[Jerome Betts]

Ah, thanks for pandering to this inveterate loose-endist, Brian. Shops seem to be things that pass in the night these days. I think I remember Thornton's and its used coursebooks. Can't recall if it was there or another bookshop in the Broad, now gone, that had a very low doorway over stairs down to the basement with a sign reading Mind your (egg) head

[John Whitworth]

Yes there was. I can't remember its name either but I remember the notice.

[Ann Drysdale]

Zugzwang...

[Adrian Fry]

I'm struggling with this one, probably because - much as I love books - I never liked bookshops. From the Arts graduates in Waterstones who would sooner continue talking about 'Toby's, like, fantastic Barcelona stag weekend' than actually serve customers, to the cravat wearing Charing Cross Road huckster who charged me £50 for an English / Albanian dictionary, my experience has not been happy. Hooray for the internet, even amazon, say I.

[basil ransome-davies]

If that's the Gower St Waterstones that used to be Dillons then it's a case of plus ça change...

[John Whitworth]

Second hand bookshops are the ones. The one in Whitstable I've already mentioned. There's another in Faversham presided over by a man with a splendid beard. I got De la Mare's 'Peacock Pie' there, the one with the illustrations by Heath Robinson. Didn't cost much, either. Amazon's all very well, but you have to know what you want and I never do. One thing I really liked about New York was that big bookshop with the second hand bit. London used to have lots in the Charing Cross Road but I don't live there any more and I don't know how many are left.

I came across second hand books in Amsterdam in one of those flea markets.

[Jerome Betts]

There are still some browsable ones in Devon, John, though fewer than not many years ago. In one, in a non-tourist town, you have to literally climb over heaps of books in a huge steel shed in a back garden to get at some of the shelves. (Those in the main shop are more accessible.) However, all on the computer and a touch pricey.

Found one still going in Dartmouth the other week with the proprietor listening to the Ashes on a small radio. Interesting verse section which had J.B. Morton's 'The Dancing Cabman'.

[John Whitworth]

Ah! That masterpiece. I have it in a selection of the divine Morton I picked up.... in Faversham.

[Gail White]

Originally Posted by Ann Drysdale

Then, with a Waitrose bag held slightly open
As if in readiness for petty theft,
I make my hand into a living axe
Which parts the volumes at a single stroke.
Then, with my fingers, I enlarge the cracks
And slip one in, like an unscripted joke.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've actually done that. It's better than nothing.

[Ann Drysdale]

Oh, so have I. There are several in circulation, signed and inscribed "see page 25" which is where the poem appears in the volume of that title. That's where John knows it from... (doubful grammar, that, but what the hey!)

Not cost-effective but good fun.

One of the most exciting instances was in Borders on Charing Cross Road. The poetry shelf was high up and I was searching for one of those rolling stepper-uppers so I could reach to do the deed. A beautiful young assistant came over and asked, not what I was up to but whether he could help. So I handed him the book and said I was trying to put it "up there, between..." and he parked it perfectly.

Borders, alas, is there no more. I am trying to write an elegy for it.