By chance and certainly not by design (who, me?) I found myself in a second-hand bookshop this week that is closing down. Now if anyone should ever ask me where I would most like to spend a spare hour or two I would, after dismissing the idea of bed as just too old-ladyish, certainly say ‘in a second-hand bookshop’.
It is very sad that this particular one, that supports a charity, is closing as we have been closely acquainted for many years. Thanks to it, the bookshelves at Hill Towers have regularly had their load both lightened and replenished. I have even been on the rota of volunteers, so I know its inner workings, too, as well as its public face.
Now it is no more, but in a final act of selflessness before the doors finally closed I went along to see what I could do to ease its painful death throes.
So no, I didn’t really happen to find myself in there, as I suggested at the beginning of this piece. I wrote that just in case Geoff should read it. I actually went armed with a shopping bag, just in case . . . you never know. Besides, I wanted to show my support and with everything at half-price it would have been churlish not to have bought something.
I don’t quite know what happened to me in there, in that lovely, familiar, wall-to-wall paradise of words and pictures, but as if by magic I found myself with my arms stacked full of books. I gently laid them, one by one, on to the counter. As I did so, I counted them, silently, and was stunned to find I’d chosen 14 – and not one of them would I have willingly put back.
So 14 it was going to have to be. What joy! The assistant rang them up and as I carefully placed each one into my capacious bag, I couldn’t help noticing how much their diversity reflected my reading tastes.
There was the poetry, of course – always the poetry – two lovely volumes of it: British Poetry Since 1945 and The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse; classic, timelessly beautiful writing in novels by Rosamond Lehmann, Penelope Lively and Irene Nemirovsky (two by her, in fact); contemporary best-selling fiction by Emma Healey; a fascinating look at Europe in the 18th century through the eyes of William Beckford on his Grand Tour; Simon Hopkinson’s cookery book and entertaining story book rolled into one volume of immense brilliance, called Roast Chicken and Other Stories; a guide to identifying trees (useful for when I’m put on the spot by a questioning grandchild); a book of Snoopy cartoons (unthinkable to leave for someone else to buy); a book of Posy Simmonds cartoons (ditto); and two books for visiting grandchildren, one on the subject of reptiles and the other a beautifully illustrated traditional tale of an old man who grew an enormous turnip, as old men are wont to do.
The turnips and reptiles will be put to one side, but all the rest, all the poetry and the novels and the non-fiction and the cartoons, will be my constant companions through the summer, teetering gently in their unruly piles, swapping pole position depending on my mood. Understandably, Geoff will grumble a little about this habit I have of bringing more books into the house, but then I’ll play my trump card. I’ll tell him there were several books in the sale that I wanted but had resisted buying.
He’ll be impressed, as long as I don’t add that they were the ones I’d donated after our most recent clear-out.
Sally Hill's Journal 