Book Shops That Know Nothing About Books ...

It's not really a surprise in a chain bookstore to find some Saturday kid just earning his pocket money who doesn't know the difference between a Nintendo and Nabokov, but you expect a little better from quaint little back street second hand stores! Surely you're not going to run one of these unless you are totally passionate about the written word and have, at least, a passing knowledge of the market.

I wouldn't expect a shop keeper in one of these to know much about Star Wars novels, but to try to pass off 'Return To The Lost World' as a Sherlock Holmes spin-off, did, kind of, make me doubt the credibility of the trader!

The original Lost World, by Conan Doyle, is one of my favourite adventure yarns, but when I noticed that (a) the book was 'self-published' and (b) it was marked up for £25 (I seem to remember), I quickly put it back on the owner's desk and went back to looking at the £2.50 Star Wars novels.

As a side note, Wikipedia says of this book:

Return to the Lost World: Nicholas Nye. A sequel set a year later than The Lost World, which almost ignores the dinosaurs in favour of a plot involving parapsychology, an extremely odd version of evolutionary theory, and ancient technology in the style of Chariots of the Gods. While Conan Doyle's Challenger is a foe of scientific fraud, this novel begins with him preparing a scientific fake.

My doubts over the shopkeeper's literary credibility increased when I noticed one of the books I had sold him almost a year ago (when clearing my parent's home after my father's death, there were boxes and boxes of books that we had no room to store - including many of my own - and this gentleman kindly took some off our hands for a pittance). It was a Western I had bought new from an "end of stock clearance" store in Sevenoaks for a couple of quid. Here it was marked up for £15!

Another corner of the shop is stacked high with old comics of mine (mainly Dark Horse Star Wars titles from the last five or ten years) that he is trying to flog for £2 a pop. They were surrounded by other odd titles - and even a few roleplaying game books - that I remembered from previous visits to the shop over a year ago.

It's a shame really, because a nice second hand comic shop just at the limits of my walking distance would be such an asset, but come on: sensible pricing please!