Should probably say that my part of London is pretty distant from Parson's Green.
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Dept of Fortuity: when you see news of a book that you would be really interested in reading, at eye-watering academic press prices, even for the ebook: and in a day or so having a request from the very same press to referee a book proposal for them, in return for ( Read more... )

And I was already out of charity with charity shops after the preceding one I'd been in had completely run out of change and kept me hanging around while, I suspect, they nipped next door to see if anyone could change a tenner.
And then I went into another one and found two books I was prepared to take a punt on at that sort of price, and moseyed ( Read more... )

Because this was a day when I was going wibble and trying to remember which of my multitasks I was supposed to be doing next at around 3 pm; and the day didn't stop there, just before I was due to go off duty as on-call archivist I got called down to show someone how to use the microfilm reader (which the supervisor is supposed to do), and it was ( Read more... )

Further to early comment about searching vs browsing.

Obviously, sometimes searching is the only way to go, when after something very clear and very specific. It may very well, for example, find you a particular book. What it won't supply is the serendipitous discovery. It may also be too focussed and fail to give due weight to context (I think of ( Read more... )

Thinking about the discussion riffing off in various directions from fannishly's post on Tam Lin, and without going into the question of self-indulgence, I realise that I possibly judge The Secret History more harshly than I might have done had it (and Tartt) not been so massively hyped everywhere at the time of publication. It was okay (with various ( Read more... )