A certain member of the Manchester Book Group from Leeds inadvertently put me completely to shame by recently revealing her trip to the deepest, darkest depths of South Manchester, mere minutes from my own front door, to a warehouse/shipping containers literally full to the brim with books. Pick a book at random about any subject/ genre on earth and at Sharston Books you shall find it. We certainly did this Easter weekend.
The little bearded chap who owns this Aladdins Cave is just lovely and was very keen to get our opinion on how he'd arranged the shop, which I found to have struck the perfect balance between extremely organised and excitingly haphazard. I can't thank Alex enough for discovering it for us. After speaking to the owner it actually turns out that most of his custom comes from much further field than Manchester, with us Mancunians being largely completely ignorant of its existence. Quelle horreur!
I was actually forced to have words with myself after two excitable hours in the fiction section and came away with the modest pile you see before you. A particular favourite was The Small Miracle by Paul Gallico; a beautiful little volume that matches my copy of The Snow Goose which (I think) I received for Christmas last year. The Eric Newbys are a treat for the boyfriend who is on a travel writing frenzy at the mo (recently interrupted by Great Expectations) and loves the Picador editions of Newby's adventures.
Adventure beckons...Does anyone have any travel writers they could recommend as our next port of call?
The guardian has this interesting list of travel. It's a bit of a mixed bag but might find something you like. Enjoyed reading about the bookshop near you. Love bookshops like that. cheers,
ReplyDeletePam - travellin' penguin
Lovely to hear from you Pam and thanks for drawing my attention to your great blog as well - am looking forward to getting stuck into some of your posts :-) Thanks for the tip. I do like the bits and bobs in the Guardian books section so will definitely be keeping my eyes open.
DeleteOoh, I was wondering what you'd bought. I've not read Titus Groan for years, I remember loving it one winter when it snowed nearly every day and my school kept announcing it was closed. :)
ReplyDeleteI have NEVER read it and have been intrigued by the Gormanghast trilogy for yonks. As well as clearly being a mecca for rare and old books it was the PERFECT place to stock up on the books I've been wanting to buy forever. There were so many different copies of everything! **sscccrrreeeaches in excitement**
DeleteHas your boyfriend tried William Dalrymple? I think City of Djinns (about Delhi) is one of the best travel books I've ever read. The 8.55 to Baghdad, a combination of travel book and following in the steps of Agatha Christie is also superb. I love Tim Moore too, Spanish Footsteps about doing the pilgramage to Santiago is both a good travel book and a genuinely laugh out loud read.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips Victoria! - funnily enough I actually read City of Djinns whilst we were in India last year, which as you can imagine just added a whole other dimension to the book - I pressed it upon my boyfriend but he was too busy reading Shantaram, which he regretted! I bought In Xanadu by Dalrymple at the time as well so perhaps that's worth a try. :-) Cheers
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