Baggins Book Bazaar
I come from a generation whose primary source of entertainment was not TV, video games or the internet. It was instead reading books. As a child, if I were to ever go on a lengthy car journey, the go to form of in car entertainment would be to bring a book. I don’t want to cover old ground, as I have written about this in the past but I cannot stress how important the local library was during the seventies. Not just for me but my entire family. We would all go, take out multiple books and read them over the following weeks until we had to return them. Books, were a feature of our home and those of my peers. When we finally sold my parents home a few years ago, the most notable and striking aspect of the house clearance was filling 16 substantial boxes with books and trying to find a suitable charitable outlet to take them. Both my parents collections of books, built up over a lifetime. It was a striking statement upon the significance of books in the past and how they are considered nowadays.
I come from a generation whose primary source of entertainment was not TV, video games or the internet. It was instead reading books. As a child, if I were to ever go on a lengthy car journey, the go to form of in car entertainment would be to bring a book. I don’t want to cover old ground, as I have written about this in the past but I cannot stress how important the local library was during the seventies. Not just for me but my entire family. We would all go, take out multiple books and read them over the following weeks until we had to return them. Books, were a feature of our home and those of my peers. When we finally sold my parents home a few years ago, the most notable and striking aspect of the house clearance was filling 16 substantial boxes with books and trying to find a suitable charitable outlet to take them. Both my parents collections of books, built up over a lifetime. It was a striking statement upon the significance of books in the past and how they are considered nowadays.
Hence it should be clear to the causal reader of this post, that I have a strong, emotional, psychological and cultural affinity with the printed word. A book is more than just a collection of bound pages that hold information or a tale. It allows a writer from two thousand years ago to step directly into your internal monologue today. Books are a text based rebellion against entropy as they strive to give some semblance of permanence to ideas and thoughts. They are a physical manifestation of human consciousness. Furthermore, there is pleasure to be had in holding books. From the feel of ageing leather binding and the smell of yellowing pages in old volumes, to the crisp clean edges of a new paperback. Each books has its own personality based on its physicality. Then there is the thrill of book collecting and finding a hidden treasure in a back street, second hand bookshop. Books are indeed far more than the sum of their parts.
It was with all this in mind, I recently had the pleasure of visiting Baggins Book Bazaar in Rochester, Kent. Allegedly the UK’s biggest second hand bookshop. Found at the North end of Rochester High Street, the shop front belies the labyrinth of shelves found inside, that run throughout the entire length of this Grade II listed building. The two story Georgian structure is home to over half a million books and although there is a semblance of order to the way the shelves are categorised, there is still a delightful hint of chaos. Far from being a negative point, it is a positive boon. Baggins is a place you go to browse, peruse and survey. To amble down narrow isles scanning the shelves for anything that takes your fancy or sounds enigmatic. A place to briefly escape from the trials and tribulations of the world and immerse yourself in books. Be it a “Guide to Camping in Kent”, written in the late fifties, “Olsen’s Standard Book of British Birds” (expurgated version) or a “Pictorial History of Cheese Making in the UK”, second edition.
Baggins only has a small percentage of its stock catalogued and that tends to be housed in the front of the shop. As you walk further towards the back of the building the shelves are labelled in simple terms such as Archaeology, Hardback Fiction and Sports. There is also a collection of sheet music. Upstairs there is an extensive supply of paperbacks that are broadly broken down in to fiction, science fiction and fantasy. Hidden away in a corner of the ground floor at the very back of Baggins there is a treasure trove of children’s annuals. The layout may initially strike as somewhat erratic but after a few visits the reasoning behind it begins to stick. The prices are fair and reasonable, ranging from a few pounds for an old paperback to between £5 and £10 for hardback reference books. More valuable volumes are among those catalogued and are kept at the front of the store or under glass. The condition of books obviously vary but Baggins doesn’t sell anything in demonstrably poor condition.
Baggins is well lit, so despite some of the isles being a little cramped and the shelves somewhat stacked, higgledy-piggledy, you can still clearly see what available. If you’re trying to find something specific, then it is best to ask the staff but if you just want to meander around the store and see what you’ll find, you’re in for a treat. I found a delightful pre-war edition of the Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes. Similarly if you want an old school, leather bound volume of Dickens works or Shakespeare, then Baggins has them. There are also some enjoyable pop culture obscurities such as Tucker’s Luck Annual 1984. On a previous expedition, I found half a dozen paperbacks from The Destroyer series, which were the basis for the 1985 action film, Remo Williams The Adventure Begins. This time round I found several Dennis Wheatley novels and a copy of The Island by Peter Benchley. There was also a rather substantial volume about the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini.
I have read some reviews of Baggins Book Bazaar on Tripadvisor and someone stated that the layout of the shop needed modernising and the entire establishment would benefit from being coherently indexed. I can’t help but think that whoever left that comment had fundamentally missed the point of the store. Baggins Book Bazaar is more than just a second hand book store. It is a metaphorical shrine to the love of books themselves and the associated culture that goes hand-in-hand with them. If you want to simply buy a copy of Pride and Prejudice then go to Waterstones. However, if you want to immerse yourself in the magic of the printed word and remind yourself of a time when all the answers that you ever needed to know could be found in books, then Baggins Book Bazaar is the place for you. You can spend an hour or so perusing the shelves, pick up a copy of The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, then enjoy reading it while sitting in one of the many interesting restaurants or pubs that are within strolling distance of the shop.
I come from a generation whose primary source of entertainment was not TV, video games or the internet. It was instead reading books. As a child, if I were to ever go on a lengthy car journey, the go to form of in car entertainment would be to bring a book. I don’t want to cover old ground, as I have written about this in the past but I cannot stress how important the local library was during the seventies. Not just for me but my entire family. We would all go, take out multiple books and read them over the following weeks until we had to return them. Books, were a feature of our home and those of my peers. When we finally sold my parents home a few years ago, the most notable and striking aspect of the house clearance was filling 16 substantial boxes with books and trying to find a suitable charitable outlet to take them. Both my parents collections of books, built up over a lifetime. It was a striking statement upon the significance of books in the past and how they are considered nowadays.