Robin Ince

An Obsessive's Tour of the Bookshops of Britain

Bibliomaniac

Laura Dobie

I also pick up the Psychics Directory, the equivalent of the Thomson Local Directory for those who like to tap the shoulders of ghosts. It is forty years old, so I presume many of the clairvoyants have long since left the earthly plain, but that is no reason to think they are no longer working.

I have an armchair that makes me look like a grandfather reminiscing on scrumping for apples, or a cult leader about to give instructions on reaching the mothership.

Totnes used to be Twinned with Narnia' - at least Totnes according to the elegant graffiti on one of the town signs. Sadly, this fabulous possibility was scrubbed off before the effect of the vastly increased sales of Turkish delight could truly be felt.

On my way I accidentally pass by the Oxfam bookshop. I have had a whole day of not buying a book, so I wonder whether maybe my habit has waned or is at an end. Maybe I can make it two days.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy is a true engineering feat of a pop-up book and comes in my top three favourite pop-up books. Number one will always be the M. C. Escher pop-up book, simply for its chutzpah - attempting to make 3D versions of images that portray scenes that cannot possibly exist in a 3D World.

It can seem that Mark E. Smith not only didnt suffer fools gladly, but didn't suffer anyone gladly.

A first edition plummets in price if it has been around the municipal library. But I prefer the ex-library book; the untainted first edition has no history. When I look around stately homes and find myself in the library, I see the leather books behind caged doors and wonder how many of them were ever read. How many of those printed words came off the page and spun around someone's mind? Did any of those books move or change anyone?

Do you know anyone who can buy just one book? Do you know anyone who leaves a bookshop only with what they walked in to buy?

For a small shop, it has an indecently large religious section, suggesting the frequent deaths of Anglican hoarders.

It is the dream we have always had: being locked in a well- organized bookshop with the promise of imminent chips.

It was the first time I had ever seen him star-struck, but that was a pity, because in the photo from the evening, of him and Julie Christie, Julie was obscured by an ebullient man in a duffel coat. If only my coat had been red.

In the past I have nipped home with some bags of books, only to find that she'd come back early and so I had to secrete them under the shed. I'd come in empty-handed and whistling, a jaunty tune being the clear signifier of a terrible five hardbacks, a large-format art book and seven Penguin Modern Classics' guilt. 

I am out of the door again for the journey to Laugharne before my presence is noted. She'll simply think the books have been breeding again.

Are these books useful? Perhaps most painfully, I have at least ten books about decluttering your life for a happier future, strewn around my house. I want to know about everything, so I know about nothing.

Let's start with a battle cry, but quietly, just in case you are in the library. I don't retreat into books, I advance out of them. I go into a bookshop with one fascination and come out with five more. I always need another book. I love their potential.

An entertaining odyssey and tribute to books, bookshops and booksellers.

Bibliomaniac An Obsessive's Tour of the Bookshops of Britain

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