Fickle fame.

I haven't been asked for C P Snow for years then a chap asks me for the whole works. Authors drop out of sight for a while but then something happens to cause a resurgence of interest in them. Giovanni Guareschi for instance; his long-suffering priest Don Camillo has risen out of obscurity. P was selling hardbacks for £1 when I worked in that shop. Now hardbacks on abebooks start at £5 without a dustjacket.

I am enjoying reading through the dozen or so 1960's Crime Club editions Yeoman Books brought to the Fair for me. Somehow much lighter than today's crime fiction; less psychology, less forensic detail, more plot. They aren't better, just different.

A woman rang me on her way home from the fair to say she meant to buy a book from me Saturday but forgot to come back to the stall so could I send it on. She has a very plummy voice. Three packages then to take to the P.Office, one a happy children's book going to Middle class, Middle England; the other a book of poetry by Meredith going to a State penitentiary in Indianapolis to the prisoner on death row. The third going to a Highly Sensitive Person, I suppose, since the title of the book is a guide for delicate souls.

And here comes the chap with the Surtees - maybe.