The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner Read Online Free PDF

reach up to replace the book. Sipping more Guinness, I try to gather my thoughts.
    A simple offer to buy it might raise suspicion. The thought to pocket it does cross my mind. Who would miss it? These books are for just for show, aren’t they? I could try to justify the theft but I can’t bring myself to actually steal a book. It feels wrong; it being a betrayal, as it were, of my trade. My moral compass, in spite of its innate dodginess, draws a distinction between a book and, say, a Cadbury cream egg whisked surreptitiously into a young boy’s pocket. What to do? Maybe I should come clean and offer to go halves with the pub on any profit accrued from its future sale. I finish my pint and leave with the intention of returning tomorrow with a canny plan.
    I don’t need one.
    Eddy has anticipated my prevarication. The following day in the Montparnasse McDonald’s, over a greedily consumed McBacon roll, the book is plonked down before me. He’d simply asked Simon, one of the bar staff with whom he is on friendly terms, to take home the book. As easy as you like.
    It has a firm binding with no leaning to its spine, which is unusual given its previous resting spot. The book contents are in very good condition; no spotting or any marks. I get lucky in London. A dealer in Virginia Woolf pays over the odds because he has an authentic dust jacket lacking its book. Being a highly sought after title, its sale generates a good deal of wonga which I happily share with Eddy. A good proportion of his share will be spent on beer… in Corcoran’s.

Car Boot Sale at Mona, Anglesey, 2004
    The sun is shining for once and it’s great to be tramping about this windswept green field in Wales. We arrive late and so have the excuse to lunch on local lamb burgers washed down with tea. Emily is eating candyfloss and Matty is absorbed in adding to his collection of Disney films. Making the most of this small window of pester free time, I look through a box of history books. I also notice some Enid Blytons and an Oxenham. None of them have dust jackets but the lady selling them says that she only wants £15 for the lot. Fair enough.
    Later that afternoon, with the help of the internet and some reference books, it becomes clear that the Oxenham, despite its less than pristine state, is highly collectable. There isn’t another copy for sale on any of the main book websites.
    After further deliberation and research, I upload the following details to my list of books in cyberspace.
    Author: Elsie Oxenham
Title: Finding her family
Illustrator: W.S. Stacey
Publisher/ The Sheldon Press
some spotting to page edges, darkening to green cloth cover, picture on cover of girl on bed being consoled by a woman. Frontispiece of woman gazing out into garden, very rare book hence price £480
    The book sells four months later and I try to justify my profit. How many car boots have I visited in order to find this gem of a collector’s item?
    The buyer in Australia might be a seller or a collector. Ihave no way of knowing. She may well intend to sell the book on, providing that she has a customer or a better judgement of the book’s value. A hierarchy of knowledge, the fundamental setter of price, determines the chain of book transactions.
     
    (Distance travelled: 15 miles. Profit: £465. Fact learned: My business success is as unpredictable as Anglesey’s weather.)
Tuesday Morning, Montpellier Auction, 1996
    The room is packed with objects and people milling about them. I am slightly apprehensive. This is my first auction and I’m late which means there is only time for a cursory glance at the various lots. Beneath a settee, there is a box of books, which I crouch down to assess. There are plenty of Folio paperback classics and I consider them worth a bid. I’ve got increasing confidence in my judgement of French books.
    The auction soon starts and the auctioneer is rattling through the bids. His voice lulls me into a trance-like state out of which I am