An interview with Eastleach Books
Biblio checks in with Eastleach Books to learn more about their book business, collecting interests and more! To view and shop their inventory, click here.
When did you get started in bookselling?
I started bookselling by accident - I was a keen collector & was buying lots at auction just to get one or two books. The surplus I started selling to booksellers, but then decided I had enough to start going to bookfairs. That was back in 1995. I was 25.
What drew you to bookselling?
It was the culmination of a lifetime spent reading. In our local town was a 'proper' secondhand bookshop - low ceilings, tiny rooms overflowing with books, a slight damp smell - it was something out of Dickens. Aged 7 I'd spend hours looking for, what I thought, were ancient, long forgotten books.
Did you have any mentors in becoming a bookseller?
None really - hard graft & a good memory are the main tools.
What are your specialties as a dealer?
We tend to stick with good academic books. The books upon which textbooks are based. We do have a large Medieval history section, good English literature, but we don't actively seek any particular genre. As booksellers our stock reflects whatever we have most recently purchased. A few years back we purchased a large conchology collection - so for a few months after, as it was catalogued we had one of the best stocks of books on shells online.....
What's the most amazing book you've ever sold?
Nothing springs to mind - folk often ask 'what is the most expensive book you have ever sold' & things like that. Once we had a Dutch book written in the 16th C on algebra & optics. We bought it at an auction house for £300. The British Library didn't have a copy, and the only copy we could locate was in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. A Dutch seller had a copy listed for over €50,000. We offered them our copy at a very keen price, but ended up selling it ( getting shot of it!) on an internet auction site many year later.
What is your favorite part of being a bookseller?
The chase - never knowing when you go to a house call what you are going to find. We never leave a book - cherry picking isn't for us ( or often the folk selling the books ) and occasionally even the most dull looking common volume can reveal secrets.
Do you have an open storefront or have you in the past?
no
If so, do/did you have any bookstore pets?
none
What is the funniest / strangest / scariest thing that ever happened in your store?
Not to do with an open store, but once on a house call which had resulted in us purchasing a large collection, I was making my third or fourth visit to take away the next load of books ( this collection was about 6000 books . The books filled most rooms in the sprawling bungalow & one of the rooms was a bedroom. I had been filling boxes in the room for a while when suddenly I was aware of breathing - the bed, which up until now on every visit had just been an empty heap of duvets, was occupied.....
What do you personally like to read? Collect?
Mountaineering titles. I used to have a large collection of books on London, books on UK vernacular & aristocratic architecture & travel. All were absorbed into the shop stock.
What's your favorite book you personally own? Would you sell it, if the price were right?
I don't have a favourite - anything is for sale, if the price is right!!
What one book would you buy if price were no object?
A Caxton, any Caxton, just so I can say we have sold one.
If you were stranded on a desert island and could bring three books, what would they be?
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco Anything very thick, as paper is a useful thing on a desert island.