A recent post by C. J. Hall (well, relatively recent) is about how independent high-street bookshops are dwindling away and dying, leaving only the homogenised W.H. Borderstones Etc or the write-by-numbers horrors of the supermarket aisle as the last repository of actual physical books that we can leaf through and sniff and rub against ourselves before buying…and that this drastically cuts down the chances of stumbling across something new and unusual.
Here are three random books that I probably would never have taken a chance on if the world of physical books comprised only online megastores and three-for-two book dumps:
- I Served The King Of England by Bohumil Hrabal
- The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
- Heartsnatcher by Boris Vian
That said, I get most of my books through recommendations anyway, so as long as I continue to hang around pretentious book snobs I should be all right.
Simon John Cox 
