'with all faults'

http://nhw.livejournal.com/537145.html

An unexciting autobiographical account of running a second-hand bookshop in Charing Cross Road in the middle of last century. Lots of anecdotes of people I have never heard of before, or am not awfully interested in, with the one exception of Michael Foot.

David Low writes with affection of Bowes & Bowes at 1 Trinity Street Cambridge, now of course swallowed by Cambridge University Press (I think); and of Deighton, Bell, now (alas) Laura Ashley. And of Dublin's Hodges Figgis, and Greene's, back in the old days. I suspect it's easier to get a decent variety of books on the high street and via the internet than it ever has been, but I regret the loss of individuality. (There is a flip side: he mentions show more only one bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, and complains about how much effort it is to get there, just for the one shop.)

He tries to explain in the preface why this book was published in Tehran, but doesn't really succeed. show less