Chances are, if you’ve spent time in London, at some point you’ve read 84 Charing Cross Road.
And if you’ve visited it, you’ve discovered that the famous bookstore in the story is no longer there. Sad, that. But
London remains a bookish city, as in evidence in Slate’s sedate, but entertaining
feature on book hunting in Britain.
Writer Jacob Weisberg heads to London to meet up with writer/novelist Julian Barnes, who calls himself an “ex-collector”, that is book collector, a comment meant, it
seems, to distance himself from the fanatics who run around snapping up and then hoarding first editions of old novels.
I’m no hard core collector, but I do have to confess I have the first editions of several of my favorite books. Among
one of my favorites is Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World.
But I know several people who are avid collectors and their passion for keeping old books has always seemed a bit
odd to me. It is also, as Weisberg says, “nerdy and pedantic”. But like Weisberg, there is still that impulse to hold
onto something you love that is original, not repackaged, remarketed. A nice little piece for bookworms.