I spent Saturday in Hay-on-Wye – the bookshop town in Wales, as I’m sure you know. I was meeting up with some friends who moved to Wales near the beginning of the pandemic, and it was wonderful to hang out. It was also wonderful to dive into the bookshops.
A few months shut really meant the shops had had a good sort out – fewer piles of books on the floor etc. And I think I came away with my best ever haul. Seventeen books, many of which I was really excited to find.
I’ll divide into authors I know and authors I’m going to experiment with – starting with the familiar faces, who make up most of the books I got…
The Glass Wall by E.M. Delafield
Love Has No Resurrection by E.M. Delafield
The biggest excitement was seeing some very hard-to-find E.M. Delafield books in the window of Addyman Annexe. They initially went right back in the window, as they’re a bit pricey – but I couldn’t leave them there. Thankfully everything else was very reasonable.
The Solange Stories by F. Tennyson Jesse
I’ve just finished a re-read of A Pin To See the Peepshow, so was really pleased to find some short stories I hadn’t heard about – and they look to be detective stories, which is really fun.
The Freaks of Mayfair by E.F. Benson
I’ve got a lot of unread EFB books on my shelves, but for a couple of quid I added another.
The Stiffsons and other stories by Herbert Jenkins
This week, I did decide to part with my Bindle books – I tried one and the Cockerney dialect was more than I could stomach – but they’ll be replaced with this more promising looking book.
The Hills Sleep On by Joanna Cannan
An author you may well know from her Persephone book Princes in the Land – I looked this up afterwards and it seems I was very lucky to find it. Must actually read it…
Download Echoes by V.L. Whitechurch
I have only read a couple of Whitechurch’s novels, but really like him so was delighted to find another. The Cinema Bookshop truly had amazing stock in this time.
Rude Forefathers by Ursula Bloom
Ursula Bloom – known to readers of the British Library Women Writers series as Mary Essex – wrote quite a few volumes of autobiography, I think. This seems as good a place to start as anywhere.
Son of Amittai by Robert Nathan
It’s rare to find Robert Nathan novels in the UK, so this was a nice surprise. Son of Amittai seems to be based on Jonah from the Bible, which I’m a little on the fence about as a topic, but we’ll see.
Odd Come Shorts by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick
Mr Sheringham and Others by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick
I’ve only read one novel by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick – Cynthia’s Way – but I enjoyed that enough to keep amassing more of her books. Though maybe she isn’t as rare a find as I’d thought, so I don’t need to snatch up every one I see…
Tish by Mary Roberts Rinehart
This was initially in my ‘authors I’ve not read’ section, but when I googled it I realised I have read Rinehart’s mystery novel The Circular Staircase. Tish looks like it’s about an eccentric older woman – my favourite genre – and possibly the second in a series?
A Lion, A Mouse, and A Motor Car by Dorothea Townshend
The first of the authors I haven’t read before – though grabbed this eagerly off the shelf. You might have read Scott’s review of it the other day, in which he made it sound wonderful but also said no copies were available anywhere in the world online. Imagine my delight when I found it in that brilliant Cinema Bookshop.
Cottage Loaf by A.A. Thomson
Not gonna lie, I picked this up because the initials made me think of A.A. Milne. There were quite a few by this author, and I picked one with a title I liked – I don’t even know if Thomson is a man or a woman. Well, I’ve just googled and he is a man who is mostly known for his books about cricket. Fingers crossed it’s a good’un…
The Self-Portrait of a Literary Biographer by Joan Givner
Givner apparently wrote a biography about Katherine Anne Porter – I don’t know it, nor have I read Porter, but my recent reading of Dreaming of Rose by Sarah LeFanu has whetted my appetite to read more behind-the-scenes books about being a biographer.
Fever of Love by Rosamond Harcourt-Smith
I’m always on the look-out for potential BLWW authors – this one has a terrible cover and title, but the description of gradually swapping husbands, and the writing I read, are a bit more promising.
Simon Learns to Live by Mary Mitchell
Well, I couldn’t leave behind that title, could I?
I have Love has no Resurrection but not the other EMD. Great buy!
Pinched myself when I saw them!
Old and long unmet friends and bookshops are the very best! What a good haul there. I spent a few days in Beccles in Suffolk, likewise with friends, and discovered a new bookshop that opened in lockdown called Books and Crannies that was just charming. I really hope they do well. I managed to lighten their stock by six books, a Muriel Spark, a Rosamund Lehmann, a James Thurber and a set of the Garth Nix Lirael series of paperbacks that I always meant to read (I know they are meant to be for children!). So glad near normal book shopping life is happening at the moment.
Oo don’t know Beccles but may have to make a trip – which Spark did you get? I love her.
A Far Cry from Kensington 😊
Oh that’s a good’un!
I’ll be very interested to read what you think of The Self-Portrait of a Literary Biographer. In this country (Canada) Joan Givner isn’t so much known for her biography of Porter as she is Mazo de la Roche: The Hidden Life, in which she dared speculate on the relationship between the author and her cousin Caroline. ‘Twas a bit of a scandal when published.
Given what was once de la Roche’s popularity in the UK, I expect Hay-on-Wye is awash in her books.
Oo interesting, thanks Brian! Mazo de la Roche is one of those names I see around a lot – and saw her on posters celebrating Ontario when I was there.
What a lovely haul and great to hear reports of the shops. I haven’t been to Hay in so long.
I pine for it after a few months away :D
What a wonderful haul of books, very envious of several. I have a couple of Joanna Cannan on my tbr (or should I say packed in my tbr boxes somewhere) and I really should get to them. I have such fond memories of expeditions to Hay, lucky lucky you.
I have High Table waiting by her too – must get to them. It did feel a very lucky day!
Hope you enjoy the Joanna Cannan. She was my great-aunt, So I grew up reading them – developing a taste for mid C20 women writers from an early age…
Oh that’s lovely!
I hope you were driving home rather than trying to carry all those books in a suitcase on public transport!
Any signs of more shops closing down in Hay – I was quite shocked on my last visit at how many had gone
Oh yes, definitely a car! Almost impossible to get there by public transport, it seems. And I don’t think any had closed since I last went 2 or so years ago, but that’s only because there are only a handful left – it has been sad to see so many go over the years.
We’ve done it but it was a train to Hereford and a v e r r r r y long, winding bus journey.
Sounds like a wonderful trip Simon and what finds! Particularly jealous of the F. Tennyson Jesse – I’ve read one of the Solange stories in a BL collection and thought it was great!
Just read the same story/collection – what a serendipitous find. Lucky you!
I felt lucky time and time again in Cinema Bookshop – clearly they’ve had like-minded windfall soon!
Oo good to know! I’ve only read Pin, so will be interesting to see what she’s like in different mode.
I love the serendipity of reading about a book on line and then presto running across a second hand copy. It has actually happened to me quite a few times.
Of course you had to buy “Simon Learns to Live”! LOL
Yes, sometimes it makes me think how often I must have looked past copies without noticing – but in this case, it looks like I probably have never done so.
Long time reader; first time commenter. Mary Roberts Rinehart is wonderful. Best known for her mysteries, which are excellent examples of the “Had I But Known” school, her Tish and Babs books are great fun. Enjoy!
Thanks so much for commenting, Susan, and thanks for the endorsement of MRR!
Excellent loot! Will be particularly eager to hear more about Rosamond Harcourt-Smith and Mary Mitchell. The dustjackets for Fever of Love don’t look nearly as tawdry as one might expect from the title. I’m intrigued!
Yes, those were the two I was going to see if you knew anything about :D Will hopefully get to them before too many years have passed, and will fill you in.
I would LOVE to go back to Hay-on-Wye! But if I do, I think I’m going to write to you to get a list of suggested authors first! Enjoy, enjoy, ENJOY!
oh gosh, please do!
Lovely haul! I haven’t read any of those but have heard of the more popular authors, and I still keep meaning to read A Pin to See the Peepshow, which I bought immediately after your podcast — what, three years ago??
Anyway, sounds like a lovely trip, I’m quite sure I will have excess baggage charges if I ever make it to Hay-on-Wye!
Books wait for the right time, don’t they! I’ve not read anything else by her yet, and this looks intriguingly different
Congrats on all the great finds! I’ve very envious of your ramble through all thoses wonderful book shops.