Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 5,559,185
  • Total Topics: 106,348
  • Online Today: 767
  • Online Ever: 3,311
  • (July 08, 2021, 03:14:41 AM)
Users Online
Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 06:04:54 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Second Hand Bookshops

Started by Serge, October 19, 2017, 08:52:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Serge

There don't seem to be as many around any more, do there? Have charity shops now taken over as the main source of second hand books? Well, that and Amazon and similar online Marketplaces, I suppose.

When I was growing up in Derby, there was a great second hand place on the corner of Osmaston Road and Sacheveral Street called Laura's, named after the woman who ran it, though it was more likely to be her husband Ron (not that Ron) who you'd see in there most days. As Derby didn't really have a decent full price bookshop in the '70s and '80s - just a place called Clulows that I've mentioned on here before, as it had some of the snottiest and most unwelcoming staff I've ever encountered in my life - Laura's was a lifeline to the young Serge, and I picked up many a great book in there - I'm pretty sure all of the John Wyndham books I've still got on my shelf were from there, not to mention my copies of 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'Animal Farm'.

One week I went in and they'd obviously been inundated with loads of books of short horror stories, either anthologies by different writers, or collections by people like Richard Matheson. They'd priced them all at 10p each, so I bought about 20 of them. I've got no idea what happened to them, I certainly don't own them any more. The shop closed sometime in the early '90s (I think), when Laura died, and Ron didn't want to carry on. There was another shop called Derventio which started out in Sadler Gate and then moved to Monk Street, which was pretty decent, but obviously didn't make enough money to last long.

My dad took voluntary redundancy from his job in the mid-nineties, and with his redundancy money set about realising his dream of opening his own second hand bookshop. Ideally, he would have been based in Derby, but he had trouble finding premises, and as he was basically living on that money, was forced to take a shop in Belper, about eight miles north from here. It also wasn't in the best position - not on the high street, but on the main A6, with traffic thundering past on its way to the Peak District. It lasted a couple of years, but again, sadly, just didn't make enough to keep going. But if you ever went in Rod's Bookshop in Belper in the mid-nineties, well, that was my dad!

My favourite second hand place was Reader's Rest in Lincoln. It was aptly named, as it sat halfway up Lincoln's main street, which, if you don't know it, is called Steep Hill. They named it well. By the time you got to Reader's Rest, you were ready for a break, so I'm sure they did a roaring trade at one time. It was a great shop - set over two floors, and with corridors and little side rooms all over the place, it had the feeling of a warren. They were a little bit expensive, but I always ended up buying at least half a dozen things in there. Sadly, this shop is no more either.

I've been to the one in Rochester (which I assume is still open?) that advertises itself as the biggest second hand bookshop in the UK (it beckons enticingly to you as you come into town on the train), which again, twisted and turned all over the place. I've also been to Hay-On-Wye a few times, though most of the second hand places there really do take the piss with their prices.

So, are there any great ones left? Where should I be looking for them? And are there any others you remember that are now long gone?




Cursus

Yes, there do seem to be less of them about. I'm sorry to hear Readers Rest has gone. One set of grandparents lived in Lincoln, so it was a regular haunt at one time. 

VelourSpirit

Scarthin Books in Cromford is very nice.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Serge on October 19, 2017, 08:52:47 PM
There don't seem to be as many around any more, do there? Have charity shops now taken over as the main source of second hand books? Well, that and Amazon and similar online Marketplaces, I suppose....

Pretty much - and charity bookshops are a major reason why there are far fewer second-hand dealers, as the latter have difficulty in competing.

Charity shops have significant financial advantages such as business rates relief (although pretty recently, this is being looked at, so things may change) and getting stock free.

A few/several years ago, when in Cardiff, I was chatting to the owner of a shop in an arcade - whereas there used to be a few other second-hand shops reasonably close, they had all closed in the last couple of years or so. There was a massive Oxfam bookshop, which had taken a lot of their trade away - and as he said, one of the problems was that people would come in and try to haggle using the argument 'It was cost 'X' amount in Oxfam'' and then get very upset when he didn't give them a massive discount - also, IIRC, the prices they were suggesting Oxfam charged sometimes was a complete lie. Anyway, that's another issue - charity shops rely on a fast turnaround of stock and can afford to stimulate that with cheaper prices, a independent dealer can't use.

Serge

Yeah, it's a bit shite. I mean, I have picked up some good stuff in charity shops over the years, and I do miss not living so close to the Oxfam in Blackheath any more - that was always a good source of decent books, and not as piss-takingly expensive as some charity shops can be (British Heart Foundation in Catford, I'm looking at you!)

The price thing can be annoying. Although he didn't really have to compete with charity shops so much back then, my dad had a few people who'd come into the shop and argue that they didn't want to pay a pound for a '70s edition of a book that would have been 25p back then. He'd always (politely) tell them to go and see how much it would cost them full price.

People always complain about prices anyway, I've had it in every shop I've ever worked in. Rough Trade was the worst - people coming in and asking why an album was priced at £20 and not £5, 'like they used to be', not understanding the concept of inflation (not to mention the fact that records are now a specialist item rather than something that practically everybody would buy back in the day.) Though I suspect a deeper problem was the fact that they wished they were still 18 and had all of their hair.

nedthemumbler

Serge is there anywhere down Brian Clough way you would recommend?  I have moved away now but still go back to Nottingham occasionally.

Cursus

Jermy and Westerman on Mansfield Road is pretty good. (The other shop they had out towards Sherwood is now closed).

tookish

I think I've rhapsodised before about Paramount Books, here in Manchester. Wonderful shop, full of all sorts of treasures - I've mostly bought old comics and incredible Victorian hardbacks. Always blasting opera or film soundtracks. Comes with the strangest, funniest shopkeeper, who thought I was a sex worker, made me climb up a ladder that said 'BROKEN DO NOT USE' and gave me a banana, as he said it would 'go well' with my books.

Neville Chamberlain

Quote from: TwinPeaks on October 19, 2017, 09:23:37 PM
Scarthin Books in Cromford is very nice.

I second this. When I lived in Nottingham, I used to regularly head out there, as much for the cafe as for the books.

Blinder Data

If you're ever in Inverness, Leakey Books is lovely place to lose an hour in.



It's in an old church. Takes some balls to put a wood-burning fire in a secondhand bookshop too.

Blinder Data

Double post

Oh well since I'm here, here's Barter Books in Alnwick because it's probably my favourite shop in the world. You could lose a day in here.

It's the old train station, they've converted the waiting room into a cafe, there's a fire with honesty-box tea-making facilities, there are model trains whizzing round - I mean I could go on...


studpuppet

The last two I visited were Scrivener's in Buxton and The Tiny Book Store in Rye. Scrivener's were especially welcoming to a family with two seven year-olds, and reaped their reward at the till.

greenman

Inprint in Stroud is my local one, small but a lot of quality stuff, an oasis in a sea of gentrified interior decor shops that have taken over the top of town.



Normally spend 15-20 mins looking though the excellent photography, architecture and art sections taking a break from selling in the market nearby. Sadly going to be closing down early next year so give it a visit if your in the area.

Moss Books in Cheltenham is worth it for a bit of a mini gormenghast experience with stacks everywhere that seem to be holding up the walls in places. A lot of dross there but very low prices if you do find the odd gem.


holyzombiejesus

Quote from: studpuppet on October 20, 2017, 10:08:32 AM
The last two I visited were Scrivener's in Buxton and The Tiny Book Store in Rye. Scrivener's were especially welcoming to a family with two seven year-olds, and reaped their reward at the till.

Is Scriveners the big tall one at the top of the hill? We used to visit the Winter Gardens for the book fair every December, them visit Scriveners (if that's the one I'm thinking of) and then get all shit faced and bicker and lose our books on the train home.

madhair60

Scriveners is fucking astonishing

Serge

Ah, now Scrivener's looks like somewhere I could realistically get to at some point! Will definitely check that out. And I'd forgotten about Scarthin, which is even closer.

I have remembered that there was actually a second hand bookshop close to the Oxfam in Blackheath, which I rarely ever popped my head into, partly because they never really seemed to have anything I was interested in, and partly because the staff seemed a bit snotty. Having said that, I once bought Robert Service's book on Stalin from the Oxfam and was served by two Russian girls who were muttering imprecations about him, and by extension, me for wanting to read about him, as they served me. I did feel like pointing out that you might want to read about someone without being a fan of them.....

And sadly, it's down to the attitude of the man behind the counter that I will never darken the doors of Paramount in Manchester again. I went in there one day last year, and at one point, I went upstairs to look around. When I came back down, for some reason, they'd decided to rope off the upstairs section, despite myself and at least two other customers being up there. I had difficulty undoing the rope to get out, and the guy basically just stood and watched me struggle rather than offer to actually move it out of my way.

Despite this, and despite the fact that I wasn't impressed with either the selection of books or the way they were displayed (piles of books all over the place, I haven't got the energy or the inclination to sift through them), I decided to buy a couple of books in the spirit of keeping independent bookshops alive. I went to the counter with them, and the guy looked at them, but before the transaction could go any further, a friend of his came into the shop behind me, and he walked away from the counter to have a good old chat with his mate. I was literally standing there with money in my hand, and he was ignoring me because he thought nattering to his pal was a better idea than trying to sell books to a customer. After a couple of minutes of this, I loudly said, "Well, I guess you don't want my money, then?" and walked out. Fuck him.

Fambo Number Mive

Don't seem to be any where I am.

Used to have a few second hand bookshops where I am but now it's just charity shops and two Oxfam bookshops.

Of course Hay on Wye has loads, although even there I think a couple have closed down last time I went a few years ago.

Serge

I remember being disappointed when I went to the Cinema Bookshop in Hay-On-Wye, as I assumed from the name that it was going to be a bookshop full of books specifically on cinema. As opposed to a bookshop that's in the former cinema. Then again, I'd already been in the Castle Bookshop - a bookshop in the former castle - so I'm not sure why I didn't twig sooner.

madhair60

Is that the one where the basement is just a fucking pile of books like Scrooge McDuck's money bin?

Black Ship

Aberyswyth Cabbers, is Julian Shelley still in business?

BritishHobo

I don't know if Wrexham's had any others over the years - certainly from my own childhood I can only recall getting books from WH Smiths or Waterstones - though there's a guy who's been running a used CD/video/DVD shop for years and years, frustratingly having to move premises countless times, all over town, due to shite business rates, and his most recent location has a pretty good used bookshop/record store on the second floor.

There's an amazing place in Llangollen though, Cafe and Books, with a cafe on the ground floor and then upstairs, a fuckin maze of books, two or three rooms, one massive, a couple narrow and pokey, but all stuffed to the rafters. You could get lost in there.




Are Oxfam bookshops similar standard around the country or does it depend on the local people bringing the books? There's one nearby that I drop into every week. They usually have more things I haven't heard of or something special and they price the books cheaper than anywhere else even though they pricecheck online now, so if something's worth £50 they might sell it for £20 instead of £2. I don't tend to buy that stuff but it passes the time looking at the cabinets. They have surprisingly large sections for poetry and foreign literature too. Maybe that's the standard layout for Oxfam. Nice to support Oxfam isn't it, even if it means buying a book in a foreign language. I hardly ever go to Waterstones because it has less variety, new book prices and no surprises. I looked at the poetry section recently when I needed to get Middlemarch and they had about ten books by Simon Armitage taking up half of the only shelf. I've exaggerated that to make a point. I got Middlemarch from the Oxfam in the end.

But, I had to ask and they fetched one from downstairs. The next time I went in there was a Middlemarch on the shelves. Nothing too sinister about that but I also feel as though over the time I've been buying books it has become better tailored to my needs. If I buy a book by x, next time they might have three books by x and something else in the style. Am I going mad or do they try to pay attention to local sales when arranging the display shelves - so the shop only looks good to me because the other customers share my taste? Or is this a religious present to me?

Are there any good bookshops for discovering rare and interesting novels and poetry in Birmingham (Oxfam or not)?

Serge

I suspect there is an element of 'the shop is as good as whetever people bring in' about Oxfam, though I don't know for sure. A couple of my friends used to work at one of their specialist bookshops in London, if I remember I'll ask them! I do remember going in one day when one of my friends was working, and he took me to their stockroom, where they had piles of great stuff waiting to go out, and I ended up buying about a dozen books. He later admitted to me that our other friend (who was the manager of the shop at the time) knew that I was going to pop in, and told him to show me the stockroom, as he knew I would be likely to buy a lot of stuff! My reputation precedes me.

I did find the Oxfam shops in London pretty decent, both for quality of stock and pricing, though I have heard people complain about pricing in some of their shops, so don't know how standardised they are. As I mentioned above, the one in Blackheath was particularly good, paperbacks would be around £3, hardbacks maybe a fiver. The charity shops in Blackheath were a good source of comedy DVDs as well, I don't know if that was just one person who bought them and got bored of them and spread his generosity around when getting rid of them....?

I always found the one in Bloomsbury slightly underwhelming. It looked very nice and you felt that you would find goodies galore, but I never seemed to go in when they had anything that exciting. The one on Marylebone High Street is very good, though - I picked up a boxed set of the '70s Penguin editions of the Gormenghast trilogy for £6 once (and on the same trip, bought a boxed set of Series 1-6 of 'Peep Show' for the same price!)

The Oxfam in Derby is variable - I either buy loads of stuff or nothing at all. I managed to pick up a copy of the Spitting Image tie-in book in there once, and a copy of 'Bachelor Boys', the Young Ones' book, both of which I owned as a kid, but gave away over the years, like a twat. A few months ago (going slightly off-topic), I picked up four Stereolab CDs and two Squarepusher CDs for £18. But it's been months since I've bought anything from them, and I do nip in fairly regularly. I was also disappointed with the one on Oldham Street in Manchester - I don't think I've bought anything from there yet.

Hangthebuggers

Recently visited the one in Llangollen. It was exciting enough to explore but for some reason it seemed to have tons of copies of the same books (especially in some sections) which made it feel like I was somewhat being cheated. One shelf in particular had about thirty copies of the same book, another shelf had about twenty copies of another, all faded from the sunlight.

Maybe it was visiting during a heat wave, but I left mildly disappointed. I might go back next year for a proper nosey though.

--
The Leakey Books shop looks fantastic!

Icehaven

We went into one in Newcastle-Under-Lyme on Saturday, proper old school one, also sold old vinyl in a non-hipstery way, and was run by a very friendly chatty old man. At one point he said ''Would you mind staying here while I just pop next door?'', which we said was fine, so he disappeared out the door for about 15 minutes, leaving us, having never been in there before, only had a 5 minute conversation with him, looking after his shop. I was going to get behind the counter then say ''Can I help you?'' when he came back, but it'd have felt mean. 

Replies From View




This bookshop in Balham was a lovely place.  Disappeared a few years ago and was replaced with an estate agents, which pretty much says it all, really.

steveh

I thought I read somewhere that Oxfam scan books on arrival and move some stock to other stores if they think it will get a better price there while higher value items may not even remain in the standard stores. I could be wrong though. Books given to charities that don't sell in a suitable time get sold off in bulk to secondhand wholesalers, some of which may turn up as 1p books on Amazon for a while before eventually being pulped if there's no sale. Several companies have built dynamic pricing systems designed to get the maximum price possible at that moment in time for any secondhand book that reaches them and the average independent bookseller doesn't really stand a chance competing on price against them.

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: icehaven on October 23, 2017, 09:13:01 AM
We went into one in Newcastle-Under-Lyme on Saturday, proper old school one, also sold old vinyl in a non-hipstery way, and was run by a very friendly chatty old man. At one point he said ''Would you mind staying here while I just pop next door?'', which we said was fine, so he disappeared out the door for about 15 minutes, leaving us, having never been in there before, only had a 5 minute conversation with him, looking after his shop. I was going to get behind the counter then say ''Can I help you?'' when he came back, but it'd have felt mean.

What were you doing in N-u-L?! I've not been in to town when I've been 'home' for ages but didn't know there was a 2nd hand bookshop...

Thanks for the information and suggestions about Oxfam.