Treat this post as an advert. Yesterday I returned, for the first time in years, to a bookshop on Bath Street in Wolverhampton (in between the brewery and West Park). In the space of a few minutes I found three great books, purchased two and (being £1 short) had the third saved for me until later in the week. After such a successful trip it seemed only fair to mention the shop here in the hope of providing some free advertising for them.
Situated on the converted ground floor of a late Victorian house, the shop deals in second hand books and collectables. In a similar fashion to the best shops in Hay-on-Wye (who, by the way, have a festival coming up soon), the shelves creak under the weight of the imbalance between the number of books in the world and the number of people who wish to read them. Each section title is hastily scrawled onto the edge of the timber shelf, and where the shelves run out, a cardboard box steps forward to carry the burden. That unmistakeable smell of knowledge/wisdom* hits you as soon as you walk in the door.
The first item I bought, fairly leapt of the shelf as I stared up at the tall shelves, since it was only Friday night that I had mentioned the author in a previous post. Having recently only borrowed Arthur Koestler‘s The Act of Creation from my boss, I am now the proud owner of my own copy. A real find as I believe it is now out of print. I may also need to consult it for a further response to the Salingaros piece about Tschumi that I’m planning/hoping to write.
Book number two was Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek; an author that Pete, one of my environ – mentalist friends, has been recommending to me for a while.
Finally, I also found a hand typed, drawn and photocopied book about Buddhism. I had a brief flick through it and then noticed that the publisher listed on the back page was 147 Lea Road, which is only just around the corner from me. I think it is a translation of the Pali Canon; I’ll find out when I go back to pick it up later this week.
A great shop that deserves all the customers it desires – go and buy a book.
Multi-tasking while typing this evening, I discovered that Radio 4 has an archive of all the In Our Time shows, including one from 2002 on Buddhism.
* this is volume dependant – one is clearly not the other