My Favourite 'Book Place' in Lewisham

Books are great; as a child some of my very best friends were books (not that I didn't have real friends but, you know what I mean) and there are still some dog-eared books on my shelves that I'll never get rid of because... I feel like I owe them a bit more than that.

All the other books though...

One of my first jobs, when we moved to London, was to go into the homes of the recently deceased and sift through their belongings, looking for information on next of kin and how they could be contacted. Seriously, it is a job that people do.
One thing I realised, fairly recently, is that I don't want to be the book equivalent of the dead guy who we found had filled his house full of thousands upon thousands of biros. I'm also getting to a point now where if I'm never going to go back to a book then it needs to go somewhere it will feel appreciated again. It's only fair after all.

A lot of books are leaving the house then and I wanted to show you where they're all going, just because I think it's a great idea and more people should do stuff like this.
I take a ten minute walk up the hill, from my house, and leave my old books here...

Yep, it's the 'micro-library' I've mentioned here a couple of times. It operates a 'take a book, leave one behind' policy which I've turned into a 'take one occasionally, leave thirty or forty books behind whenever I happen to be passing'; I'm sure they don't mind. I know I used to donate my books to charity and I do feel a little guilty that I'm not doing that now. There's something really cool though about a community coming together and sharing their books via an old phone box that would have been removed. Like I said, it would be great if we could see more of this happening.

I dropped some books off last night and this was what I was greeted with when I opened the door,

Maybe not the most inspiring sight for a fan of SFF fiction but funnily enough, that's what I like most about this phone box full of books - you never know what you will find until you pay it a visit. I went a few weeks ago and someone had filled an entire shelf full of old crime books; there were comics to be had a few weeks before that. While I'll always know what to expect from a bookshop (and that's not a bad thing) there's something a little magical about stepping into this phone box and not knowing what you will find once you are there. If it comes down to it, I know which side I'd choose.

That's me then, other than to say that there are some good books, waiting in the micro-library, for someone just like you you to pass by. I should know, I left loads there last night. If you pick one up, happy reading :o)