New Morning Books

11/02/2026

JS: Anecdotes To Amuse And Instruct For All Occasions!
Yesterday a young man in a hi-viz on a break from a nearby construction site, European, poss. German, came in & asked for three books: Miller, H, Tropic Of Cancer, with which I was able to supply him, McCarthy, C, Blood Meridian which was o/s, and also o/s Other Men's Flowers, a poetry anthology assembled by WW2 British general Archibald Wavell, a sensitive & cultivated soul who, contraindicated for a general, didn't relish killing people.
I was able to supply this young man with The Wavell Anecdote; while in command in the North African sphere, Wavell was about to depart Alexandria on a tour of the front; his staff noticed he seemed a bit distracted, patting his pockets and at last asking if anybody had seen his Browning, which sent them all scurrying about looking for a pistol, when what he wanted was the verse of Browning, R.
No knowledge is wasted; I hope this comes in handy when dinner party conversation runs out of forward movement......

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23/09/2025

A new biography of Clydeside revolutionary John Maclean; currently in stock.

30/08/2025

Early today a call on the shop phone from an elderly lady (elderly even by my liberal standards) who asks for James Herriott, Jean Plaidy, and Catherine Cookson; all popular writers of merit, none of them pretending to be the new Dostoevsky, but giving the reader an even break; Catherine Cookson came from bleak Tyneside poverty, much of which is reflected in her work, didn't start writing until relatively late in life, but once started, never stopped and wrote close to 100 books; often rags to riches stories many of her readers could identify with or aspire to; Jean Plaidy, woman of many noms-de-plume (she was also Victoria Holt etc) another phenomenally productive author who wrote as JP seemingly innumerable well researched, some would say over-researched, historical novels that like Catherine Cookson, have mostly outlived their readership, but which I nevertheless stock for those who wish to discover or rediscover them; other examples, Alastair Maclean, Neville Shute.
I am able to score a perfect 3 out of 3 and an hour later, a charming Northern Englishwoman of years, frail but sparkling of eye, turns up in a wheelchair, wearing a breathing apparatus and gratified to get the books; her son, she tells me, is turning 50 and asked as a present 3 books that had made an impact on her life.
Every picture tells a story.......

13/06/2025

A customer of richly eccentric mien, Polish, who used to bustle into the shop asking loudly (his normal conversational tone was everybody else's bellow) for pulp novels of the 60s/70s which had numbers as well as titles, a memorable character for whom I developed affection, fell into ill health in recent years and couldn't visit the shop in person ; I would call him now & then when something came in; usually he would have already got them but I persisted so he'd know I hadn't forgotten him; when I did get a hit his everloving wife, charming lady, E Asian & with little English, would pick them up; but today, when I call his number with 3 Matt Helm novels, incoming calls are blocked and I fear I may have seen the last of Danny......

03/06/2025

From an old Bible.

09/05/2025

The inflow of books into the shop has reached such ( I hesitate to say volume) proportions that I am forced to scale Matterhorns of ingenuity to get them shelved; having toiled all week and reduced the tottering ziggurats somewhat, I am confronted with an elderly gentleman with 7 square metres of nonfiction, mostly history & philosophy of science, and will I take them in?
Yes I will; because if I don't, there is a very good chance that they will end up as landfill after his death; and we're not having that.....

27/01/2025

As a general rule I don't stock periodicals but there are a few exceptions, a prominent one being women's magazines 1930s-60s, sought after by some young women for fashion illustrations and patterns; surely a trendlet rather than a craze but I have more than once sold some to women dressed entirely in black, clunky shoes and all, who reappear after some months dressed like Deborah Kerr, only better.

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26/10/2024

24/10/2024

Richard Boyle, ATO whistleblower, in the shop this AM; solidarity forever!

12/10/2024

FROM THE VAULT:

A shipment of books on, e.g. Shamanism (Sam The Shaman & The Pharaohs?) , astral travelling etc reminds me of a long-ago conversation with the late Bob Gould on the subject of New Age literature, which we both deplored but stocked

1) because, we agreed, it is not our business to censor except in extreme circumstances and

2) because there was money in it, and as I said to him, there's one reborn every minute

3)never give a sucker an even break etc

BG told me that he'd always assumed that once the Marvellous Thirty years post WW2 were over, and grim late capitalist reality set in, as it was definitely doing at the time of our conversation in the early 80s, people would abandon books about talking plants, UFOs, mystical holy men etc and turn to improving revolutionary literature, but his experience was that they clung ever more limpet-like to magical thinking.

Demand has slackened compared to the Me Decade, but it has never completely disappeared, and as long as the world's woes seem to many to defy rational solutions, I expect it never will.

10/10/2024

Customer/supplier bringing books to the shop, including an Alison Weir jobbie on Henry VIII, are treated to my rendition of that music hall classic, "I'm Henery the VIIIth, I Am": absolutely free of charge; some dates still open, folks, but hurry hurry hurry to avoid disappointment.....

03/10/2024

Our read-aloud of "War & Peace" begun (I think) in March and scheduled to be completed in October, will not be completed in October.

We are currently on the eve of Borodino; more W&P, more Russia, stretch out before us like the seemingly endless steppes....