Wonderland

Wonderland! No contest, as far as I'm concerned. It's bookshops and what you find within, which is books (obviously) and what you find within them, which in turn is entry into a limitless world of imagined experience.

I love books, have done since I was very young. I can still remember a time when I couldn't read (aged three plus). I have a vivid memory of looking at a book with pictures of tigers and rows of black symbols. I was intrigued by the latter, for they meant something to people who could decipher them. I also felt thwarted. It was fun to be read to, but how much more convenient to be able to do it for oneself without having to ensnare a grown-up or wait until bedtime! Being a determined little fellow, and with the help of the recently published series of Janet And John reading primers, soon I was reading for myself, taking the first steps on a lifelong adventure that is the love of literature. My favourite Christmas present, aged four, was  A.A. Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh '.

My dad, bless him, used to take me to a bookshop every month (aged five onwards) and let me choose a book from the Puffin range (the children's imprint of Penguin books). Consequently, I love bookshops too and will rarely pass up the chance to enter one, have a browse, often make a purchase. Books expect it. They don't read themselves, after all. They are all hoping to go to a good home and be a source of delight to whoever adopts them.

wonderful - Livraria Lello (Porto)

Some bookshops are splendid and stunning affairs in their own right. I think of Hatchards on Piccadilly in London (founded 1797), Livraria Lello in Porto (founded 1869 and pictured above), even Shakespeare and Company, located on the Left Bank in Paris (founded 1951). They are worth a visit for the ambience and the architecture.

Bookshops have been with us since the days of Ancient Greece. The founding of the first libraries in the 4th century BC was the catalyst for booksellers to spring up in Athens and other Greek cities. Rome and the key cities of the Roman Empire followed suit a few hundred years later. Possessing a personal library of books was quite the status symbol. Obviously in those times all books were hand-written, providing employment for skilled copyists and scribes. Moorish Spain saw the next wave of book-making and book-selling in the 10th century AD and this was followed by France, Germany, the Low Countries and England, and by this time (early 15th century) the invention of the printing press had revolutionised the production of books. The oldest extant bookshop in Europe was founded in Orleans in France in 1545. No doubt the Librairie Nouvelle d'Orléans has one eye on its 500th anniversary (if we're still here and books are still being sold in 2045).

Quite a lot of the books in my own library (if that's not too grand a term for a collection that doesn't have a room of its own) were acquired second-hand because they were no longer in print when I wanted to read them. Many is the visit I made to the cluttered second-hand bookshops that used to line the Charing Cross Road, absolute Aladdin's caves or treasure troves (pictured below), and as wonderful in their ways as the stylish repositories of new books mentioned earlier.

equally wonderful - Charing Cross Books (London)

Nowadays online sellers of second-hand books have changed the landscape. They are useful for the sheer range of what is available via the portal of a computer, but I miss the browsing experience along row after row of higgledy shelves and the possibility of alighting upon a true gem.

I am happy to have passed on my love of books to my own children. Everybody who is dear to me will be receiving at least one book this Christmas. 

To conclude just about on theme, here's the  latest (yet another narrative) poem, based on the recollection of a random surprise week-end visit I received early in the summer of 1972, because I happened to be in the right place at the time, owned  a copy of Stephen Stills' debut solo LP and was reading Herman Hesse. It comes with the usual caveat that I might revise it if I can see ways to improve how it reads. Let me know what you think...

Serenity (Between The Covers)

With a lived in skin like Janis Joplin's

and a daddy in the diplomatic corps

or so she claimed, Poppy drifted 

through my door from Lebanon

looking for the guy who had the room before,

was hoping maybe he'd score, give her

some cash, a bath and a floor to crash on.

So young to be so seeming worldly wise

with her trippy clothes and hippy bag,

she made herself at home, clearly knew 

the lie of the land, so had a bath

and then brewed us mint tea to accompany

a smoke or two. She looked all through

my records and books, loved that I read Hesse,

was thrilled to discover Stephen Stills.

She put him on repeat play while she spun

her life story (one version of it anyway)

as we lay nailed to the carpet contemplating

how I'd painted the ceiling rose to resemble

a lotus flower which complemented

the Buddha in the grate. Spying my camera,

she cajoled me into taking photographs

as she posed smiling, rolling, pouting

in various stages of coquettish undress.

Eventually the midnight munchies struck 

so we made cheese after cheese on toast 

topped with aubergine pickle, then sated

curled up cosily in bed like we'd been 

comfortable friends for years, still listening 

in the dark to Love the one you're with.

Next morning while she slept on, it being sunny

I sat out happily among the ranks of bright weeds

in our ramshackle back garden and read

The Glass Bead Game while plaintive strains 

of the Rolling Stones' Wild Horses sounded

softly from a neighbour's open window.

I was lost between the covers as Magister Ludi

told of the splendour of serenity: the secret 

of beauty and the real substance of all art.

It was past midday when I realised with a start

the hours I'd been sitting out, a neglectful host.

But my room was empty, unruly bed neatly made

and Poppy gone, along with my camera and

Stephen Stills LP. She'd left a scribbled thankyou

and a twist of stems and seeds. I could only smile.

As a bonus, here's a link to a blog from Boxing Day in 2015, containing a Lewis Carroll pastiche I wrote. Just click on the bold title to activate the link and take you down the hole: Alice's Adventures In Sunderland

Bless you, thanks for reading, Steve ;-)