On my bookshelf

Sixpence House: Lost In A Town Of Books :: Paul Collins

I scoured the net for weeks looking for this book. There were no more copies left on Amazon and I, living in Singapore, could not buy them from the Marketplace. Finally found it and a first edition hardbound copy too. Woohoo!

Then it was several months later, after I finished some books ahead in the queue, when I finally picked it up. It goes something like this: Man, wife and baby son move from San Francisco to Hay-On-Wye in Wales, UK, looking for a better life. It is a small village of 1500 people and 40 second-hand bookstores. Man finds a part-time job in a bookshop while working on book in the midst of publication. They meet interesting village people while looking for the perfect home. But after months of being unable to find one that doesn't need costly renovations, they realize that maybe they are not ready for the move after all.

I was and still am enthralled about a village bulging with books. I've now got a standing invitation to visit a good friend who lives "just down the road", to see and smell it for myself. Musty old books have the third best smell in the world, right after pineapple tarts at Christmas and the smell of new books, freshly bought. I looked forward to reading of Collins' efforts to assimilate to village life, and his adventures there but was left bereft.

The story of someone trying to adapt to life in a new country, with all the cultural and social missteps, is always quite entertaining. You know it works when you feel you're right at their elbow through their adventures. However I found that lacking here as well as any insight, the "meat" if you will, of really living in a bibliophile's idea of heaven.

Yes, there are LOTS of anecdotes about books and book-making and book buying and book cataloging and book dumping...quite enough and then some for the rabid bibliophile. It made me want to move there. BUT that was because of the village itself, not the author who after all the fuss, had another life-changing decision to make.

A good read but not worth the weeks I spent online to buy it. By the way, I got my edition from Alibris.com.

Now reading: The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2007, and with a few months to live, gave his 'last lecture' at Carnegie Mellon. It was a lecture on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". This is his autobiography.