A trip to Badgers Books, Worthing and some resources
Today (Friday 20th December 2019) my sister had her eye test in Specsavers so afterwards we walked down to Badgers Books, a secondhand bookshop in Worthing just off of Montegue Street. I was interested in buying some cheap old books for mixed media collage canvases that I have been doing lately.
I am now not immune to the smell of used books having not worked in a bookshop since 2012. I had become immune to it after ten years running a secondhand bookshop in Arundel (and Worthing and Chichester) but no, it was strong and familiar again like when I first started in my bookshop in 2002...
Badgers Books is smaller than the bookshop I worked in and the one that features in my series of novels 'The Secondhand Bookworm'. It was easy to navigate and my sister said she loved the mess, with books piled up everywhere. I have to admit it would have driven me crazy, I like books really neat on shelves and none on the floor, but it was fun to have a look about. Being low on the autism spectrum (I have Lynch Syndrome and two crazy chromosomes) I have to have order or my brain switches off; I also need silence to read and write and think seriously because apparently I don't have the ability to filter out noises either, even the slightest, which made browsing the bookshop become more and more difficult due to an insane pack of screeching seagulls on the roof opposite!
Anyway, there are only a handful of rooms in Badgers Books with the counter being next to the door and the rare and collectible books being in there; a small room opposite the door that led into the tiny corridor seen in the picture above and then a larger room. Back in the front room facing the counter you go into a room on the right which leads into another room and that's the whole shop, crammed full of books and boxes of books.
There are no more floors (there are three floors in The Secondhand Bookworm novels because it is based on the real shop I worked in in Arundel). Despite the very busy jumble chaos (the owner of the bookshops I worked in for ten years has a sister who has bookshop in Eastbourne which is big and so messy that my former boss wanted to scream every time she visited) I found three books I thought would be great for ripping up (terrible I know!) for art projects.
Prices are reasonable in Badgers Books and I spent £12 on the three I chose which included a book of butterflies and moths with lots of plates, a book on African mammals with lots of plates and a large book of Vogue photographs (I like to do collages of people and animals) and although it can be a surprise to pick up a book that is marked at £20 or £25 the pricing is correct as a lot of these books are difficult to find.
I was interested in these two books seen in the photos below but they came to £30 together (£15 each) and I couldn't justify tearing them to bits. I confess I went onto Abebooks when I got home and found the Ladies Volume II for £4.50 instead of £15 so snapped that up online (tut, tut).
The GEM of the visit was eavesdropping on conversations and getting some very amusing ideas and snippets for BOOK CLUB IN THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM which I am currently writing. After paying (the lady who owns the shop is really nice), and having my books popped into a lovely yellow Badgers Books bag (plastic unfortunately and I'm trying to be environmentally conscious but it will be used and recycled eventually) my sister and I walked back into town to go to M&S and the Toy Shop (I wanted a Star Wars action figure - ahem) we recorded our observances amidst chuckles and when we finally got home (traffic was bad) I opened up my BOOK CLUB novel manuscript and played back our notes on my phone and added them to CHAPTER SIX which I am currently finishing off.
I am looking forward to finishing BOOK CLUB which leads onto VALENTINE'S DAY AT THE SECONDHAND BOOKWORM (book 8) and am keen to write. It's been almost impossible to get on a roll with it over the last six months because we had two very large film production projects with deadlines and this has taken up a lot of my time. I have found doing art work has helped in between film editing and production as my poor brain has been overworked with plots and plans for DVDs. My writing is a form of relaxation and enjoyment too and I love penning The Secondhand Bookworm series. They're fun to read and fun to write - eccentric days in a used and antiquarian bookshop in an historic town in the fictional County of Cole.
But BOOK CLUB is certainly underway and I shall be visiting Badger's Books again soon for more rummaging and eavesdropping.
Although the cover above says BOOK SIX, Book Club will be BOOK SEVEN in a series of which books one to six are available NOW on Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and in paperback.
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