Secondhand Bookshop Acquisitions

Today I ventured into a local secondhand bookshop, dangerous territory for me. I have little willpower to resist beautiful or interesting books. I found three treasures today:

• a Latin dictionary. A Latin dictionary has been on my To Buy list for ages. This little dictionary cost just 69p. It is an old edition-but I doubt that Latin has changed that much in the last few years :D
• a Swedish grammar (99p). Old fashioned and solid. It contains lists of verb conjugations, endless pages of sentences and linguistics terminology. I like my grammar hardcore. I have little patience for the new 'soft' way of teaching grammar-I do not think it is particularly effective. Grammar can be hard and monotonous (as well as rewarding). Deal with it! I know a small handful of people who have this as their native language hence the reason for choosing this minority language over the other 20 there were on the shelf. If I'm feeling inspired, this will aid me in constructing a few clumsy sentences to litter my Swedish friends' Facebook walls.
• 501 German verbs (99p). German can be a real fiend and I will pass a few pleasant hours perusing this.

I have never understood how people can be emotionally detached enough from their books to be able to dump them at a charity shop. Still, I suppose their loss is my gain. I now have roughly a shelf of dictionaries and grammars. Joy! I won't insult geeks by accusing myself of being a geek. I'm just a complete and utter loser with an expanding dictionary collection.

A Favourite Book

From time to time, you receive a gift from someone which is so perfect, so wonderful that you wonder if the giver has somehow managed to infiltrate your mind and steal some of your very essence.

My parents had been somewhere in Kent, I can't remember where, and had obviously come across a second hand shop. My dad said he saw this old copy of The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens and thought I would like it, so bought it for me. There is no printing date in the book but some internet research leads me to believe that this edition was published in 1900.

I haven't yet read the book (I have a long 'to read' list) but regardless this is one of the books most frequently pulled off the shelf and looked at, simply because it is so beautiful. When I hold it, I wonder how many people have read it, and who those people were. Given the age of the book, the people who previously held it in their hands would have experienced the Blitz, had friends or relatives who were killed in the Trenches, walked though gaslamplit smog in London. They may have read this to the sound of The Beatles or The Kinks coming from vinyl record players. Perhaps some of them read this on a 'slam door', British Rail train, on their way to work, The Smiths playing on their Walkman.

I think it is time to share some photographs of this little piece of history...

The title page

                                                             The book is beautifully illustrated

                                                          This is my favourite illustration in the novel. I love looking at the detail in their clothes.