The Long View

Where is one so weak as in a bookstore? — a theme of a blog posting last year. I’m in Oxford presenting a paper at a global health conference at Mansfield College. Arriving a day early (on purpose) I spent the day wandering the streets and browsing in bookstores. Books and Oxford have been closely associated since the early Middle Ages when there was a priory here on what is now Christ Church College and Cathedral (if you’ve seen Harry Potter, you’ve seen Christ Church).   Oxford’s Bodleian Library has a world renowned manuscript and rare books collection (many of which arrived as the donations of bibliomanes).

Two treats for lovers of used or discounted books fall at opposite ends of the spectrum: Waterfield’s Antiquarian Booksellers and  Blackwell’s.

• Blackwell’s is the macrocosm to Waterfield’s microcosm.  With more levels than a Dantean cosmography (and in much of it today, with unusually hot weather, most of the floors felt more Infernal than Paradisal), so that even its basement level has multiple levels, Blackwell’s includes a rare books section (where I peeked but did not venture since books are locked behind glass doors), a used books section (where I was weak, buying Helen Waddell’s Medieval Latin Lyrics), remaindered books (where I was also weak, buying in clothbound version Eamon Duffy’s Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570, which is published by Yale UP, just an hour from my home . . . oh well), and new books. The store occupies several store fronts along Broad Street near the Bodleian Library. Up the street on one corner is Blackwell’s art and poster store. Across the street on another corner is their music store, which includes recordings (audio and video) and scores. Here I found a three CD set, The Complete Flanders and Swann (unavailable in the US or on iTunes), a score of Monteverdi’s Vespro Della Beata Vergine (coming up on its 400th anniversary and with which I have been besotted for about the last 30 of those years), and some recorder scores, including duets that I will try to coax Arthur Engler into trying with me.  
• The microcosm is Waterfield’s at 52 High Street. If Blackwell’s has at least one instance of virtually any book, Waterfield’s has a collection chosen with lapidary care, while the books are organized and displayed with equally refined taste. Because Waterfield’s specializes in humanities (history, literature, philosophy, theology), they won’t have everything you can imagine, but they will have something that will at least give you pause to ask: How have I lived without this book in my library?