A Sad Visit To Northcote

On Friday afternoon I drove to Northcote to visit a couple of secondhand book stores on High Street; Allsorts Secondhand Books and Brown & Bunting Booksellers.

While I parked the car I noticed a sign on the front window of Allsorts.  As I walked toward the store the sign became more obvious - "For Lease".  Allsorts Secondhand Books has closed.

I couldn't believe it.  Not even a book shelf remained.

I last visited Allsorts back in October last year.  The shop was full of books, and Paul was sitting behind his counter reading, always ready to offer assistance at a moment's notice.

Here's some photos from last October.  I could only find these two Bonds on the shelves.

Allsorts was a great book store.  It had a huge variety of books and they were disorganised enough to offer hope that you might find a gem or two after a bit of book shuffling.  Many years ago I found this Pan misprint copy of "On Her Majestys Secret Service" in this very shop (sorry, I know I've mentioned this book before but I wouldn't have this book if not for Allsorts Books).

Sadly this book store is no more.  But I'm sure every person who visited found a great book or has fond memories.

Here's a few more photos I've downloaded from earlier posts on this blog.  Here's Paul...

And here's a couple of snaps of inside the store...

Thankyou Paul.  I trust you are well and wish you all the best for the future.

As I said I also visited Brown & Bunting Booksellers.  As you can see there were a few Bonds on the shelf and I upgraded my copy of the Triad-Granada version of "Diamonds Are Forever".

Just as a late addition to this blog post, today I found this article published in April 2013 on a site called Weekend Notes about Allsorts Secondhand Books.  It's very complementary