Rare Books in the Press - A Fond Farewell to Secondhand Bookshops

Rick Gekoski in The Guardian

"For some 17 years, until November 2009, my associate Peter Grogan and I kept a bookshop (of sorts) in Pied Bull Yard in Bloomsbury, which some of you may recognize as the back entrance to the London Review bookshop. We had beautiful modern premises, previously designed as an art gallery, in which our small stock of rather good books was discreetly displayed in a glass-fronted breakfront bookcase and a vitrine with a few notable things – plus a safe with a few even better ones, and a 17th-century carved chest full of literary manuscripts. Looking in through the wraparound windows, you would see us sitting at our desks in a comfortable environment, with almost enough books to fill a bookcase in an average sitting room.

We didn't get much passing trade – Pied Bull Yard is an end destination – but now and again someone would pop their head through the door inquisitively.

'Is this a bookshop?' they would ask. Sometimes the tone was disinterestedly curious ('If it is, can I come in?') but occasionally it had an odd hostility to it. 'Is this a bookshop?'"

Secondhand bookshops are a "disappearing species", says Rick Gekoski in The Guardian. Really? Read the whole article:

>>> A Fond Farewell to Secondhand Bookshops, by Rick Gekoski in The Guardian

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