Seek and ye shall find...Book Bargains!

Seek and ye shall find, so the saying goes and as LJ said when we left the charity shop (her walking normally, me floating on a cloud of book bargain-buying bliss). But I wasn't even seeking, not when we left the flat. The idea was to go for a walk somewhere, which turned out to be wherever the next bus was going. 

So we walked and came across a charity shop that we'd been in many times. It had never proved fruitful. In fact, the opposite was usually true due to a small, paltry selection of books. Why would I expect any improvement this time? 

There was a woman with books-in-hand, pricing them up and putting them on the shelves. I walked over and immediately spotted Tom Phillips' A Humument, fifth edition. Hmm...check the price, of course. A pound? It can't be. One pound?! I show her the price. 

"Is that a seven or a one?"

"One pound."

!!!

My eyeballs instantly spring into hyper focus, quickly scanning the shelves. They weren't many. But look, there's Nausea. How much? One-fifty! Nice edition and in perfect nick! I almost felt nauseous with excitement. Anything else? Hold on, she's gone into the back room. I wait. She emerges with more books and puts them on the floor, picking one up at a time to price it. I am staring at the pile. She must have sensed my fervour. 

"You can have a look at them," she said, nodding at the pile on the floor. 

Meanwhile, I had been getting in her good books with banter and pleasantries. I had shown LJ Nausea. She said she'd read it years ago, before we met.

"You mean you read before you met me?! What other dark secrets does your past hold?"

The woman laughed. I told her I work in a second-hand bookshop and enjoy pricing them up. I managed to say this whilst seizing Alms For Oblivion Volume I by Simon Raven as if it was the last book left on earth. Again, only one pound! 

I already have the Final Edition of A Humument but had to buy this one for that price. It was only when I got home and read about the editions on Phillips' site that I found out each volume was different, 50 (if I remember correctly) pages being replaced by new ones in each edition. So I checked and sure enough, working from the back of both, began to find different pages. So that makes the whole series desirable, doesn't it? Yes. I went searching. The earlier ones are, of course, the priciest. I bought one and can't even remember which, from Oxfam online. Now stop. You've bought yourself enough Xmas presents.