So many. The dark dank overfilled British second hand bookshop, previously found in every town, often located on a dubious row, has largely disappeared. This was a seminal part of my pre-internet literary development from the late 1970s-mid 1980s, the major sink of my teenage pocket money, and I regret their passing. The various online retailers, in particular ebay, have paradoxically made oop pulps much easier to find, but the pleasure of browsing is gone, the randomness of new discoveries is changed, and the value of everything is known.
Hay-on-Wye is much the same as it was 30 years ago (apart from the Festival.) Charing Cross Road is sanitised and atrophied.
Gone but not forgotten, in Southampton, England, for the record:
- Northam Books, Northam Road. A big dark rambly place, which in latter years became so overstocked that it was hard to get into. Had an astonishing collection of old SF, for pennies. One had to dig through stuff, but it was generally worth it. I got most of my Mayflower Michael Moorcocks there. Shut around 2000.
- 2 used bookshops on St Mary's St, just round the corner from Northam Rd, names forgotten. This street used to be very seedy indeed. The shop at the top was chronically untidy but had a small and sometimes useful selection of 2nd hand SF, and a fat old guy who used to sit in an armchair in the window all day, never seeming to move. Large back room full of used jazz mags. Then there was a strange dark place at the lower end of the street, with a life preserver hung outside. The owner had a buy-exchange scheme. Both gone by the millenium.
- At the bottom of East Street, opposite Paperback Parade (RIP, new books) was a used book store with a large wall of SF, and importantly, a whole shelf of 50s and 60s SF magazines, which I plundered, for about 25p apeice. This shop underwent a curious reorganisation, where the SF was moved uptairs, and shelved in a totally random order: useless. Closed late 1990s.
- At the other end of the town centre, in the more refined Bedford Place, there was a multi-room used bookshop with serious chops, run by someone who knew a thing or two about antiquarian books as well as having a wide and well-organisedstock of everything else. Spent a lot of time and pennies in there. It later relocated to Lodge Rd. Probably in 2001-2 that also closed, possibly relocating to Andover.
