9. Bookshops in London 伦敦书店
(1) Londoner are greater readers.They buy vast numbers of newspapers and magazines and even of books—especially paperbacks,which are still comparatively cheap in spite of ever-increasing rises in the costs of printing.They still continue to buy “proper”books,too,printed on good paper and bound between hard covers.
(2) There are many streets in London containing shops which specialize in book-selling. Perhaps the best known of these is Charing Cross Road in the very heart of London.Here bookshops of all sorts and sizes are to be found,from the celebrated one which boasts of being‘the biggest bookshop in the world’to the tiny,dusty little places which seem to have been left over from Dickens’time.Some of these shops stock or will obtain any kind of book,but many of them specialize in second-hand books,in art books,in foreign books,in books on philosophy,politics or any other of the myriad subjects about which books may be written.One shop in this area specializes solely in books about ballet !
(3) Although it may be the most convenient place for Londoners to buy books,Charing Cross Road is not the cheapest.For the really cheap second-hand volumes,the collector must venture off the beaten track,to Farringdon Road,for example,in the East Central district of London.Here there is nothing so grandiose as bookshops。Instead,the booksellers come along each morning and tip out their sacks of books on to small barrows,which line the gutters,and the collectors,some professional and some amateur,who have been waiting for them,pounce upon the dusty cascade.In place like this one can still，occasionally,pick up for a few pence an old volume that may be worth many pounds.
(4) Both Charing Cross Road and Farringdon Road are well-known haunts of the book buyer.Yet all over London there are bookshops,in places not so well known,where the wares are equally varied and exciting.It is in the sympathetic atmosphere of such shops that the ardent book buyer feels most at home.In these shops,even the life-long book-browser is frequently rewarded by the accidental discovery of previously unknown delights.One could,in fact,easily spend a lifetime explorering London’s bookshops.There are many less pleasant ways of spending time !
