Pulps & Paperbacks Book Fair, 31 October
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
London's best book event, bar none, is the discreet & magnificent Pulps & Paperbacks Book Fair, now in its 21st year.
It is held annually in the basement of a hotel in Victoria - one mid-sized conference room, packed with dealers and their wares.
It excels in pretty much every definable way...
Cheap: £3 to get in (about a tenth of the cross-town MCM, and without the queue) and the majority of the goods on sale are for under £5. One dealer brings thousands of books, every year, and sells them each for a pound. Of course, if you're looking to spend some real money, the opportunity is there...
Friendly: Everyone knows everyone - dealer & buyer alike. This is a hobbyist crowd, that gives the impression of swapping books back and forth more than circulating them broadly. Everyone is happy to chat and share trivia about esoteric tomes and infamous pseudonyms.
Hob-nobbing: Stephen Jones, Rebecca Levene, Les Edwards... people that know & love pulps and paperbacks, all rolling up their sleeves and mixing it up with the hoi polloi. (Stephen Jones: "If you buy that copy of Chronicles of Conan, I'll sign it for you." Jared: "Are you Robert Howard?")
Crowds: Nope. You may have to wait your turn for a particularly inviting box of goodies, but there are no queues at all. Kind of a shame, but, then, everyone seems to be having such a lovely time - I almost feel guilty telling the world...
Serendipity: Every year, bar none, I wander home with something marvellous. One year, a collection of signed Badger paperbacks from the legendary Lionel Fanthorpe. The next, some battered Weird Tales with the original Lovecraft stories (no covers - sure, but all of the creepy interior illustrations intact). This year was no exception: scoring a tall stack of John D. MacDonald hardbacks. Mint? No. Dust jackets? No. Mine? Oh yes. [Although, as Anne points out, under California law, she gets half - and has claimed all the odd-numbered pages]
Annually, this is the event I look forward to more than any other. I'm sorry you probably missed it, but, don't worry, I bought enough for all of us...