Books, books and more books.

Agnieszka and Kay arrived at 10.30am on Saturday morning, partook of a cup of tea and wandered among the splendour of the stalls for four hours. Agnieszka gave helpful consideration to what might happen to the books should the chandelier not be suitably secured to the ceiling. We were distracted from these dire concerns by editions of James Joyce old and new: an early Ulysses available from John and Judith Head in Salisbury and a newly-issued special edition of Finnegan's Wake, (below), available from Maggs Rare Books in London. 

We declared the Ulysses from John and Judith Head our favourite book history of the day:

Detail: "1st London ed., Ltd to 2000 copies of which 500 were destroyed on arrival in the USA by Customs." For more on the fascinating background to this scarce edition, and the peculiar history of another copy, you can have a look at this Observer article from October 2002. We'd like to point out the 2009 West Port programme Agnieszka is holding as proof of our good intentions for the day.

Another hard-to-find title which caught our eye was this colourful copy of The Miracles of Our Lord by Noel Humphreys from 1848 and sold by Janette Ray in York, captured inexpertly by Kay's phone camera. It's heavier than it looks; the boards are made of paper-mâché and are about half an inch thick! Wonderful chromolithographic detail throughout - a rare treat to see this up close.

The next book we spotted couldn't have been any more different - this cheeky children's book from Ken Spelman, also from York and exhibiting at the York Book Fair in September, who suggested we should cheer up our programme design and make people smile. What do you think - is our 2009 programme too glum?!

Kay and Agnieszka stopped by the stalls of the Old Town Bookshop and Peter Bell Books, two West Port Bookshops who had stalls at the fair and were therefore representing the glory of West Port. Although Old Town Books isn't technically in West Port, spiritually it belongs, or at least has done every since Ron kindly described himself as 'an ageless hippy.' However, we made the mistake of wandering in that direction during lunchtime, and so missed the proprietors, but did stop to take a look at their stock.

This is just a small selection of the many fantastic, ancient and downright strange titles we saw at the fair, such as Clive A. Burden's selection of antiquarian maps, one nearly as tall as the customer having a look. Inevitably, we didn't leave empty handed: somehow managing to decide between the many tempting titles on offer, Agnieszka bought a lovely Milan Kundera and Kay purchased In Praise of Darkness by Jorge Luis Borges. Kay found an essay detailing myths on the origin of fire by Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, from local bookseller Jay Books.

Hannah and Andrew arrived just in time to take in the last few hours of the fair. Hannah picked up a terrific novel in woodcuts from the 1930s. Who needs modern graphic novels? Andrew bought a book of essay on biology: 'The Viper on Expoor' sounds like a who dunnit but it sadly moves into genetics after that. Hannah and Andrew said 'hello' to Old Town Books and Peter Bell Books, still representing the glory of West Port.

Hannah filled us in on the last hour later, as the clock headed towards closing time:

"Enjoyed the fair and the preponderance of creased brown: and that's just the booksellers. Got thrown out at 5pm as a rotund bookseller gleefully tried to shuffle fellow bibliophiles to the pub."