BOOKS – MY GREAT PASSION

A number of correspondents have suggested I write about my great passion, namely books, and in particular fiction.

Sadly, fiction in New Zealand is mainly read by women (80%), probably due to the ironically mis-named smart phones, these the greatest dumbing down device ever invented.

Book obsessives like me haunt second-hand bookshops. Wellington has many including oddly, three in Newtown, odd inasmuch as the colourful array of pedestrians there include few who look likely customers. Presumably low rents are the attraction although that wasn’t always the case.

On that note I was saddened to read of the death of John Quilter.

At various times John had three different city locations and I was a regular customer. One recollection was him resignedly telling me of an element of his trade, namely assembling mini libraries of attractive hard cover classics. These were purchased by interior decorators on behalf of clients who had no intention of reading them, instead viewing them as essential furnishing for imagery reasons.

John would have been bemused by the kindly obituary published in Stuff’s The Post. It stressed the point that he was never seen other than wearing a suit and tie and accompanied this account with a photo of him in an open neck, a typical Stuff stuff-up.

It also implied he was the virtual father figure pioneer of the capital’s post-war second hand book trade. What absolute nonsense! That accolade goes to Dick Reynolds whose bookshop I was a regular in from the late 1950s. Dick was also never seen tie-less, a 3 piece tweed suit being his usual attire.

Anyway, henceforth I’ll periodically write about a book of possible interest to blog readers and other aspects of the trade.

At the height of the covid panic our television news channels were dominated by diverse health experts who were always interviewed standing before a wall of books.

For book obsessives like me, a casual glance could tell the bullshit ones, there for imagery reason.