Emma gave me this book for my birthday in 2023 and when I heard that Robin Ince was coming to do an event at the Kings Heath Music and Book Festival, organised by The Heath Bookshop among others, I picked it off the shelf to read. Come the event, last Thursday, I hadn’t quite finished it – as I wanted to take it to get it signed anyway, I sat there slightly self-consciously in the audience before he started and finished it off! Out of the seven books I received for that birthday, I’ve read and reviewed five, not bad! And of course it counts towards my TBR project, too.
Robin Ince – “Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain”
(21 January 2023, from Emma)
An excellent combination of a book about bookshops and a “quest” book, we read about Ince’s journey by public transport and the odd lift around over 100 bookshops in the UK in 100 days. There’s a section on each town and we also get to hear about the charity shops of the area and what he buys, and his increasingly heavy bags of books he drags around – very familiar from my trips to Hay, or, to be honest, my own high street on occasion.
I marked up references to the bookshops I knew, including The Edge of the World in Penzance, the Hospice charity shop in Stratford and The Cinema Bookshop in Hay. There appears to be a new one in my own town of origin! He does an event in Birmingham (and has a bit of a funny turn on the confusing roads) but has to do it at ThinkTank (which has a bookshop?!) because The Bookshop wasn’t open then, so it’s lovely he returned there for this event (he also bought a copy of this book in The Shop and a little pile in Oxfam Books, sadly none that I’d donated there myself!).
There were laughs – being in Stratford and getting trapped in inventing punning shop names; he apparently still gets tweets with ideas, years later – and poignant moments as he spends time with his elderly dad in lockdown: his dad passed last year and the event was on what would have been his birthday so there was sad stuff among the funny and science bits, although as he said we’re the better for talking about such things. A bit of a scattershot review, sorry, very entertaining and worthwhile as a guide to bookshops to find in various towns; his events are a blast of associations and chains of thought but he seems like a lovely chap and gave my friend a hug during his signing at the end when she got sad about lost dads.
This is Book 26 in my 2024 TBR project – 115 to go!
madamebibilophile
Apr 24, 2024 @ 08:25:57
I follow Robin Ince on BlueSky and I really enjoy what he posts. He’s always got an interesting book on the go and lots of bookshop content as well as some unusual photos of where he visits. This sounds a lovely event.
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Liz Dexter
Apr 24, 2024 @ 19:27:34
I’ve got him on my Instagram feed now. He seems like such a nice man but he was going a mile a minute and I was a bit bamboozled by the end. But the book is excellent.
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rosemarykaye
Apr 24, 2024 @ 09:19:43
I saw (and reviewed) Robin Ince at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer – he was wonderful, one of the best things I saw all month. He’s so empathetic and unassuming, and so funny too. I recently picked up his book (in a charity shop – of course!) and am looking forward to reading it.
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Liz Dexter
Apr 24, 2024 @ 19:28:43
Yes, all of those things. Emma had put a note with the book (she’s my only friend who goes off-list with book presents for me!) saying if I don’t like it or him just release the book into the wild and he thought that was most amusing!
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griffandsarahthomas
Apr 24, 2024 @ 11:53:22
That sounds a fun festival event and I think this book has been hovering at the edge of my radar already; your review has brought it back to my full attention and convinced me to move it up the wish list. Thankfully, the library already have a copy to satisfy my bookish craving on this one – books, bookshops, different places in different towns, with a focus on the book shopping options abnd culture – how can I resist!
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Liz Dexter
Apr 24, 2024 @ 19:30:04
Hooray! It was a lovely event and I was glad I could go to one (the timing was bad fore unfortunately but the whole festival seems to have gone well). Hope you enjoy the book (silly comment really: of course you will!).
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kaggsysbookishramblings
Apr 24, 2024 @ 19:37:08
Love the sound of this, Liz – I’m a huge fan of books about books and bookshops, and the Nicholas Royle ones I love also cover the quest for second hand books around the country! How lovely that he did an event local to you too!
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Liz Dexter
Apr 29, 2024 @ 20:32:35
Yes, it made me think of White Spines but of course I couldn’t remember the book or author in the heat of the moment. I’m so glad the Bookshop got him for the festival!
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wadholloway
Apr 25, 2024 @ 11:52:01
Here needs to catch a plane and ‘do’ Australia (or even just Perth if he’s in a hurry, though that would be a slim volume)
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Liz Dexter
Apr 29, 2024 @ 20:33:05
I don’t know whether he’s done any international stuff. I hope he does!
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Paul at Halfman, Halfbook
Apr 27, 2024 @ 07:14:53
Loved this book which is why it was my book of the year for 2023. He has just released a video on you tube about why and how he became a biblomanic
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Liz Dexter
Apr 29, 2024 @ 20:33:27
I think it’s very likely to be in my top 10 this year!
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heavenali
Apr 30, 2024 @ 11:42:05
That sounds like another great event at the bookshop. The book sounds excellent too, I wonder how many shops in it I would recognise? We do all like a book about bookshops.
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Liz Dexter
Apr 30, 2024 @ 14:03:51
There weren’t as many I knew as I expected, but I think you’ve been in The Edge of the World in Penzance and I know you’ve been in the Cinema Bookshop in Hay …
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