Wilkie Collins by Peter Ackroyd (2012 First Edition)

Bought from The Bookseller Crow (with thanks to the £10 stranger)

 

I've been away on me hols, hence the lack of posts recently, but normal service shall resume soon. Lots of books on my shelves to sell in the weeks and months to come, including one that was banned by the estate of Ian Fleming (and is one of the few copies that escaped pulping), a bizarre and very rare book about a Billiards Pointer, and a copy of a book by Baron Corvo that once belonged to a prominent member of the Bloomsbury group (with her notes scribbled throughout).

Today though is a book which is not for sale, because I only bought it a few hours ago and haven't read it yet. It's only a short one, which Ackroyd probably wrote by mistake while he was working on his much longer Dickens biography a few years ago.

I just thought I'd mention it as a chance to shamelessly plug the local independent bookshop I bought it in, Crystal Palace's excellent Bookseller Crow. The owner also has a great blog here. He's the kind of person to go out of his way to stock books by such luminaries as Hovis Presley, Spalding Gray and Ivor Cutler, which makes him more than OK in my book(s).

I'd also like to thank whoever it was who dropped the £10 note which I found, slightly scrunched up on a shelf below the till area, which, after checking with assorted customers and indeed the owner that they hadn't just dropped it, I used to buy this book. With that kind of luck, tonight's quadruple rollover, being called as I type this, could yet be mine... (seconds later) or not. Well, a tenner ain't bad.