In London yesterday I had a little look around the cheap bookshop on the corner of Waterloo Bridge Rd. I don’t need any books right now as I have 4 novels and a biography in the to-read pile, but its always fun to look, just in case there is a bargain.

As it happens there were a couple of bargains: an Ismail Kadare for £2.99 and also for £2.99 a book I had never heard of called Edward Trencom’s Nose¹ by Giles Milton.

Much of the shop is full of art and transport books which seem to be specialised to such an extent you wonder how they fill a whole book with it, why, and whether enough people would be interested enough to buy them. I know I wouldn’t, but I do love reading the titles. The best I saw yesterday were At The Controls: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Cockpits and The Complete Encyclopedia of Hunting Rifles – a great big thick book!

I always find the art books frustrating.  They are bargains in that a lot has been knocked off the rrp but still they seem expensive for the amount of time they will be read.  A book reduced from £60 to £25 is still a twenty-five quid book.  Not that I am tempted my many of them in any case.  I am sure Moroccan ceramic tiles or Malaysian thimbles or whatever are very nice, but I wouldn’t need a book full of them.

1. “A novel of history, dark intrigue and cheese” – who can resist a description like that? [↩]