Today I paid a visit to the Aladdin's cave of wonderful old books - that is, Avid Reader book store at West End. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, which is always dangerous when entering such a place, but I knew that I wanted old books, non-fiction and strange books. So old strange books that are a snap shot of the times they were written in. After spending at least 30 minutes browsing amongst the stacks and box and tables on the floor, I had 6 books that looked promising. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol IV by Edward Gibbon; Meditations on the Occults Life by Geoffrey Hodson (1937); Beasts, Men and Gods by Ferdinand Ossendowski (1922); Stories of the Lives of Noble Women by W. H. Davenport Adams; A Study in Infamy: The Hungarian Secret Police by George Mikes (1959); and The Jungle and the Damned by Hassoldt Davis. Quite the diverse haul and rather pleasing on the eye. I’m looking forward to devouring each of these and seeing what new monsters and stories come out of my mind.
Not only was the visit to Avid Reader very successful in terms of acquiring wonderful old books that will hopefully inspire me, it was also very successful in that it created fertile ground for my mind to ponder...
Wish me luck. xx
