infinities by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Scott Nicholson, Garry Kilworth, Eric Brown, John Grant, Anna Tambour, Kaitlin Queen, Iain Rowan, Linda Nagata, Keith Brooke Read Free Book Online Page A
saw a sign above a door leading to a second room: Twentieth Century Fiction.
I stepped through, as excited as a boy given the run of a toyshop on Christmas Eve.
The room was packed from floor to ceiling with several thousand volumes. At a glance I knew that many dated from the thirties and forties: the tell-tale blanched pink spines of Hutchinson editions, the pen and ink illustrated dust-jackets so popular at the time. The room had about it an air of neglect, the junk room where musty volumes were put out to pasture before the ultimate indignity of the council skip.
I found a Robert Nathan for one pound, a Wellard I did not posses for £1.50. I remembered Vaughan Edwards, and moved with anticipation to the E section. There were plenty of Es, but no Edwards.
I moved on, disappointed, but still excited by the possibility of more treasures to be found. I was scanning the shelves for Rupert Croft-Cooke when Mina called out from the next room, "Daniel. Here."
She had a stack of thick volumes piled beside her on the bare floorboards, and was holding out a book to me. "Look."
I expected some title she had been looking out for, but the book was certainly not Victorian. It had the modern, maroon boards of something published in the fifties.
"Isn't he the writer you mentioned the other week?"
I read the spine. A Bitter Recollection —Vaughan Edwards.
I opened the book, taking in the publishing details, the full-masted galleon symbol of the publisher, Longmans, Green and Company. It was his fourth novel, published in 1958.
I read the opening paragraph, and something clicked. I knew I had stumbled across a like soul.
An overnight frost had sealed the ploughed fields like so much stiffened corduroy, and in the distance, mist shrouded and remote, stood the village of Low Dearing. William Barnes, stepping from the second-class carriage onto the empty platform, knew at once that this was the place .
"Where did you find it?" I asked, hoping that there might be others by the author.
She laughed. "Where do you think? Where it belongs, on the 50p shelf."
She indicated a free-standing bookcase crammed with a miscellaneous selection of oddments, warped hardbacks, torn paperbacks, pamphlets and knitting patterns. There were no other books by Vaughan Edwards.
I lay my books upon her pile on the floor and took Mina in my arms. She stiffened, looking around to ensure we were quite alone: for whatever reasons, she found it difficult to show affection when we might be observed.
We made our way carefully down the stairs and paid for our purchases. I indicated the Edwards and asked the proprietor if he had any others by the same author.
He took the book and squinted at the spine. "Sorry, but if you'd like to leave your name and address..."
I did so, knowing that it would come to nothing.
We left the shop and walked back to the car, hand in hand. We drove back through the rapidly falling winter twilight, the traffic sparse on the already frost-scintillating B-roads. The gritters would be out tonight, and the thought of the cold spell gripping the land filled me with gratitude that soon I would be home, before the fire, with my purchases.
For no apparent reason, Mina lay a hand on my leg as I drove, and closed her eyes.
I appreciated her spontaneous displays of affection all the more because they were so rare and arbitrary. Sometimes the touch of her hand in mine, when she had taken it without being prompted, was like a jolt of electricity.
The moon was full, shedding a magnesium light across the fields around the cottage. As I was about to turn into the drive, the thrilling, bush-tailed shape of a fox slid across the metalled road before the car, stopped briefly to stare into the headlights, then flowed off again and disappeared into the hedge.
...continues
Copyright information
© Eric Brown 2001, 2011
A Writer's Life was first published by PS Publishing in 2001, and is reprinted in ebook format by infinity plus:
Buy now: A
I stepped through, as excited as a boy given the run of a toyshop on Christmas Eve.
The room was packed from floor to ceiling with several thousand volumes. At a glance I knew that many dated from the thirties and forties: the tell-tale blanched pink spines of Hutchinson editions, the pen and ink illustrated dust-jackets so popular at the time. The room had about it an air of neglect, the junk room where musty volumes were put out to pasture before the ultimate indignity of the council skip.
I found a Robert Nathan for one pound, a Wellard I did not posses for £1.50. I remembered Vaughan Edwards, and moved with anticipation to the E section. There were plenty of Es, but no Edwards.
I moved on, disappointed, but still excited by the possibility of more treasures to be found. I was scanning the shelves for Rupert Croft-Cooke when Mina called out from the next room, "Daniel. Here."
She had a stack of thick volumes piled beside her on the bare floorboards, and was holding out a book to me. "Look."
I expected some title she had been looking out for, but the book was certainly not Victorian. It had the modern, maroon boards of something published in the fifties.
"Isn't he the writer you mentioned the other week?"
I read the spine. A Bitter Recollection —Vaughan Edwards.
I opened the book, taking in the publishing details, the full-masted galleon symbol of the publisher, Longmans, Green and Company. It was his fourth novel, published in 1958.
I read the opening paragraph, and something clicked. I knew I had stumbled across a like soul.
An overnight frost had sealed the ploughed fields like so much stiffened corduroy, and in the distance, mist shrouded and remote, stood the village of Low Dearing. William Barnes, stepping from the second-class carriage onto the empty platform, knew at once that this was the place .
"Where did you find it?" I asked, hoping that there might be others by the author.
She laughed. "Where do you think? Where it belongs, on the 50p shelf."
She indicated a free-standing bookcase crammed with a miscellaneous selection of oddments, warped hardbacks, torn paperbacks, pamphlets and knitting patterns. There were no other books by Vaughan Edwards.
I lay my books upon her pile on the floor and took Mina in my arms. She stiffened, looking around to ensure we were quite alone: for whatever reasons, she found it difficult to show affection when we might be observed.
We made our way carefully down the stairs and paid for our purchases. I indicated the Edwards and asked the proprietor if he had any others by the same author.
He took the book and squinted at the spine. "Sorry, but if you'd like to leave your name and address..."
I did so, knowing that it would come to nothing.
We left the shop and walked back to the car, hand in hand. We drove back through the rapidly falling winter twilight, the traffic sparse on the already frost-scintillating B-roads. The gritters would be out tonight, and the thought of the cold spell gripping the land filled me with gratitude that soon I would be home, before the fire, with my purchases.
For no apparent reason, Mina lay a hand on my leg as I drove, and closed her eyes.
I appreciated her spontaneous displays of affection all the more because they were so rare and arbitrary. Sometimes the touch of her hand in mine, when she had taken it without being prompted, was like a jolt of electricity.
The moon was full, shedding a magnesium light across the fields around the cottage. As I was about to turn into the drive, the thrilling, bush-tailed shape of a fox slid across the metalled road before the car, stopped briefly to stare into the headlights, then flowed off again and disappeared into the hedge.
...continues
Copyright information
© Eric Brown 2001, 2011
A Writer's Life was first published by PS Publishing in 2001, and is reprinted in ebook format by infinity plus:
Buy now: A
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