amjohnno

Because I know you’re all dying to know what books I bought from the sale, here’s a list below. I picked these up for £1 each.

In no particular order:

• Liz Jensen – The Ninth Life of Louis Drax
• Sean Stewart – Firecracker
• David Benioff – When the Nines Roll Over
• Ruben Gallego – White on Black
• Mick Jackson – Five Boys
• Gordon Burn – Alma Cogan
• Colum McCann – Songdogs

As I’m fairly new to the world of reading, I’ve no idea whether these authors are any good or what their style is like. I just picked them up because I liked the look of them. If anyone out there has read any of these or anything else by these authors I’d be very glad to hear your comments.

P.S. I was going to add links to these books on Amazon.co.uk, but they appear to be having problems at the minute!!

Edit: Amazon is now working, so I’ve added links to each of the book’s product pages. And before anyone starts writing about the fact you can get these for a penny each on Amazon, I have to answer that no you can’t; you’ll be spending £2.25 on postage per book.

I took a trip to Cambridge today to visit one of Galloway & Porter’s warehouse book sales. Most people out in web-world won’t have heard of them as they’re a small independent book shop in Cambridge. If you’re in the area on one of their sale days I recommend a visit. All books are £1. Yes, that’s right: £1. They have a few academic ones at £2-a-pop and a small room just off the warehouse holding some at higher prices. But the rest are £1. Or less. They also have a wide range of kids books, with some at less than a quid. So they’re not actually all a quid. But most are! 90% are! So get yourself over to their website and take a look at when the next one is on. They’re very frequent and you won’t regret it!

After that I took a trip into Cambridge’s lovely city centre, bought a couple of magazines and planted myself in a comfy chair in Border’s Starbucks for an hour. I do love Cambridge.

Something not-so-good occurred on the way back though. The car had been making some horrible clanging noises all day, and just as I approached Bedford something detached itself from the engine bay and flew off. The noises stopped, but a couple of red lights appeared on the dashboard. Bugger.

Well, not knowing anything at all about cars, I took it down the nearest Nationwide Autocentre and got them to take a look. Fortunately it was only the fan-belt, and even more fortunately it hadn’t taken anything with it on its way out! So an hour – and a chat with the mechanics – later and I was back on the road. £32. A bit pricey for a piece of rubber, but I was expecting more for the labour. So I’m happy with that.

Now I’m back home in the warm, with a mug of coffee, a Photoshop magazine and Adobe’s premier image-editing software in front of me. Should be a good day.

Or maybe I could make a start on one of the many books I bought from the sale? No, I’ve got plenty of others I’ve yet to read before I get on to those!

I’ve been pondering over the shots I took in Derby on Sunday, and I don’t think there are any I would consider adding to the site. They were all too noisy, or the composition was off, or the subject was simply not interesting enough.

I’ll take another look at some point to see if there is anything that can be rescued, but I don’t think there will be.

I returned to work today, rather forelorn. It certainly wasn’t a prospect I was looking forward to, nor one which I enjoyed at all. There was quite a bit of work waiting for me, which was a bonus and helped to pass the time. But it’s not what I want to be doing. Not at all.

Though it is only four weeks until I get Christmas off, so I don’t have to put up with a huge amount really.