should be a statutory offence.  And so should any act that puts Harry Potter out of the books section and on to the front pages of the popular press.

I've finally done it. I've found a book I don't like. I don't like the style. I don't like the way it's been produced. And I don't like what it says.  And I've posted a negative review. I've come across books I didn't enjoy before.  Who hasn't? But never before have I felt motivated enough to tell everyone else why I was disappointed.

The book in question is Companion Gardening by Sally Jean Cunningham.  Click on the link to see the full view.

Now no-one can claim that I only ever read what I like and like what I read!  Wahoo!