Charity Shop Book Haul: More Cheap Books From the Charity Shop That Keeps on Giving

Another day, another charity shop trek to find cheap books.

I ended up at the charity shop that has the special offer of five books for a pound sale.  This is what I bought this time.

1) Pause by Daniella Marchant. How to press pause before life does it for you.  Has a 3.79 rating on Goodreads.

2) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.  Has a 3.73 rating on Goodreads. I don't really buy all this Law of Attraction stuff, but I thought that given how it cost twenty pence, I would finally read the book. It also has something to do with a pair of boots I found recently.

3) Happy by Derren Brown.  Has a 4.06 rating on Goodreads.  I see a trend here.  Three self-help type books in a row.  Interesting.

4) The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes.  Has a 3.78 rating on Goodreads. I like sport, so for 20 pence this was an easy pick.  We will see.

5) A field Full of Butterflies — Memories of a Romany Childhood, by Rosemary Penfold.  Has a 3.67 rating on Goodreads. The lowest Goodreads rating here. Having written a memoir myself, (well, the only book I've written) it is a genre that I like, a real life story. 

So, plenty more to read and all five for a pound.  

The Bestselling Books of 2023 (So Far)

Here are the bestselling print books for the first half of 2023 released by Publishers Weekly.  It does not include audiobooks or e-books. 

Perhaps not surprisingly the top spot is taken by Prince Harry with Spare, 1,179,379 books sold.

Colleen Hoover has seven books in the top 20 with almost four million in sales.

 For the full list, go to Publishers Weekly.

Going For a Walk, and the Satisfaction of Picking Blackberries

I'm fortunate in that there is a local park just across the road from where I live.  It is a country park where you are invited by the local council to walk through woodland, grassland, wildflower meadows and open water. It's home to many varieties of birds, where the ducks, geese, and swans will come and greet you in the expectation that you might feed them. A local canal and river also runs through the park.

 

There is something else about this time of year on the park. It is fantastic for blackberry picking. From around July to the end of August there is a feast to be had, if you like blackberries that is. I do, as a healthy option for breakfast or in a smoothie, and they are free. They are just starting to ripen now, although the full on black ones are still hard to find, every day there are more and more. 

That Friday Feeling… A Journey back in time to 1966, 1968 and 1970

Here are three things that we may never see again.

1) A pay packet with actual money in it (but, in this case, not much money). So low, that they paid no income tax.

2) England winning the World Cup.

The 1966 World Cup, at Wembley Stadium.

By a score of four goals to two. It is a scoreline that every English football fan remembers. Alas, it will never happen again, as West Germany no longer exists. Now, England have to play the whole of Germany.

3) House prices this low (I think this one is a certainty).

There was a time when five grand could buy you a house in Britain. Semi-detached as well, with gardens, front, and back — and a garage.

And they were still being built with a chimney!

But I suppose how low pay was for some — see number one, five grand would have been a lot back then.

These Boots Are Made For Walking... Something Wild and the Law of Attraction — Part two

A few days after I found my “new” walking boots, I was searching my book collection for something to read. I say ‘collection’; it’s not that large, perhaps two to three hundred books. They are the ones that have survived the years. Books that I have read, or am unlikely to read, I often give to charity shops.

Books can take up a lot of space.

When I was a young boy, a neighbour of mine had a large book collection, all in book cases that covered the walls of their house. They could have opened a bookshop. I wondered if I would ever have the same — not a bookshop, but a house with a room or a study with lots of books.

The answer has turned out to be no. The books I have are housed in different places, some on show, some stored away. Truth is, they are often neglected, but just occasionally, I would remember to pick one to read.

This time I settled for one that had been sitting in a pile of books, hidden away for so long they were gathering dust. It was in used condition, probably picked up at a charity shop or a car boot sale. It was a book that I had looked at many times and put down, never quite being in the mood to read it.

It was a book by the author Cheryl Strayed called Wild.

Part memoir and part travel adventure, it tells of her journey to walk the Pacific Coast Trail. I thought, It’s about time I read this, or at least a few chapters, to see if it is worth reading. I enjoy reading books by people who have faced a major challenge in life and done something different. The risk of adventure, taking a chance, the not knowing of what will happen next, and the trust that you have to believe that everything will turn out alright.

I settled down to read the book.

It begins with a prologue, something that you don’t see that often in books these days. A few pages long, but it stood out straight away. A prologue is written with the intention of telling part of the story that pulls the reader in.

A cliffhanger, so to speak.

Wild recalls a story of how she loses one of her walking boots over a cliff edge. In frustration, she then throws the other one away. The Pacific Coast walk is a long one, and with both boots gone, you are drawn into the story to see how she coped walking barefoot, or did she? I would have to read on to find out.

A cliffhanger in more ways than one.

But as I read the prologue, I also realised that of all the books I could have selected to read, I had picked one that, in the first pages, writes of a lost pair of boots.

Having just found a pair of walking boots that looked like they had been thrown away, I couldn’t help but think how strange life can be.

 

 

Edited and updated, June 2026.

These Boots Are Made For Walking…and The Law of Attraction — Part One

 

About a month ago, I was out walking when a thought came to me that I really needed a new pair of walking boots. My old walking boots, more of a walking shoe really, had seen better days. The sole was beginning to show wear and tear, damaged from years of pounding the pavements and walking country paths.

I had put in the mileage on my footwear, and it was time for a new pair.

But I knew that a new pair of walking boots would not be cheap. A good quality walking boot, with a decent hard-wearing sole, is always likely to be expensive. The cheaper ones with softer tread on the sole never last that long. Over the years, I have had many, and they tend not to last. I must be a heavy walker. I certainly walk fast, which apparently is good for you but not so good for the boots.

The cheaper boots often look good, but as the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and I do like a bargain. Not so easy in these days with the rising cost of living. Mind you, I’ve always lived a fairly frugal life, and when it comes to footwear, I’ve usually managed to find a bargain—eventually. Typically, from a charity shop or a car boot sale (flea market in the USA), but I couldn’t rely on that happening this time.

Would my old walking boots endure until I found a bargain? The need for a new pair of boots was definitely on my mind.

And then something strange happened. Really strange.

A week or so later, I was on a trek to an appointment I had to keep. I had made the four-mile journey many times and could take several routes. In the end, I chose a route but then changed my mind when I was halfway there. A little further on I changed my mind again, deciding to take a scenic walk through open fields, finally reaching a road that I had not walked for many years.

It was there that I had my out-of-the-ordinary, strange experience.

I approached a bend in the road, and there on the grass verge was a pair of walking boots just lying there. They were about eight feet apart as if they had been thrown from a passing car. I picked them up expecting them to be worn down, tatty, old, and falling apart. That wasn’t the case. In fact, they seemed as good as new, just a little dusty. It was the kind of dust that boots pick up on a building site. They were in far better condition than the boots I was wearing.

I decided to take them with me. I would decide what to do with them after my appointment.

Meeting over, I walked home via a different route. On the way, I found a bench to sit on and decided to check out the boots. They were a good make, The North Face, and were in excellent condition. They didn’t even look as if they had been worn before. I put them on, not expecting them to fit, but remarkably, they were exactly my size. I walked the rest of the way home in them, about three miles.

They were the most comfortable walking boots that I had ever worn.

I later checked to find out how much they would have cost new. The price range for similar boots was around £100. I knew they were good quality, as the sole was of a harder tread. The type of boot that would last years.

It was as if they had been left in the road just for me.

As the saying goes, I had got lucky in my find, but perhaps it was something more.

 

 

 

Edited and updated, June 2026. 

Book Review: Gone Fishing: "What's Your Tomato?"

The first thing to say about this book is that you do not need to like fishing or be interested in the sport of fishing to read it.  As you would expect from the title it is about fishing, but it is actually more about the two men doing the fishing, the British comedians and comedy actors, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse. 

It is as much about them as it is fishing.  

They share something in common in that they both faced a serious heart health issue. Whitehouse had three stents put in, while Mortimer had a triple bypass.  The book, and the BBC TV show that has now been running for five series, is about their friendship and Life, both before and after having been close to death.  

They are both in their sixties now, an age I know something about. They are perhaps aware that they may be on, as the saying goes, borrowed time, and so they are making the most of it.  Fishing has become a big part of that for them, and I suppose they are fortunate in that they have been able to make the TV series as a job of work.  In five series, they have travelled around the UK and occasionally overseas to fish and ponder life.

Both still have a child-like approach to life, especially Mortimer.  Working in comedy has probably given them the chance to never grow up or be overtaken by the seriousness of life.  Whitehouse is very serious about fishing and its history, and this comes out in the book. While it is an easy read, it does go through the history, traditions and technical side of fishing.  Those chapters are written by Whitehouse, who has been a lifelong fisherman.  His knowledge comes to the fore, while Mortimer is like the apprentice, taking it all in.  

Except that Bob doesn't always take in what he is being told. 

You can see this quite often in the TV series as Whitehouse shows frustration with his apprentice.  “Don't wind” as in winding the caught fish in, can frequently be heard from Whitehouse.  There is an art and technique to landing a fish, and overuse of winding the rod to pull the fish in is not part of it.  Mortimer is always caught winding, his innocent reply is always “I'm not winding” with a cheeky grin on his face. The fish regularly escapes as Whitehouse holds back his disappointment. I'm tempted to say anger, but they remain mates.  Bob is like a child at heart.

So, if it's your thing read the book, but if you don't, you can watch some episodes of the TV series as they are on YouTube.  If you like TV with scenery, a nice view, travel to different places, it's wonderful, calming, and funny.  Funny as in silly.  As Mortimer asks, what's the tomato in your life?  I suppose we all have a tomato in our life, or perhaps we are still looking for it.

 

 

 

Image by She is gone from Pixabay

Going For a Walk: It's Cold Out There.

                                                       

It's almost the weekend, and the weather forecast for much of the UK is indicating a mini heatwave for much of the country.  Various weather warnings have been issued, including the possibility of flash floods.  It will be a bit windy as well. 

The British weather, it's just something we like to talk about. 

Well, recently I have been making an effort to get up early and go for a morning walk. I'm an early bird anyway, but now it's around six in the morning that I am up by, an hour earlier than before.  I'm trying to make it a habit, getting out early, some exercise, the world is just a very different place at that time.  It's still mostly peaceful and quiet.

I've also noticed something else.  It's cold.  It's a brisk type of coldness that defies the fact that we are now in June, summer is here, at least according to the Met Office. The Meteorological summer, that is.  

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/summer/when-does-summer-start

As I write this it is early afternoon, still windy, but the sun has now broken through.  This morning I was out wearing a heavy coat, now it's t-shirt time.  I had a theory that our four seasons in the UK had moved on by about a month, each one starting later.  

There again it might just be that I'm getting older and that I just happen to notice the cold more.

 

The Writer's Life: Lives on the Page - The Appeal of Biographies

I came across an article in The Guardian online that posed the question, “why are biographies so popular?”   

I like to read biographies. I prefer the memoir, but I also read biographies, although I am inclined to go for the account actually written by the individual telling their own story. 

I feel that sometimes biography is used as a catch-all word that includes autobiography, biography, and memoir.  Here is the Wikipedia definition of memoir.

Going For a Walk: Meeting a Dog Named David

I enjoy a good walk, both for exercise and for thinking.  I find that some of my better ideas come to me, or are developed further on a good walk. Likewise, I try to do some walking every day, several miles a day if possible. Not always possible, but I find it good for the soul when I do.  I always seem to feel better about life after a walk.

The NHS in the UK states that research shows that physical activity can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy, as well as reducing your risk of stress, clinical depression, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease.  That's good, especially in times like now.  

My walk this morning was a strange one.  A woman was walking her dog and while there was nothing strange about that, I heard her calling out to “David”.  I thought that David might be her son, hiding somewhere, but no, David was the name of her dog.  Is that a modern trend?

I had to look it up and saw on one site the 10 most popular names for boy dogs in 2022 were, Max, Charley, Cooper, Milo, Buddy, Rocky, Bear, Teddy, Duke, and Leo.  No sign of Prince, which was the name of a family dog that we had way back in the 1960s.

https://www.rover.com/blog/dog-names/

That was a USA listed site.

I found a UK site and Dave was listed number 24.  Prince is still in use by some, listed at 34.  Nice to see that Prince is still in use, although at number 11 is Harry, singular with no Prince title.  

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/dog/wellbeing-and-care/top-dog-names

 

Image by Pexels from Pixabay.