Spending all your left over income on books. After all the household bills have been taken care of any surplus is obviously book money, I mean who needs food, right? Collecting multiple free bookmarks. If a bookmark is being given away for free, you can guarantee a book-lover will happily accept one or three. Using […]
Tag: books
Since writing about book binding and some of the oldest books in the world, it got me thinking about who the first authors were, when were people considered authors, and when did it become a recognised profession? The earliest author, as considered and still debated by historians, is a woman called Enheduanna. She was a […]
I love books and I love reading, although I find it hard to make time for reading. My TBR list is constantly growing and I often have to stop myself from buying more books. At the moment I’m currently reading This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, recommended by a friend who knew I wanted to […]
I always find it fascinating when I pick up a second-hand book and find a previous owner’s inscription, especially when they are dated and you’re holding something that was written decades ago. It’s part of the history of that book as it has been passed through many hands. Often these inscriptions are just names and […]
Books started with scrolls in Ancient Egypt. These scrolls were rolled up manuscripts made out of papyrus, a plant native to Egypt, and date back to 2400 BC. Parchment such as calf skin or deer skin appeared later around 600 – 200 BC. Scrolls were used by early civilizations before the invention of the Codex […]
Before I worked in a second-hand bookshop, I didn’t know anything about old books; how they were made, what materials were used, how the pages were folded, or any of the terms for the different parts of a book. Over the last six years I’ve learnt a lot and I have been reading books about […]
I have to confess, I haven’t read Shaun Bythell’s ‘Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops’ so this list may have some similarities to his book, however the list below is based on my own observations from working in a large second-hand bookshop. Please note this list is loosely based on reality and is […]
Lots of people dream about having a library in their home filled with lots of books, but aside from all the books you would like to have, what else would you want to have in your dream library? I gave this some thought and came up with my own list of things I would like […]
I’ve been working in a large bookshop for six years. There are approximately 70,000 books over two floors, most are second-hand and some are new. We also have some antiquarian and collectable books too. A lot of people like the idea of owning or working in a bookshop. It sounds like a perfect job in […]
I have been working at the bookshop, Westwood Books for almost six years, and in that time I’ve heard some weird and wonderful books requests. It always feels great when a customer walks in looking for a specific book that they haven’t been able to track down and you just so happen to have a […]