| |
John who?
• MAYBE not everyone knows Kertesz (Thank goodness for the independents, January 24) but you would think that everyone should know the name John Betjeman. Not so.
I was at the British Library with two friends for the exhibition The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900-1937.
On the way to our next port of call, St Pancras station, we visited the BL bookshop to purchase Betjeman’s Summoned By Bells. The assistant had never heard of him and it took several attempts for her to type BETJEMAN into the computer.
Not one book for sale at the British Library!
I pointed out that there is a statue of JB at the station and extracts of his poetry around the sculpture which may possibly elicit interest in his work. Not here. We moved on.
We tried WH Smith at St Pancras. John who? They hadn’t heard of him either. We looked around and noted that it was more of a confectioner’s than a bookshop and the only books for sale were holiday pulp. Again, not one book on JB.
But all was not lost. We went over the road to the Marchmont Bookshop in Burton Street. What joy.
Don Holder produced a second-hand copy of the Betjeman, my other friend found a book on the Avant Garde and when I asked whether he had Louis MacNeice/ WH Auden’s Letters from Iceland, he produced a first edition within seconds!
These small bookshops are a lifeline to literature and should be supported for being the gems they are.
JEAN PESTELL
Hampstead Lane, N6
|
 |
|
| |
