There is a small rule I try to follow when buying second-hand books. It isn’t a strict rule, because strict rules don’t survive long around

You notice it before you notice the book. A thin strip of paper peeking from the top edge, like the book is sticking its tongue

There is a moment, about three seconds after you lift the flaps, when you already know. It’s not visual. Not yet. It’s the smell that

here’s usually one. Not the rarest book you own, and not the most damaged either. Just a book that needs attention. A loose hinge. A

I wasn’t planning to buy anything. Just coffee, maybe a chat with the bloke who sells old postcards near the door. But there it was,

Fluorescents humming. Flat-price stickers. Shelves in clean rows like someone squared them with a spirit level. I don’t go here for romance. I go because

I found the shelves in a Valencia junk shop between a headless mannequin and an exercise bike. Pine, old varnish, three bowed shelves. I measured,

It turned up in a backstreet shop in Valencia that still smells faintly of floor cleaner and last century. Paperbacks along the skirting, hardbacks shoulder

I got there early enough to see tarps come off tables like someone lifting lids. The first heat was already climbing the cobbles and a

The library began as a cardboard box by the bed because I didn’t have shelves yet and because I was pretending this wasn’t becoming a