Tuesday 19 March 2024

How to use a Secondhand Bookshop.

People who actually buy secondhand books and records, in actual Secondhand Bookstores, with any sort of regularity, want a browsing experience, they want to scour the shelves until something pops out. 

This is what I like to think we provide here at Little Red.  

Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask for that particular book that triggered your shadow crossing our doorway (as long as it's not Orwells "1984"; or "Dune" ..please do not ask me for them ..you won't be the first person that week or even that day...).   

We enjoy helping people find obscure books. I personally love a challenge and will happily hunt around online looking for a title with only the barest of clues...but really that should just be the start of the adventure.  

We are a physical shop, not a list...though I imagine one day we will be only online ..a virtual list floating around the interweb... hmmm...I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that ..it has to be said there are many, many (many) advantages to being online ..but for now, lets just enjoy the chaotic sense of discovery that is an old-fashioned Secondhand Bookstore!!


 




Sunday 10 March 2024

The End of Summer Sunday Openings...

 A few kindly people have noted that we did not open this Sunday, which, I have to say, it's nice to be missed.

The plan was to open..unfortunately exactly halfway through my cycling commute my beloved Airnimal suffered a catastrophic, but not entirely unexpected, flat tyre.  

Due to a series of unfortunate coincidences my list of emergency contacts was of no particular or timely help, and I decided, it being such a nice day, that in fact the hour and a half walk to town was not the worst fate to befall a soul on a mellow Sunday.

All have this has reminded me, it is in fact the end of Summer, and time to bring back Autumn/Winter hours. At this point that simply means no more Sundays till the end of the year. I imagine I shall revive them in time for Christmas shopping.

Its been fun, but now is the time to rest and recuperate, and maybe fluff around in the garden before Winter descends...









Tuesday 16 January 2024

The Evolving Catalogue

 Our catalogue system is my brain...it really is, for all those highly sceptical folk who think I have said we do not have a book in stock just a little too quickly for their liking.

I presume they think I have said book and simply do not wish to sell it..a fair assumption given my hoarding tendencies...but please be assured..I am in fact here to sell books.

As for the memory "thing"....It's the odd and imperfect superpower of all true Second Hand Book Dealers..that, and in an inspired moment, remembering that book you purchased that one time you came to the Bay 6 years ago...

The interesting thing is I am able to recall books and authors we definitely do not have in stock quicker than those that we possibly do.....its a little like thinking about your pantry...you know there are tinned tomatoes, pasta sauce, and a very old tinned beetroot and condensed milk
...and, thinking hard, there probably is a tin of coconut milk, and possibly anchovies...but tinned banana flowers?...I know for a fact there aren't any..(actually..there is. but you get the idea...)

As most people can understand..we have 40,000 books in store..keeping an up to date catalogue is simply not practical...it would require either a mind and store adaptable to technology...or a person able to type with more than 2 fingers.

I belong to neither blessed group.

I belong to the crotchety old world of second hand book sellers..like something out of a Dickens novel..an anomaly in this modern age I'm afraid...

And, of course I have been wrong (she blushes charmingly), but on average, not enough for me to query the system...

Tuesday 5 December 2023

Hardy, James, King.....

 People often ask me my favorite author...which is an impossible question ..but I get the intent..so my answer is always "Stephen King …and Thomas Hardy"...

   𝔰𝔦𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

but I do wonder, is there a connection between these two wordsmiths? 

Other than my questionably low brow and Gothic tastes? 

Surely! and yes!...King loves to read and loves to talk, and so we have this random gem I found on the internet..

"Thomas Hardy...the only book of his I read (Jude) was so sad I not only never went back to it, but quit reading entirely for a while - but then I was 17"

Well, I shall take that as a compliment to my dear Mr. Hardy. 

I feel a little less sure that Hardy would have been  much effected by Stephen King's writing should it have suddenly appeared on his desk at Max Gate (via the time machine, of course) ..but still, to my mind they are complementary additions to the well rounded book shelf...

This correspondence between RL Stevenson and Henry James is amusing ..James isn't wrong, but  misses the point of reading a Hardy.  As an aside, I wonder how James would feel about the Netflix take on his "The Turn of the Screw"?...anyway, I suspect modern literary critics are missing the joy of reading King for pretty much the same reasons...

https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1330&context=cq

Just to wrap up this odd flow of conciousnes....to all the customers who have left this shop with an unexpected Stephen King recommendation from yours truly...my apologies ..but trust me he's a great writer, in a much maligned genre, one which both Hardy and James would probably find themselves dabbling in were they born in this somewhat flawed, but nonetheless exciting modern age.



Wednesday 18 October 2023

Adrian busy-busy out the back.....again...







Which goes some way to explain why he's a bit behind putting out the records......again...

 

Thursday 10 August 2023

Seán Proinsias Ó Faoláin


Here we go ..a link to one of the short stories I have playing on a high rotate in the shop ..maybe not to everyone's tastes ..but I love it...and certainly a more popular choice with the customers than the carl Michael von Hausswolff cd*

anyway ..while we are here, I should inform you all that we are now open Sunday's, the usual hours..so swing on by for some Sunday style browsing..

 https://online.htseden.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/The-Fur-Coat-1.pdf






*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-Qud5QPhY





Wednesday 28 June 2023

Poor Old Dawkins in the Bin..again...

DO NOT donate books to the Salvation Army in Warren Street. 

For years, and years, and certainly the last 13 years that I have been in business and calling in, 6 days a week....they have been throwing away your donations with no thought. 

The nicest, newest, most interesting of books- in perfect condition..in the bin, 

Classic books of historical merit..in the bin, 

Beautiful vintage children's books, those treasured survivors from your childhood (or your parents) with the inscription "Love from Mummy and Daddy, Xmas, 1959".in the bin. 

You can check for yourself on recycling day if you can sneak a peek into the recycling bin.

It defies belief, it defies all logic....it is simply that the woman in charge of books has a very small list in her head of books she likes...Danielle Steel, the most generic of cook and craft books ..and only ever in the smallest quantities imaginable.

Every week literally $100's of dollars thrown in the bin.

The organisation itself is absolutely resistant to any help or guidance.

Occasionally a staff member will put some different book on the shelves ..the one time they put out some early edition Enid Blyton's for example. They of course sold. Numerous customers took the time to comment on their thrill at seeing them. 

But no. Never again.

In fact the lady in charge of books seemed so aggrieved at that small bust of activity she actually threw out all the books waiting to be shelved and almost overnight halved the number of books available on the shelves.

Madness.

And no, I have no idea why they accept book donations.

I have actually had people appear at my shop, in tears, when they realised half way through unloading their donations of book collections, that the people in charge were simply taking them, turning around, and throwing them directly into the bin. One particularly memorable incident was an elderly architects lifetime collection of beautiful hardcovers. But all "collections" on any given topic, are simply bin fillers. Apart from books on the All Blacks ..of course..

Books left in boxes outside the shop after hours are also all thrown straight in the bin as "we don't know what has been done to them" "someone may have urinated on them" ..which I would have thought would be an identifiable issue ..I guess in theory someone could have ..maybe slept on them? ..but then who knows what happens to books before they are put in the donation bins? I once fell asleep on a book at home...yikes!! And that suit you purchased from the Salvation Army..do you know its history? .what foul deeds could have been committed by its previous owner all while wearing said suit ..the mind boggles!!

I have stopped myself writing this piece for years, but in some ways I feel compliant in this whole situation.

Next time you wish to donate books ..take them to any one of the many Charity shops in town that you support ..but whatever you decide...do not take them to Warren Street.