A good 'Read'

This is a tentative step. I realise I have so much admiration for bloggers. They make it look so easy. Now that I've put myself in this position and I'm having to write I'm really aware of the advice that Neil Gaiman gave in the 10 rules for writers feature in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago 'put one word after another, find the right word, put it down'. It's as simple, and painful, as that. What prompted me to start this blog was a visit to Sam Read's bookshop in Grasmere. As you can see it's a classic corner shop, devoted to books, and it's a browser's paradise. I've not got anything against the high street bookshop chains - I mourn the passing of Borders - but their symbiotic relationship with the bestsellers lists and tables full of 3 for 2 deals somehow mean that they are less interesting, accessible and rich in choices than this treasure chest. There was a startling range of interesting titles for each subject area, and it was more than that. It was the sense that each book had been hand-picked, that the guiding principle of the place is a love of the printed and bound word. The smell of paper, ink and wooden shelves took me back to childhood, and to student days in York when there were booksellers on the Shambles and Gillygate, streets which are now devoted to tourist ephemera.

I realised how much I love places like that little bookshop and Chorlton Bookshop, a similar independent emporium close to my home in Manchester , and how at risk they probably are in the age of Amazon, Abebooks and Waterstones. I fear for them in these commercial, corporate times and I admire their character and their individuality. Chorlton Bookshop is so low tech that it doesn't have a website, so I've linked to a review website giving some details. In one of the reviews somebody makes the point that they bought a book for full cover price there and they could have bought it for half-price at the airport, and I guess there's so much in that story. I am a creature of habit and I like the ubiquitous presence of W H Smith at stations and airports, but when I buy a book from a small independent retailer I feel more involved in the whole process, the journey from writer to reader. It feels like choices have been made at every step of the way and now I'm choosing, and supporting the craft of the bookseller. I've never felt like that in a chainstore.

So, in Sam Read's I bought Robert Macfarlane's 'The Wild Places', and writing this has fired me up so I'm now going to Chorlton Bookshop to do my bit to preserve individuality, creativity and independence.