Anyone who knew me in my newspaper days, knew I liked a good book. Especially if it was a free, new review copy. Before I left the UK I had a garage full of 3,000 books at last count I think. So it was with some sadness that I knew I would be moving to a country that although loves books, loves them written in a language I doubt I will ever be able to read beyond the level of a three-year-old (although that may be patronising to my my three-year-old). But anyway, we had another daytrip to Tokyo yesterday and I was given time off for good behaviour. What to do? Well there was only one thing on my mind, find a good second-hand bookshop. Where to go? Kanda, 10 minutes from the emperor's palace, it is a last bastion of quirky bookshops. My two favourite shops from 10 years ago were both shut for the day, so I was at a bit of a loss and headed off towards home, when I came across a bookshop jam packed with English (and for some reason) German books. They had a lot of Steinbeck first editions and musty leatherbound books. Before I knew it a couple of hours had gone by and it was time to go home. And look what I found in the bargain bin - a history of my hometown. It was a good place worth a second visit, but still not a patch on my favourite with a great website - Between the Covers. Just look at those 3-D rotating books...
Posts
14 comments:
small world story alert.started going to a second hand bookshop on clarendon park road 10-12 years ago.became very good friends with Julian the owner,turns out,after 6/7 years of knowing him,going for beers/snooker etc,it's Tom Smiths brother.
even more bizarrely,he has or did have a copy of that book floating round,but then this is leicester.
second hand shops attract interesting people.If I'm not mistaken,the main character in 1984 used to frequent a second hand shop of some description.
I mainly read classics,if they're not dead I don't read em.
You're getting quite conservative in your old age, doc. There are a few good authors out there who, through no fault of their own, are still alive. But point taken, the good dead authors outnumber the good alive ones probably 10 to 1.
How is Tom Smith? Last I heard he was living in London. Married? Kids?
he's an academic in the North somewhere.Was in London and then Cambridge methinks but definitely lecturing on philosphy in Northern Uni.
Don't........blue is really yellow!So there!His bro is totally totally different to tom.
I read sebastian faulks novel about the first world war once when i was backpacking and it was beautifully sad.Very well written.Birdsong?
Otehrwise I just find it's three minute generation stuff,there to switch people off more than on if you know what I mean.trying desperately to think of a living novelist who'll be being read in thirty years time.Faulks......
I just checked my 10 books that shook my world list at the bottom of this blog and find that 7 of them are by authors still alive. Maybe that says more about me than the quality of the authors though.
Authors still alive that will be read in 30 years? Impossible to say for sure. How about Julian Barnes, Margaret Attwood and JK Rowling (she's got the kids market sown up you know)?
Joseph heller,thought he was dead.
here's mine off top of head.
1 Don Quixote-Cervantes
2 1984-Orwell
3 great gatsby-f SCott Fitzwhats hisface
4 to kill a mockingbird-forget her name
5 Pride and prjudice-J Austen
6i,Claudius-R Graves
7 Farewell to arms-hemingway ernest
8 Of human Bondage Somerset maugham
9 crime and punishment-dostovitsky
10 Catcher in the rye-salingur
all dead by the way!!!!
man,I'm catching a nice smooth wave up on that footsie..go you good thing go.
poss explains my spelling.
Doc, you are losing me there. It surely must be too early in Blighty to be playing footsie. Yes, your spelling is atrocious. I've read most on your list, or seen the movie's at least. Got bored with Crime and Punishment, and the rest are all a bit O Level English aren't they? I liked Catcher in the Rye, but probably wouldn't now, but would agree I Claudius and 1984 still kick ass. Have you read any Patrick O'Brien? He wrote excellent historically accurate seafaring adventures of daring do in the Napoleonic era Royal Navy. Very entertaining and quality novels too. You will be glad to know he is also dead.
will look up said O'Brien.
cather in the rye replaced catch 22 because I found out he was alive.gutted,such a great book as well.
I accept my lsit is a bit o level but thats why they're classics.
However,Of Humna bondage is a truly moving book about a lad who grows up with a limp and his travails in liofe and his ultimate triumph over his disability in life.Truly a long time ahead of itself.
Don Quixote gets lumbered with beign the sort of book you study and I think it does a it a great deal of damage if you read it as a scholar and not a human being.
books like the great gatsby,to kill a mockingbird,Farewell to arms,p and p,and catcher are jsut great books,well written.good to study.
russian literature is in a different league,not necessarily better but jsut totally different.I read a lot of it when I was younger and it took me to some dark places without physically having to go there.
what have you done to me paddy,this is obsessing me now..........
Missed a couple of.Turgenev,father and sons.Wuthering heights.as I lay dying- william faulkner,oh and how could I have left out brave new world-unforgiveable for anyone with libertarian tendencies.
this is truly making me reflect.
Paddy,what have you started?
by the way that ftse post was fourish in the afternoon.
catching a nice bit of surf thios morning too.
just phoned Julian up about the o brien fella.9.45 am and he's still not at work lazy so and so.
wilkie collins,Moonstone,truly gripping.
should really make space for flauberts madame bovary and one from the comdie humaine.will have to pick later-not that I've read them all.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaHHHHH!
Ooops. It's O'Brian, not O'Brien (I was thinking of Tim O'Brien the Vietnam War novelist, still alive so you wouldn't have read him). Start with the first in Patrick O'Brian's series, Master and Commander, which introduces the characters and the world that will become yours in no time at all...
Post a Comment