Late Booking : My First Twenty-five Years in the Secondhand Book Trade

Old Knowle, Frant, East Sussex, U.K: Frantic Press, 1989. Very Good condition in a Very Good dust jacket. Protected by a removable mylar clear-plastic sleeve. NO chips. NO tears. NO fading. NOT price clipped (£12). NOT a library discard. A square, tight copy. NO owner's name or bookplate. Pages are clean and unmarked. 1989. First Edition. Bound in the original red boards, stamped in bright gold on the spine. From the dust jacket: "Details of Richard Booth [Hay on Wye], Peter Eaton, Edward Martell, Covent Garden Bookshop, etc., etc. Written on a sabbatical in Greece in 1983/4, LATE BOOKING covers the career up to that point of one of the most assiduous secondhand booksellers since the last war. Paul Minet has struggled for 25 years, with very varied success, to re-create the browsing bookshops he loved as a boy. Whether 'running' books from shop to shop in the West Country, dozing behind market bookstalls, up to his armpits in old books in an unlit cinema in Ilfracombe or running one of the largest bookshops in London, the author is the perennial optimist in his chosen field. Most people have at one time or another fancied running a small bookshop. LATE BOOKING is essential reading for anyone who is seriously considering doing so. To all those others who only dream, it is the perfect antidote, a way to participate in all the rush and excitement of the author's numerous adventures without actually risking anything oneself. Paul Minet was the founder of the ANTIQUARIAN BOOK MONTHLY REVIEW and has contributed a widely read column to its pages for the past fifteen years. As well as the definitive account of this venture, LATE BOOKING includes an important chapter on his spell as Managing Editor of THE NEW DAILY and a major account of Richard Booth, the 'King' of Hay-on-Wye and a friend and rival for many years. Dozens of other booksellers, be they born dealers, wild eccentrics or quiet intellectuals, also flit through these pages. LATE BOOKING is bound to become one of the classic works in a field which has not seen many detailed memoirs this century.". First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good condition/Very Good dust jacket. 8vo. (viii), 199pp. Great Packaging, Fast Shipping.…