The Cambridge Book Fair is this Friday and Saturday, 22nd and 23rd February, at the Guild Hall in Cambridge. I have been agonising over whether to go along this year, after the amount of money that I ended up spending there last year. It was a really good fair last year with a lot of dealers, although space was tight. There was an excellent selection of old and rare books and I found a number of first editions that I had been looking for. My small collection grew considerably that day.I managed to get not only the Enid Blyton firsts I had been wanting, but also, by chance, a very nice first UK edition of ‘The Naked Lunch’ by William Burroughs.
I have been provided with complimentary tickets by Peakirk Books so I really have no reasonable excuses, except the travel into Cambridge from here (about 20miles), and is that a reasonable excuse.
Surely I should be able to exhibit sufficient self control to just go and look around without having to spend copious amounts of money. I should be, but I am not sure that I am.
Anyway, my question to you all is ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ Leave a comment.
Julian Froment's Blog 
Go for it.
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You should go! Life is short, enjoy!!!! 🙂
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Go but leave your credit card and cash at home. Just bring as much as you can spend. That’s how I go to the casinos and I usually end up selling articles of my clothing at ridiculously low prices when I run out of that…so also just make sure not to wear your favorite pair of Manolos.
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I am new to your blog, but I say go. I share your form of mental illness and with less excuse – my life leaves me with very little time for reading fiction. I own about a thousand books, of which I have barely read 10%, and I want more, more, more. I am comforted that one of my heroes and favorite authors, Marilyn Robinson, has the same problem. But I say go because owning books is not a pernicious vice as other habits may be, and ultimately may be healthful. On the other hand, you are wise only to take as much money as you can genuinely afford.
I can recommend authors if you want further temptation…..American ones, mainly.
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Any author recommendations are always gratefully received. I will generally read anything by anyone and am always open to reading new authors.
It seems all the comments I have received have urged me to go to the book fair however I have to confess that I didn’t dare risk it in the end. There will no doubt be others that I will attend in the near future though.
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Well my favorite living author is Marilynn Robinson (American but she taught for a while at Oxford) and then Leif Enger, another American. My personal priorities are to read more Dickens, particularly Bleak House appeals, and I am told the Canadian mystery writer, Louise Penney, is excellent – that is my wife’s recommendation but she has pretty flawless taste.
ttfn
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Thanks for the recommendations. I will have to check them out when I get chance. I have read a reasonable amount of Dickens but there is still plenty for me to read, something I would also like to do. I have read Bleak House though and can thoroughly recommend it to you.
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