The Monday Menagerie:Creepy Curiosities Found In Other People's Books

1. Let's start things off with a classic: Makeshift weapons found in prison library books. This impressive array of shivs, scalpels and rusty nails comes courtesy of The Vladimir Central Prison Museum. Late fees, coupled with a life sentence in solitary confinement, make this a risky way to store one's weaponry.

2. I've only got one word for this next one: Yuck. Oh, wait. I thought of another: F**k! The Seattle Times reports, "Librarian Susanne Caro was leafing through an 1888 book on Civil War medicine when she spied a small, yellowed envelope tucked between the pages. Freeing it, she read the inscription "scabs from vaccination of W.B. Yarrington's children" in the corner, with the signature "Dr. W.D. Kelly," the book's author. [...] Researchers think the scabs found in March are either from smallpox-vaccine patients or from victims, whose scabs were used in an early inoculation procedure."
















3. Dialing the gross-out factor back a bit, get a load of this: Two 19th century condoms found stuck between the pages of an 1857 newspaper. It's amazing what some folks will use as a bookmark. For all the dirty details, click here.

4. Alright, this one's pretty weird as well, but at least it didn't come encrusted in any ancient bodily fluids. (I hope.) It's a semi-oedipal note found in an Urbana, IL library book and forwarded to Found Magazine. Found has tons more like it on display here.


5. It's a fact. A customs official's day is never boring. Reuters identifies this reptilian treasure trove as, "a hollowed-out book containing two adult and two baby southern leaf tail geckos." And take a look at the little holes punched through the cover -- that's PETA approved!


6. And now a li'l something to take the edge off...
The caption reads, "Mechanical ingenuity of narcotic smugglers is constantly being tested in devising new methods of bringing their contraband goods safely into the country. The picture shows a Bible which has been hollowed out in the center to provide a hiding place for thousands of dollars worth of morphine and other opiates. The book was confiscated by Internal Revenue inspectors." Via.

Book News, In Brief

If you skimmed through Sunday's online book news, you'd have noticed two recurring themes. 1. BEA was BEAutiful! (Here, here, here and here.) 2. Motherf**k bathing suit season. (Here, here, here and here.)


There's a secret war being waged right now, and it's got nothing to do with North Korean nukes or borderline psychotic volunteer border patrolmen. It's the ebook pricing wars (and it's as boring as it sounds).


If you'd noticed a dip in the number of free books coming your store's way in the past few months, you're not alone. Hell, even the Lexus leasers at The LATimes are wondering, Where have all the galleys gone?


Last week we pointed y'all to the Tony Millionaire cover to Elvis Costello's new album, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. This week, we're pushing you towards GalleyCat's reworded press release for Iggy Pop's "literary album," Preliminaries.


Described as "a cheap and uplifting break from life" and an escape "into sweet and heartening stories of love and passion," romance novels are one of the few genres currently experiencing a sales boom. In related news, we've decided to hire some male strippers to work our events room on Wednesday nights. There will be no cover charge, but a two book minimum will be strictly enforced.

Recommended Viewing:Elmore Leonard on Charlie Rose

I dissed dude's new book here, but he's still one of my all-time favorites. Skip to the 33 minute mark, then enjoy.

Book News, In Brief

Haruki Murakami’s new novel, 1Q84, is already a hit in Japan, despite the fact that it's not being released until today, and that everything about book has been kept a secret except its enigmatic title.


Streisand stalkers take note: You may soon have the blueprints necessary for a successful home invasion. According to the AP, Babs "has reached an agreement with Viking for A Passion for Design, an illustrated book...that includes photos of the Malibu, Calif., oceanfront compound she worked on for more than five years, and of other residences, back to her early years in New York."


In an uncharacteristically generous move, the government of Afghanistan has provided its people with free, summer beach reads. The CTV.ca reports, "The Afghan government quietly dumped more than 1,000 Shiite Muslim texts and other books from Iran into a river after a local governor complained their content insulted the country's Sunni majority."


More Google Book Search b.s., this time from across the Atlantic. According to Bookseller.com, "EU ministers are today (28th May) expected to call for an investigation into whether Google has breached EU law. The German government has said that Google has 'stolen a march' on rival digital library projects with its Google Book Search." To read the whole piece, click here.

Comic Book News, In Brief(accompanied by an awkward bit of autobiographical over-sharing)

I first heard of Real Deal via the Beastie Boys' magazine, Grand Royal. After ordering a few issues and falling head-over-heels in love with its bizarre blend of blaxploitation and Gary Panter-esque art, I sent a ten question interview to the creators (artist Lawrence Hubbard and writer HP McElwee), hoping to run something about them in my fledgling fanzine. Not only did they respond tout de suite, they answered all of my questions in the angry, over-the-top voices of their crooked pimp characters. I was in heaven! This being the early-90's, though, I was apparently the only one enjoying such blatant badass-ery. The interview was met with a small handful of angry, feminist hate mail (ironically: mostly from men), immediately ranking it as the most popular thing I'd ever done!
Ah, but how time changes everything. It's now fifteen years later, and indie/arty comics publisher PictureBox is preparing to re-acquaint the world with Real Deal's hysterical brand of blaxploitation at this summer's MoCCA. They've even got an interview with Hubbard on their ComicsComics blog. (Sadly, McElwee died of a stroke and heart attack at age 43.)
I'm telling you, if you enjoy those old, 70's Pam Grier/Jim Brown/Fred Williamson flicks, or the Wayans brothers' spoof, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!, or the crime fiction of Chester Himes, or even the surreal comic stylings of Archbishop Don Magic Juan, you'll want to check out Real Deal.

Bonus! Comic Book News for those uptight, upright citizens uninterested in graphic storytelling in the urban milieu:

Sock Monkey & Maakies wunderkind, Tony Millionaire, provided the art for Elvis Costello's newest album, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. Enjoy it big, bold and up close here, or wait for the teeny, tiny, iTunes recreation come June 2nd.


Lists! We all love lists! They make order out of chaos and provide us with helpful shopping hints. Timothy Callahan, author of Grant Morrison: The Early Years, delivers a bit of both with his Top 5/Bottom 5: The Best & Worst of Grant Morrison.


Need a conversation starter for your next dinner soiree? Sacred comics cows get branded as barely B-grade beef when OregonLive.com negatively reviews A Drifting Life and The Hooded Utilitarian re-runs his unenthusiastic review of Fun Home.


You're invited to a house warming party...at Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel's place! The party takes place July 11 at the Cleveland, Ohio boyhood home of genius Jerry. The house was recently restored to its original appearance thanks to the generous donations of wealthy fans of classic comics.

30 Second Book Review

Road Dogs
by Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard is back, and he's brought three of his most popular characters with him. Out of Sight's super-cool criminal, Jack Foley, LaBrava's not-so-cool criminal, Cundo Rey, and Riding The Rap's wishy-washy psychic, Dawn Navarro, all return in this, the second most blatant Hollywood cash-in in Leonard's otherwise outstanding career. While not as lifeless as 1998's Get Shorty sequel, Be Cool, Road Dogs is nowhere near the effortless masterpiece that the aforementioned Out of Sight, LaBrava and Riding the Rap were. Why? Well, to me, Leonard's best moments are often those where nothing happens plot-wise and the characters are allowed to just riff endlessly. Unfortunately, this is the first of his books where it actually feels like nothing's happening and that the characters are riffing endlessly. Oh well, it's not like this is going to be Leonard's last book. The man has over 40 novels to his name. And it's not like this is a sign that his talent has left him, either. Leonard's last book, 2007's Up In Honey's Room, was one of his best yet.

One line pull-quote: Curious fans of the Jack Foley character might want to wait for the inevitable movie version.

Related: Today Is Elmore Leonard Day (I Hope You Remembered To Wear Your Gun)

Book News, In Brief

Manga publisher Viz will be "standardizing the pricing" on all of their titles later this year. Currently, their Shonen Jump titles are $7.99, while their Shojo Beat books are $8.99. By November, they'll all be $9.99.


From The Guardian UK: The fat years of the printed word are over. Even if books get dirt cheap, readers simply don't have the time or motive to invest in them. [...] There's been a loss of authority in the serious book. Masochistic? Click here for more.


Either my continued digs at NPR for being classist and condescending were completely misunderstood, or the Stephanie Meyer reverse-backlash has begun. Every Prius' pre-set radio station claims, Real Men Read (And Love) Twilight — Really.


Sad news for sales reps. Publishers Weekly reports: Ingram Marketing Group announced today that about half of respondents it surveyed are “open” to using e-catalogues instead of print catalogs. Click here to read the whole article. Online. Instead of on paper.


Print on demand website SharedBook.com has devoted a forum thread to the open discussion of Google's controversial Book Search. (And by discussion, they mean unfounded doomsday soothsaying, aggressive & anonymous self-aggrandizement, and naive regurgitations of the Long Tail theory. Fun!)


I've been talking a lot of poop about comic book cover art lately, so when I saw Every Day Is Like Wednesday's post about the much maligned cover to Marvel Divas #1, I felt a touch of blogger kinship. Their angle: Yes, it is completely unfair to judge a book by its cover. On the other hand, what's so unfair about judging a book cover by itself? Click here to read.

Cool Covers from Recent Releases:Sometimes Simple Says It All

Valkyrie by Von Boeselager, Fehrenbach and Fehrenbach.
B Is for Beer by Tom Robbins.















In Yer Face by Ismael Alvarez.
We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism by J. Derbyshire.















Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller.
High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler by Brian O'Dea.

Book News, In Brief is Back!(ain't nothing changed but my limp)

We've seen some pretty crummy looking books since we started dealing in used product, but none of them have come close to the crappy condition of this one.


Continued weak sales and after-tax charges have added to Borders' first quarter losses. Lest you think we're gloating, a confession: Our Memorial Day weekend sales could've been a little more memorable.


Fortune Magazine has compared the launch of Amazon's Kindle to Apple's launch of the iPhone. While the sales figures were staggering different (500k to 200 million), Fortune feels confident that Amazon is gonna clean up with the Kindle in the next few years. Via.


The Millions Book Blog recently compiled over a dozen movie trailers for a book club focusing on books that were made into films. This inspired in me a 'Bookselling For/To Dummies'-style idea: Using the trailers from film adaptations to sell the books that they were based upon.


Bookseller.com warns, "A decline in the amount of children's poetry being published has reached 'crisis point' according to Chris ­Holifield, director of the Poetry Book Society." This, despite the fact that nearly every Twittering/Facebooking/livejournaling poet's work could be considered childish...at best.


One last link, this one less book news than retail news. A recent poll found success rates as high as 83% for folks haggling for discounts. Note to our customers: Don't. Even. Think. About. It.

Author Event

Saturday, May 30, 4:00 PM
Cynthia Riggs
Death and Honesty
Author talk, Q&A, book signing, and complimentary refreshments.
In Death and Honesty, Victoria Trumbull, the ninety-two-year-old poet/sleuth, discovers a neighbor’s body in the home of one of the three town assessors. The assessors have been skimming off tax money from wealthy landowners and stashing it in their own special retirement funds. Then the private pilot of the not-so-holy clergyman husband of one of these landowners is found dead, floating in his employer’s pond, his face gnawed by snapping turtles. Finally, searching for old documents in the attic of Town Hall, Victoria discovers a third body, that of the long-missing assessors clerk. In order to tie all the threads together and solve the murders, Cynthia again teams up with her old friend and rival, Emery Meyer, now working as the landowner’s chauffeur.
It’s another entertaining mystery, as only Riggs can spin it, infused with the flora and fauna of Martha’s Vineyard.
Cynthia Riggs, a thirteenth-generation Islander, lives on Martha’s Vineyard in her family homestead, which she runs as a bed-and-breakfast catering to poets and writers. She has a degree in geology from Antioch College and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College, and she holds a U.S. Coast Guard Masters License (100-ton). Click here to visit Cynthia's website.

Posted by Inkwell Michelle

Vacationing Blogger Presents:Recycled Posts #5-14

To quote my-damned-self,

"When The Economy Needs Stimulating, Your Hard Earned Dollars Are The French Tickler!"

Gift Tips for the Bookish: the complete collection...thus far.

Live blogging returns tomorrow!

The Bookstore at Joshua Tree National Park

Okay, so this "bookstore" is actually just one wall in the park's gift shop/ticket center, but it did provide me with one priceless bit of information: In a small, print-on-demand book titled simply, Scorpions, I learned that there are no poisonous scorpions in the continental United States. This did wonders for my paranoia, allowing me to relax and enjoy my day in the desert. (It was only five hours later, when I returned to the gift shop/ticket center to take this photo, that I saw the book shelved beside it -- Mountain Lions. Needless to say, my paranoia returned.)

Vacationing Blogger Presents:Recycled Post #4

Note: While I'm away, I'll be re-running some of our more popular posts from the past few years. Today's is a tongue in cheek deadly serious editorial about tourists. This was originally written for the 4th of July, but it seems totally apt for Memorial Day Weekend, too.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
(cue: gunshot sound fx)
Originally posted on 7/2/7

It's the 4th of July weekend, and the tourists have arrived on Cape Cod en masse. Actually, it's the first of two 4th of July weekends, as this year America's birthday falls on a Wednesday, granting it a party that stretches out over an entire week, like Mardi Gras and/or the major holidays in the life of a child with divorced parents.

The pictures of the cars stuck in traffic coming over the Bourne Bridge are horrific no matter how you look at them. In light of current events, it brings to mind the cars abandoned on the highways of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. If you prefer to look at it through Hollywood's viewfinder, the sight resembles a George Romero film where the zombies had all learned to drive and are now heading to the Cape to eat the tanned flesh of the Kennedy kids. If you're a local, you simply swallow your vomit and try to look away.

I imagine the Wampanoags, the original inhabitants of the area, must have felt a similar feeling of woe when the Mayflower first came over the horizon. No longer were they autonomous humans with lives of their own, but complimentary, make-shift tourist bureaus, living solely to give detailed directions to their easily distracted, ADD-afflicted interlopers. I'm sure that the pilgrims had a lot of children who needed to go to the bathroom/have a glass of water/wanted to sit and read books for free with no intention of purchasing them, too. And they were guests, dammit, so why shouldn't they be allowed to? Is it documented anywhere whether the first words out of John Smith's poorly cared for mouth were "Do you have public restrooms?" or "Where's a cheap restaurant where I can get 5 star seafood?" Cuz I've got $5 riding on the first one and I'd really like to collect.

For a small business owner, the tourist season is (seppuku on) a double edged sword. Sure, the money is flowing (well, it was...pre-recession), but so is the unasked for criticism from folks who will most likely never return. Oh, you like espresso and think we should add a coffee shop to our bookstore? That is what you said, right? Because I could barely understand you as you stuffed your face with the complimentary coffee and cookies we laid out for *ahem* paying customers. You say your daughter self-published a novel about a girl who dreams of becoming a writer? Well, gosh darn it, why are we wasting our time planning Harry Potter events when we could be stocking up on print-on-demand books that there is absolutely no demand for? While I agree that having Alice Sebold, Michael Chabon and the cast from Grey's Anatomy in to do a group signing would be nice, I'm afraid that that has already happened. Last week. Sorry.

Another headache is the ludicrous expectations that many of these folks wash ashore with. In what bookstore, save one on the Harvard campus, would you be able to walk in and purchase a specific volume of untranslated 1970's Swedish psychology texts? And yet there are people walking in with requests as ridiculous as this every hour on the hour. You try to let them down easily, (a free cookie is a good way to start), but they will often take offense, as if you purposefully didn't have the book in stock just to make the writing of their thesis paper that much more of a challenge. What's worse is that they then tell you, "I'll try Borders," and then ask you for directions! I offer to tell them how to get to the Massachusetts border and leave it at that.

As strange as it sounds, I am actually able to take some small solace in the fact that the tourist season is still only beginning. Cuz come late July, all of the stuff that threatens to drive each and every one of us locals insane inevitably starts to seem less annoying and more a part of everyday life. The memories of traffic-free side roads fade away, as does the urge to treat crosswalks like checkered flags at the Indy 500. You actually begin to smile at customers -- are they still called customers if they're not buying anything? --when they yell at you and your staff for not allowing pets to roam the aisles unattended, as you know that the experience will provide fertile fodder for countless columns while bookstore blogging in the slower months. I don't have the proper psychology book handy (I think it's one from the 1970's), but I believe they call this Stockholm Syndrome.

Hmn...Stockhlom. Now there's a place I'd like to visit someday.

(The second photo is actually of Falmouth, England, but I thought it apt considering the secession celebrations currently taking place.)

Related: For a longer, funnier critique of local tourism, check out Marcia Monbleau's wonderful The Inevitable Guest: A Survival Guide to Being Company & Having Company on Cape Cod.

Los Feliz' Best Bookstore: Skylight Books

Located in the heart of Los Feliz, CA, Skylight Books is the indie bookstore all other indie bookstores oughta look to for innovative inspiration. The layout is slightly off-center yet easy to navigate. The staff is helpful, but not intrusive. Endcap displays feature quirky themes and unexpected pairings. Author appearances are staged in such a way that they feel like exciting events rather than stuffy sales pitches. Most importantly, Skylight is stocked to the ceiling beams with books -- great books -- the sort of selection that can only be curated by a staff of rabid readers.
The only reason I can think of to hate them? Jealousy. In this crappy financial climate, they're doing so well that they recently opened a second store (next door) featuring a mouth-watering array of comics, art books and magazines.

To visit their blog, click here.

Vacationing Blogger Presents:Recycled Post #3

Note: While I'm away, I'll be re-running some of our more popular posts from the past few years. Today's is a classic, caustic editorial about Banned Books Week. This one got us a lot of online attention when it first ran. Well, for a day, anyway.

We Sell 'Banned Books'
(but only after the ban is over)
(and only if it's politically correct to do so)
Originally posted 10/2/7

Banned Book Week is the book industry's annual celebration of their own self-satisfaction and self-importance. Bookstores everywhere (including us) hang signs in their windows and around their stores boasting that THEY. SELL. BANNED. BOOKS. They get a write up in the local paper, place little white cards around their store, blog about it, and for what? To make themselves feel progressive and important. But of all the books that they are so 'bravely' selling, how many have been considered 'dangerous' in the past ten years? How many have been banned in a marginally enlightened society in the past twenty years? None. Ooh...you sell Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huck Finn. How cutting edge! That really sticks it to The Man. Are you serious? I bet you Bill O'Reilly wouldn't even say anything bad about freakin' Huck Finn. But how many copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook does your store have on hand? Or Mein Kampf? Or the Tin Tin in the Congo book featuring offensive racial caricatures that Little, Brown recently decided against publishing? There are import editions available from a variety of distributors. If you're truly against censorship -- and not just the antiquated/outdated examples of censorship -- shouldn't you be carrying such a book? I'm not suggesting that bookstores start a 'Hate' section, but if you want to crow about your unadulterated selections, you'd better not be playing the behind-the-scenes censor with your own stock. To do so is hypocritical. Free speech is the right of everyone. Providing unencumbered access to the literary works created under the auspices of free speech (all of 'em -- not just the ones we agree with or approve of) is our business. Bookstores shouldn't have to rally around themselves once a year to proclaim that they hate censorship and the banning of books. Such a concept should be an integral part of every book store, library and reading room. It should go without saying, really.

Related:
Best Damn Creative Writing Blog's Top 10 Books Americans Want Banned

Vacationing Blogger Presents:Recycled Post #1

Note: While I'm away, I'll be re-running some of our more popular posts from the past few years. Today's is a tongue-in-cheek editorial about writing in one's books. This one garnered a surprising amount of hate mail when it was run on The Hipster Book Club's Facebook page. Here's hoping it still rakes in the click-throughs.

Marginal Graffiti
Originally posted on 8/28/7

Are you the sort of reader who jots notes in the margins of the books that you're reading? Do you underline passages that hit a raw nerve, or witty one liners that you plan to wow your co-workers with at the next office party? Have you ever written something totally unrelated -- say, a phone number or grocery list -- in a book, simply to avoid getting up from the comfortable position you're sitting in?
If so, stand tall. You've nothing to be ashamed of.
Unlike those folks who only open their books partway so as to avoid creasing the binding, you're actually enjoying your reading experience. Hell, you've taken it to the next level, making it an interactive activity. What's more, you've proven yourself to be such an avid reader that while loving and respecting literature, you've also made it into a natural extension of yourself. Think of it this way: you write stuff down on the back of your hand all of the time, don't you? The fact that you're able to draw quick police sketches of shady individuals on the inside cover of your airport read only proves that you are books and books are you.
So to hell with the haters who scoff at scuffed bindings and your corner-of-the-page flip book adaptations. They've never experienced the joy of picking up an old paperback, only to find the pin number to a long lost checking account with fourteen dollars plus interest accrued. Nor have they ever tasted their own vomit after opening up an old book of poetry and seeing their freshman year knockoffs iambic pentametered in the blank spaces.
Sure, you'll never be able to sell (or even give away) your unwanted books for fear of the cringe-worthy secrets that you wrote in the margins seeing the light of day, but honestly, is there really such a thing as an unwanted book? When I look around my dusty old mansion, piled from floor to ceiling with books that might benefit needy schoolchildren, I remind myself that once a book has been vandalized...er, personalized, it's a part of me. As such, the inevitable donation and/or disposal of my ballpoint battered books will be handled under the same stipulation with which I have agreed to donate my organs.
Only after I'm dead.


(For my preferred crematorium and a map to the spot where I'd like my ashes scattered, see the margin of page 152 of my copy of Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder.)

Boston's Best Comic Book Shop: Comicopia

The first bookstore I visited on my vacation was Boston's own Comicopia. In fact, I was so desperate to go there that I paid an extra $15 cab fare just so's I could pop in on the way to the airport. No hyperbole: There is no store in MA with a better selection of trade paperbacks and/or graphic novels. Superhero, indie, arty -- you name it, they've got it. Sure, the staff talks on the phone while they ring you up, but with a well-organized, well-stocked shop like this, etiquette is unimportant.

(As my camera was packed safely away, the photo used here was swiped from Boston.com. For a few more shots of the shop, click here.)

Inkwell Michelle's 30 Second Book Review

The Last Dickens
by Matthew Pearl
Pearl plunges the reader into the world of 1870, skillfully blending historical fact and literary fiction into a riveting tale about Charles Dickens’ unfinished last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Drawing on original letters and newspapers, Pearl recounts the extraordinary celebrity of Dickens during his speaking tour of America, at a time when hundreds would line up overnight, enduring freezing temperatures in the hopes of obtaining tickets to his sold out shows.
The mystery begins when the seedy underworld of the opium trade washes ashore in Boston Harbor with tragic results. Daniel Sands, a young apprentice for publisher Fields, Osgood, & Co., is killed while on an errand to pick up the coveted manuscript of Dickens’ last serial installment of Drood.
Daniel’s mentor, James Osgood (of the aforementioned Fields, Osgood, & Co.) is disbelieving of the police’s insinuation that Daniel was involved with opium. In an effort to unravel the mystery, Osgood and Daniel’s sister Rebecca set sail for London to investigate the recently deceased Dickens’ papers. They hope the answers to Daniel’s death might lie in the missing ending to Drood.
Intelligent and fun, The Last Dickens is chock full of insights into the history of publishing, the politics of opium, and the trials and triumphs of literary genius.
Pearl has garnered acclaim for his previous books, The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow. His well-researched literary mysteries are thoroughly enjoyable, and particularly appealing to avid readers. They are literally literary. His titles say it all.

Road Trip!

I'll be on vacation for the next nine days. In the interim, I'll be posting pictures of random bookstores I encounter in my travels*, as well as re-running some of our more popular posts from the past three years. Regular updates will resume 5/27.

*So if you see a disheveled ne'er-do-well taking pictures of your shop, please don't call it in as a terrorist threat. It's just me, stealing your bookstore's best ideas.

Amazon Supplier Splits, Chaos Ensues

From The Daily Mail UK:

The treasure hunters stand knee-deep in Danielle Steels, Len Deightons and Jeffrey Archers, hoping to find more exotic literary fare.

This is the scene at a huge book warehouse whose contents are being given away after they were abandoned.

Strewn across the floor are thousands of volumes. Many are a little dog-eared or have yellowing pages. But since they are free, who's complaining?

Bibliophiles have travelled from far and wide to the old Bookbarn site on an industrial estate in Brislington, Bristol.

Yesterday, Porsches and BMWs were parked alongside vans outside as the scavengers carried out their finds in crates and on trolleys.

In an endearing display of how the British love the offer of something for nothing, someone had even come with a small trailer on the back of his car. Others were seen stacking books in prams.

To finish this article, click here.

(Thanks to Novel of Life for the heads-up!)