Finding Books whilst Searching for a House

Published on by Margaret

The search for a house is still on! House hunting has been top of our priorities this last week, so much so that I’ve been neglecting this blog. If only it was as easy to find a house as it is to find books, but as we were looking around the area where Barter Books is, it would have been impossible not to come away without buying any.

Barter Books is a beautiful secondhand bookshop, one of the largest in the country. It’s in what used to be a Victorian railway station on the main road into Alnwick in Northumberland and I’d love to live nearby (there are houses for sale, one is very near!) . There are shelves and shelves of books to browse. I restricted myself both in time spent there, otherwise I would have been there all day, and in the number of books I bought – just two hardbacks of the Collected Works of Agatha Christie comprising Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, The ABC Murders, Death on the Nile and They Do It With Mirrors and a paperback copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride.

Then one day whilst in Wooler having lunch in Breeze, which is a lovely giftshop, art gallery and coffee shop I just happened to notice that they were also selling secondhand books and I bought an excellent hardback copy of Dracula by Bram Stoker.  Wooler is a small market town at the edge of the Cheviots set in the most beautiful countryside and we would like to live there. The Wooler Community website describes it as the “natural gateway to Glendale and Northumberland National Park”. Bamburgh with its impressive castle is not far away.

Bamburgh Castle
Bamburgh Castle

I really shouldn’t be buying any more books at all as we don’t have any more space to keep them in the house we live in now and one of the requirements for a new house is that there has to be space for all our books – a separate room would be ideal but failing that enough wallspace to take all the bookcases. Even with that in mind I still bought two more books in one of the motorway service stations on the way north. I keep reading about how good Steig Larsson’s books are so when I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire in the “Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price” books I bought them.

8 thoughts on “Finding Books whilst Searching for a House”

  2. Margaret, good luck in your search. It’s tough to find just the right place isn’t it? My husband and I have gone back and forth in deciding whether to look for a smaller place now that our daughter is grown and married. We probably will at some point.

    I really enjoyed the Stieg Larsson books and am eagerly antipating Book 3 to come out soon. I’ve already ordered a copy from Book Depository. Hope you like them too. I couldn’t put them down.

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  4. I had to laugh when I saw the words “Barter Books”. Denis and I always drive up the A1 on our way to Scotland because we have a very dear friend in Durham. I have to stop at Alnwick (some ancestors did a lot of forelock tugging whilst working at the castle), and Barter Books is a must. When Dawn of She Is Too Fond of Books contacted me about doing a guest post for her feature on bookstores, I did mine on Barter Books!

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  6. I am so jealous. I love Barter Books . Joylon Bear says it is a good job it is you there and not me because his little Bear heart couldn’t cope with the bill.

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  7. What a perfect way to look for a house: to make sure there are decent bookstores in the neighborhood :)

    Sound like a lovely househunting expedition–I especially liked the photo of Bamburgh Castle.

    I bought a wonderful copy of Dracula in Whitby and if I could only get it back from my 14-year old son I would finish the reread of it I started in the summer.

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