This book which is a mixture of fact anecdote and quotation describes the authors meandering exploration of some of the best of Englands provincial secondhand bookshops from NewcastleuponTyne to the Isles of Scilly. Judged by the contents of the authors bookshelves he has a strong but highly selective interest in sport with rugby union cricket and bowls foremost and the odd place allowed to football and golf. There are biographies and autobiographies from Bernard Shaw to Alan Ross a dozen volumes by W. H. Hudson greatest of naturalists travels with Henry James and Paul Theroux and Edwin Muir books on cinema Westerns essays by Ford Madox Ford and Edward Thomas a novel or two and a little poetry. The bulk of these books are dependent to a greater or lesser extent on fact suggesting correctly that their owner is a journalist.show more