Climbing Moss

Last Sunday Abney Books in Stoke Newington did one of the magical days where you can buy a brown bag and fill it with as many books as you can fit, so we went along…

We had seen Abney Books do this a number of times over the past couple of years but have always been too busy or it was just at the wrong time/date. Last Sunday the stars aligned and we were able to go along.
We didn’t attempt to get there at the bright and early 10am start and instead opted for the 2pm restock.

When we walked along Stoke Newington High Street we spotted the line that extended down all the way passed the entrance to Abney Cemetery. So we thought we would try the British love of joining a queue, we proceeded to move forward at a snails pace. Watching people come out of the bookshop with their filled to the brim bags of books.

Eventually after maybe three quarters of an hour we approached the yellow shop front and were ushered in to find a mass of people shuffling round slowly picking up books from shelves, the floor, cardboard boxes slowly filling their arms in a kind of literary crackerjack.

There was some semblance of order for a couple of genres – Cookbooks, Children’s, Travel and Poetry. However things like Science Fiction or Fantasy had clearly been rifled through, picked up and discarded somewhere else along the way round. The rest of the books were in cardboard boxes strewn across the floor that you had to rifle through in the hopes there was something other than repeat books.

It is a secondhand bookshop so it is a case of they have what they have which seemingly was a lot of 50 Shades of Grey, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Penguin Classics. Plus a ton of Philosophy books you know the drill, buy it, sit outside a coffee shop with an espresso, chat up a girl and then leave the book in a second hand book shop.

This is where we veered off in different directions – Bob wanted Fantasy books from authors she had read previously, or female written or Manga. Whereas Ash was just browsing for anything that caught his eye and High Fidelity. This was reflected in what we left the shop with at the end.

Bob found nothing of interest but picked up the only two things that weren’t written by men or set in Wales!
Ash ended up with a filled to the brim bag as you can see from the picture everything from Star Trek cannon to how to fold paper airplanes.

In all you have to go not expecting to get very much and hope that you can find something you actually want.