I was terribly excited because this is the second in a trilogy of which I adored the final instalment – I’m working my way through them anti-clockwise. The third one was The Probability Pad, a pulp sci-fi comedy adventure about three stoners in 1960s Haight Ashbury repelling an invasion by telepathic slime (one of many fun things being the three stoners are the trilogy’s authors). The opening novel, The Butterfly Kid, still eludes me. Which I actually find rather exciting.
Of course, I broke my unbreakable, no excuses rule about no new books. In fact, I planned on buying more new books this year, just fewer secondhand ones. The books at home are double-shelved, they’re in shoe boxes and piles. I’ve been good. When I began this blog I was reading, not buying. It was no longer fun to have lots of books. They looked like the massed empty bottles of an alcoholic. (Unfortunately, they were still full and unopened.) I went from bad to good habits, and I’ve come full circle. And it’s a tough habit to kick.
It wouldn’t happen if I was like my friend Steve. Steve’s a big reader but he’s only just overcoming an intolerance for secondhand books. More often than not, I’m turned off by new books. That feels like shopping. I like treasure hunting, riffling, rummaging, digging, sifting, lifting that last thing to peer underneath it, on your knees... I like all of that too much.
Bangor was easier, though it still had two second-hand bookshops and three charity shops, and I was alone in the town for two months while Jon was working in Miami. One day, I found Nigel Kneale’s Tomato Cain for 30p in Barnardos. One day, one of the bookshops closed down. Every book on sale was reduced to £1. Every book. Each one represents an experiment, a fliration, a game. Some of them are things you’ve been looking for, like The Unicorn Girl. Sometimes things you can’t resist, like The Probability Pad.
It’s different in London. I work in Oxford Circus and you’d think I’d be safe here. One charity shop, ten minutes away, is full of clothes and records. The nearest secondhand place is antiquarian. More like a museum than a treasure cave. When you’re travelling around, you go to odd corners – these are exciting, but rare, and success is far from guaranteed. And yet – and yet – when I have to finish late here (like yesterday) and the Tube is shut due to over-crowding (at Oxford Circus – then you try Bond Street; there too – it’s rush hour) you have to cross Soho, down to Charing Cross Road, and get the underground there to Oval. And just next to the Underground station is Any Amount of Books, with its £1 Bins. The unsellable. The unloved. The forgotten. The dog-eared.
And yesterday evening I found The Making of the English Landscape by WG Hoskins, Kate Crackernuts by K.M. Briggs, The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts. I had no-one expecting me home. I ventured in at the door, and found someone’s Doctor Who book collection. One of them had been signed (by the Brigadier, and the cover artist too) and some had a name in, but all of them were imbued with his (Matthew’s) presence, his love. His eyes were still on the pages. They all had to be carefully considered – and then I spotted The Unicorn Girl as well...
It’s been a slightly stressful week, so this was a nice bolt of random happenstance. But I do wonder what exactly I’m doing when I’m feeding this addiction, chasing the uncorn (rather than dragon). Am I exploring? Hunting? Investigating? Am I being nostalgic – or am I living in a dream of tomorrow, the bright day (dark with nasty weather outside, but all the houselights are on) when we settle on the sofa, sip a cup of tea, and slip past the flyleaf to begin the real treasure hunt...
They're fun treasures, aren't they. Some glinting and dug out. Some waiting, then taken home, at last. Hutch up and I'll join you on the sofa.
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