Tom the tomato contemplates books, whilst Rodin’s Thinker contemplates Tom.
” Books are a uniquely portable magic” – Stephen King
If you’re reading this because you’re hoping for smut, you’re out of luck. Book porn is about beautiful bindings, not bodacious boobies.
Bindings! Original dust jackets! Gilt-edged pages! Art work!
Up until recently, I was a utilitarian book buyer: paperbacks, unless there was a hardback version, & I really could not wait to read it. If I bought an old book, it was because I wanted to read it, not display it.
Now, due in part to a lovely retro & vintage Doncaster shop called “Rewind”, I’ve discovered book porn. Yes, it’s about bindings, and the gleam of those lovely gilt-edged pages, but oh, so much more. Like the inscription on my latest “Rewind” purchase: a collection of the works of John Greenleaf (1) Whittier.
“A distressing accident”
I love this: it sets the wheels going in my writer’s mind. What was the kindness? What was the accident, and why was it “distressing”? What, if any, was Mrs Brown’s relationship with C Dawson, or did they meet for the first time due to the accident?
I also like this, found on the inside cover of a collection of Longfellow’s poetry:
Well done!
A book doesn’t have to be old to qualify as book porn. I bought this gorgeous little hardback at last year’s “Turn the Page” festival, purely for that wonderfully evocative drawing on the book’s dust jacket.
The ideal hideaway for walkers who are also writers, and writers who are also walkers.
Old hardbacks can even supply a few laughs, such as this one my husband bought me, also from Rewind:
I bet he wears socks with his sandals.
I know Sir Percy Blakney is a fop, and a dandy, but really? The last time I saw dress sense that bad, I was watching a DVD of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. (2)
Notebooks can also be a form of book porn. I am a pushover for a nice notebook, and often buy them to commemorate special events, such as successfully surviving my breast cancer op last year, or returning to work after a period of illness. Here’s one I purchased earlier this year. Can you see why I couldn’t resist it?
A thing of beauty, indeed
I love this notebook, & hope to put it to use writing my next Sherlock Jones story, “The Adventure of the Cooper Leeches”. Meanwhile, there’s still work to be done before I bring out my next collection of humoruos “cozy crime” stories. Titled “A Yorkshireman in Ohio”, it includes the long short story, “Sherlock Jones and the Geek Interventionist”. Set mainly at the Doncaster Cosplay Convention, it once again features Sherlock “Sherl” Jones, a writer with a line in detection, and his crossword-loving friend, Bozzie Badger.
Happy reading!
Boswell “Bozzie” Badger, cosplaying the 4th Doctor
(1) The clear winner in the category “Best Middle Name Ever Had by a Poet”
(2) Sorry, Mr Baker: I know it wasn’t your fault your costume was so awful.
Tagged: A Yorkshireman in Ohio, badgers, book porn, Books, bookshops, cosplay, Doctor Who, John Greenleaf Whittier, Longfellow, retro, Rewind, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Jones, Sherlock Jones and the Geek Interventionist, Stephen King, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Thurber, Turn the Page, vintage 
