The Written Word
for November 25, 2001

Everyone displays addictive behaviour of some sort. At least that’s what the psychologists tell us. I have no drug addictions – save perhaps a beer or two at timely moments - but I certainly have three of another variety – Wendy, London, and book stores. When they combine the opiate is irresistible.

London has, of course, very good new book stores and Wendy loves to prowl them as much as I do. Where we part company – literally for a few hours when in London – is at the Leicester Square tube station where, a few yards a way, the Charing Cross Road used book stores abound. Actually, as I will tell you, there are several new book stores as well.

Wendy’s tastes in books run to what I would call – and she would deny – the occult. She’s a mystic and loves books about mystical experiences. She also has a penchant to read women’s books, health books (especially non traditional) and novels of all sorts. Her tastes are more catholic than mine and she tends to look for what’s new. I, on the other hand, have rather restricted tastes running to biographies, histories, politics and good fly-fishing writing.

We have a deal, my Wendy and I – for 2 or 3 hours per London trip we part company so she can do things she especially likes to do and which bore me, and I can canvass Charing Cross Road and emerse myself in the used book stores thereon.

Used book stores, like good fishing tackle shops, have much in common. Both have a distinctive odour – and it is an odour that rouses the browsing passion immediately – a sort of disheveled look of madness about them and an atmosphere guaranteed to make you buy what you didn’t know you wanted until it confronted you. Both such emporia also have proprietors who somehow know where everything in this unorganised, un-catalogued is located.

There is another common area occupied by proprietors of fly-fishing shops and used book stores – both are excellent buyers. There are no bargains – at least I’ve yet to find them.

Some years ago a British fly-fishing magazine did a poll which decided that the best book ever written about fly fishing was called Going Fishing by an American foreign correspondent by the name of Negley Farson. One day shortly thereafter I was in a used book store on Charing Cross Road when I chanced upon a very fine copy of this book - first edition, complete with dust jacket, for 20 pounds. What a bargain! I shivered with excitement when paying for it sure that the proprietor, seeing my excitement, might realize that he was parting with a priceless book at a ridiculous price. Like a dog who pinches a bone from the butcher, I scampered out the door feeling a little ashamed of myself for having taken such advantage of the poor chap who was obviously barely eking out a living.

I later found, through catalogues and seeing other copies of this book that rather than cheating the bookseller, I actually paid a couple of quid too much! Negley Farson may have written the best fly-fishing book of all time but they’re a dime a dozen, so to speak, in the used book trade!

In short, book sellers are also excellent book buyers. Still, hope springs eternal that one will plough through stacks of old books and come up with that priceless first edition that the seller has in his bin of one pound each.

The first place you’ll find as you walk up Charing Cross Road is Quinto Books at #48. This is an excellent two floored store where you will find lots of good stuff from all topics. Next door is The Charing Cross Book Store which, it would seem, is in some sort of partnership with its neighbour, Henry Pordes Books. This too is simply an excellent place to browse for a very long time indeed – if you browse as I do, each could easily use up an hour.

On my last trip I was saddened to learn that Any Amount Of Books at #62 (where I bought the Farson book) was closing and that that I had missed the best of a sale by a few days. It will, I suppose, become a mobile phone emporium thus doing a double job of harming what’s left of our civilization.

Moving north up the street brings you to The Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop which, I gather from the window display, sources equally books for lesbians and those of the female persuasion who do not yet believe that they own and control the world lock, stock, and barrel.

The next three shops are devoted to specialities - design, mid eastern and Muslim studies, and the media. Even if these subjects don’t interest you, they’re worth a boo.

Thus ends the used book row but there are a couple of "remainder" stores further up the block which often have books in them at 4 pound 99 that you paid 25 pounds for last year. Maddening as hell but every once in awhile you feel very pleased with your canniness as you actually buy cheap a book you passed up when just off the press.

I can’t leave Charing Cross Road without mentioning what bills itself as the World’s Largest Bookstore – the famous Foyles. I was very disappointed in Foyles at my last visit for it has actually become reasonably efficient and up-to-date – forced to become so, no doubt, by the marketing skills of Waterstones that so dominates the market and which now fully occupies the five stories that was once Simpson’s Department Store on Piccadilly and which has branches all over London.

When I first started shopping at Foyles, 35 years ago, it was a delight. Everything was all over everywhere and you simply were forced to explose its five floors, connected by a lift which, if it wasn’t the inventor’s first, was damned near. I well remember finding the Winston Churchill section in the midst of the "Technical Section" and somehow it didn’t surprise me.

Moreover, they took no credit cards and, when it came to finding things, the staff had no more clue than you did. One did not drop into Foyles – one allotted it at least a full morning. Well, the elevator is gone, the books are in a reasonable semblance of order, credit cards are welcome and the staff knowledgeable. It is indeed quite a comedown and marks the end of an era where because organization was all but missing, you really had to prowl to find what you were looking for. Britain itself is chock-a-block with used books. A year or two ago I scrambled through the open air book market on the south bank of the Thames and found a mint copy of Alice In Wonderland – with the real drawings, not Walt Disney’s cruddy version – for 8 pounds and bought it for my youngest grandchild, Karyn Leigh. Her Mom, who had never read the book – which says something rather unflattering about her upbringing – didn’t care for the book much but Karyn Leigh just loved it.

Every village of every consequence has at least one used book store and the beauty is that you can find English books you always wanted and which are not available at home. In fact the small town of Wigtown in Scotland boasts more than a dozen used bookeries, some of them being very specialized.

There is, of course, a code of conduct involved in buying used books. Because everything is so crowded, it would help if you could somehow be a combination of Michael Jordan and Toulouse-Letrec with a rubber neck. Since you can’t be that, great patience is required when sharing narrow corridors with other browsers. And, of course, you whisper. Some owners will bargain but I have found that the mere suggestion of a deal is met with a stern look down the nose as if you asked a priest if you could borrow a buck or two from the poor box.

Finally, I must tell you that there is another similarity between a fly-fishing shop and a used book store. They take a bit of getting used to. The massive array of things for sale can be quite formidable until you accustom yourself to how they are usually laid out, where things can be found, and how to value what you see.

Taken as a whole, buying books, while an expensive addiction, is really a very neat way to spend some time – especially in Britain. Most especially in London.