Good Military Bookshops

As much as I don't like padding out the massive pay packets of Oxfam senior executives I have occasionally bought from the bookshops in Lymington and Leamington Spa, which were more realistic in price (not just on military history). Note I said "were". I suspect "instructions from the centre" to follow the "find the most expensive copy on ABE and knock a bit off". The twerp I described earlier has even started differential pricing on DVDs now - presumably using a similar method - so that some of his wares are more expensive than to buy new if still in print.

 

Oxfam bookshops: as the matter is up for discussion, two anecdotes:

First, I recall passing by one in Canterbury a good number of years ago. I hadn't intended to go there, but I thought I'd drop in on my way back to the station. Did so, found an interesting though common book on nature—late 19th century I think, and rather tatty. It was up for £18 and emptying my pockets I found I had something like £16.50 on me, so I offered the lady at the desk that. She told me, politely, that she wasn't allowed to give discounts, so I started to take the book back to the shelf to leave, at which she looked dismayed and asked if I really couldn't pay the £18. I told her it was all I had on me—I seldom paid for anything by card back then—and I had simply assumed the book had been donated and that a charity would be happy to take 100% of £16.50 rather than hope for that extra £1.50 to come along. This, I stress, was all very good natured, but I was still astonished when she decided to phone her manager—seemingly at home, because she first spoke to his wife—to ask whether it was ok to accept £1.50 less than the penciled amount! He agreed, but what an odyssey!

Second, when I started a new course at university in London, I found my likely schedule was going to see me pass through the nearest town to my home a few times a week, so in an attitude of 'new start, new spirit', I decided to volunteer in the local Oxfam. I explained, briefly, that I was a postgraduate with a M.A. in Victorian Literature, I collected books, had done research work in the special collections of a London library, and had previous retail experience. It wasn't intended as bragging, more an attempt to reassure the manager that I was a safe pair of hands.

He seemed quite pleased with my offer, but then it all went downhill: he went out back and returned with a glossy application booklet of thirty-odd pages and told me that I first had to apply to the national office, and that once they had approved my application it would be sent down to the local level for further consideration. I tried a little bonhomie and jokingly reminded him I was proposing a couple of afternoons a week, not a new career, but he started to explain how they were all having criminal record checks because 'children sometimes come in' and that because of the backlog of a new system there was no hope of getting through an application that side of Christmas—it was September!

I politely withdrew my offer and decided that it almost certainly wouldn't have been a good fit fot me.

 

Isn't there a phrase "being your own worst enemy"?! Seems to fit their bloated bureaucracy...

 

Sadly it seems to be abandoned. A couple of years ago I asked about it in the adjacent shop and apparently the owner only visited occasionally due to ill health. His wife, who worked in the shop with him, had been ill also. Sadly I fear the worse.
Two pictures I took yesterday. The Lewes Book Centre sign has gone, revealing the former butcher's name.

 

Very sad to see.

My home town in Kent had four second-hand bookshops plus a Waterstones and a Hatchards at one point in my childhood (I'd call in multiple times a week on my way home); it's now down to one sorry-looking Oxfam.

Also down from three independent record shops to zero.

 

http://www.gpo.gov/

 

It occurs to me that I should have consulted this thread before going on my trip to the UK.

The most interesting store for military books which I found was Yorkshire Quality Paperbacks in Pickering in Yorkshire. Apparently they do a lot of online sales, but I haven't found the channel they use. I can't say they had a BIG collection but there were some titles I didn't see elsewhere.

 

Ask them? yorkshirequalitybooks@gmail.com

 

Not solely military books, worth a dig around the bargain bin and secondhand History books.

https://www.awesomebooks.com/books/bargain?catid=1381

£3.76 to £4.75 ranges and 20% off for 4 or more. Excellent condition, some new.
free postage, to uk anyway. Ideal for the festive season, and a glass of malt, or is that Horlicks!