Bookhunt!

Today I decided to wander with a real purpose: look for books that I couldn't find in Toronto. So started my day with a quick tramp through storied Brick Lane (yes, I saw the church that is now a mosque) and Spitalfields Markets - these London markets are quite unlike anything I've seen in other places, mostly because they mash so much crap next to so many cool things I couldn't afford (in this case, the offerings on Brick Lane, other than the fruit & veg were the crap and the hand-made organic products in the new but christened 'Old Spitalfields' market were of the too-cool-for-school and way beyond my means variety). Still, it was a fun place to begin - and the fact that most people seemed to be walking through Brick Lane market to get to Spitalfields again suggested that quality of forced live-togetherness that cities foist upon their citizens.

In keeping with the looking in markets theme, my next stop was the Riverside Book market. South of the river, literally underneath the rising sweeps of London Bridge is a small - and truth be told, a generic -- lot of long tables upon which books are displayed and sold every weekend. It's the location that makes it special, not the books themselves or the prices. And as with any set of used books, you have to have the patience to dig if you want to find something worth the effort! My haul from there today included Eric Newby's On the Shores of the Mediterranean and Anthony Capella's The Food of Love. Having accidentally picked up Newby's biography, A Traveller's Life, a few weeks ago in Toronto, I'm now a fan. But I only bought the Capella book because the Hagrid-lite man who was looking after the table where I found the Newby recommended it so highly: he asked if I was looking for travel books on the Med in particular since he had one that he'd loved... and one thing led to another until I found myself saying, 'Go on then, I'll give you two quid for it.' Done, he said, and so I'm now the owner of a books whose blurbs include one from Hugh Laurie that goes like this: 'a splendid linen suit, panama hat, distant lawn-mower kind of a book; guaranteed to whisk you far fro this drizzly island, soothe you, warm you and return you home again without losing any of your luggage.' How could I resist? I'll report back.

Fortified with hot chocolate - 'special Christmas recipe with rum and cinnamon,' - I wandered through the heart of tourist London -- across Waterloo Bridge, up Charing Cross to Trafalgar Sqaure, past the National Gallery, along Oxford Street, up Marylebone Lane - until I hit my last serious bookstop for the day: the Oxfam Book and Music store and Daunt's on Marylebone High Street. I found the Oxfam last year one wet summery day when I dashed into it to escape for a rainshower and left two hours and many pounds later. It's truly a tiny little gem of a bookshop - and it's very close to Daunt's, which is quite possibly my favourite bookshop in all of London. My practice now is to go to the Oxfam store first and go through the little travel writing section they have there before heading to Daunt's and spending too much money on books that - strictly speaking - I don't need.

Today's haul from Oxfam include:
Mary Taylor Simeti's On Persephone's Island
Chris Stewart's Driving Over Lemons
Clive James' Falling Toward England
and Michael Sanders' From here, you can't see Paris

And last but not least, from Daunt's, I emerged with Adam Clapham's Beware Falling Coconuts (you've got to see where this link takes you!) and Robyn Davidson's Tracks. Not a bad haul, and (other than at Daunt's) all bought from used bookshops so I still have a few quid left for food and cider!

Yes, there is a clearly a theme to my book purchases: it's December and cold here and I'm heading back to Toronto where it will only be colder. So travel narratives about far-away places, mostly warm ones, seem to be calling out to me. So I'll leave y'all with a thought from St. Augustine (I know, I know!) : 'The world is a book and those who do not travel, they read but a page.'