| Title | : | White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1784632139 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781784632137 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 245 |
| Publication | : | Published June 15, 2021 |
White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector Reviews
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Finely written book about collecting Picadors (and others, e.g. king Penguins) in the wild (i.e. In second hand bookshops), all the better if they have insertions (train tickets, birthday cards, love letters) and/or dedications. In it we learn of great Oxfam bookshops, walks from Finsbury Park to Muswell Hill (Royle walks and reads at the same time), dreams involving authors, and overheard conversations among the shelves. Beautiful. Plus, I should mention, I have two pages where I talk of being a Picador author and what a thrill it is to have your name on one of those white spines. It was down to Nick's review of my collection in Time Out in 1997 that Picador approached me, so, once again, thanks Mr Royle.
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April 6, 2022 Not really about the book, but Rutherford Chang's White Album Collection We Buy White Albums (2013-ongoing) (which is mentioned in White Spines) and now including 3,000 copies is coming to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario opening on
April 13, 2022.
You Will Know Your People When You See/Read Them
Review of the Salt Publishing paperback edition (June 2021)
I suspect most will know immediately from reading this book's synopsis and blurbs whether they are going to love it or not.'If you have ever lost hours in a second-hand bookshop. If you keep all your orange Penguins on the same shelf at home. If you have sworn in frustration when a publisher changes the cover design of a series you are part-way through collecting. If you covet thy neighbour’s bookshelves. If you can recognise a colophon on a spine from a distance of twenty feet. Then this is the perfect book for you.’ - Scott Pack, blurb for White Spines
Your book obsession may not quite match those of the author or of the above examples, but most book fanatics have some sort of compulsive behavior whether it is just wanting to read everything by a certain author(s), to read everything in a certain genre, sub-genre or series, to read everything from a certain publisher, or simply to meet certain reading goals or challenges.
I found Nicholas Royle's White Spines purely by chance while looking up his latest edited collection of
Best British Short Stories, a series that I've become a fan of. I was sold immediately by the book synopsis, but also by several other reviews, of which
this one by Michael Reilly is especially entertaining.
Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed Royle's memoir-like account of his random finds in various second hand book shops. His obsession may not be yours, but you will know your people when you see/read them.
Purposely blurred photo of a portion of Nicholas Royle's Picador book shelves. Image sourced from the author's
Twitter
Trivia and Links
Also mentioned in White Spines is a collection of over 1,000 original copies of The Beatles White Album vinyl double LPs which acts as a performance art piece by Rutherford Chang. You can read about it at these articles:
https://thevinylfactory.com/news/one-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-m... -
He begins the book on a trip to see two authors, to get them to sign a set of books that are due to be despatched to bookshops soon In between visits he has time to stop in Norwich. He is there to visit an Oxfam bookshop too. This is not your two for a pound charity shop, these are priced at £4 and upwards, but the shop is well laid out and the people running it know what they have and what the value of each book is. He scours the shelves looking for literary treasure and there it is Nomad by Mary Anne Fitzgerald a 1994 edition in a Picador paperback. It is a book that he is sure he will never read, but it is the thrill of finding one that he is sure he has never owned before.
It’s not hoarding if it is books, so the saying goes, but there is probably is an element of truth in there…
When does an interest become a passion and then in turn become an obsession? I am not sure, but in White Spines, Nicholas Royle takes use through the threshold of each of these limits. He is passionate about the paperback Picador books that were published between the 1970s to the end of the 1990s. They were predominately fiction, but all the books they published were some non-fiction; I know I have several travel books in the series.
But this is much more than a catalogue of all the Picadors that fit his criteria or a list of books that he has or is seeking to acquire, rather it is a trip down his literary memories, of where he found a particular edition or the time that he first read the book or was passed it by someone else. He has a thing about books that have the presence of a previous owner, a receipt that was used as a bookmark, an inscription in the front to the person receiving it as a gift or very occasionally a signed copy. These are his favourites as he feels like a custodian of the book.
This is a wonderful collection of memories about the books, where they were bought from and his favourite bookshops to find them in. I loved this book and I think that I have found a kindred spirit in Royle. Not only do I like to read, but I also like to find and collect books in second-hand book shops and charity shops. I collect books too, Royle has a thing for Picador White spines as well as some of the King Penguins, whereas my failing is collecting books by Little Toller and Eland as well as other travel and natural history books. It is a lovely hobby to have, books do furnish a room after all, but space is quite often an issue… -
I read White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector in a matter of days. What a brilliantly touching, off-centre memoir, intelligent, funny and poignant in the right amounts, with real warmth, and written with a deftness of style that’s irresistible.
It’s seems to me as much a book about people as it is a book about books, and a certain subset of books and those bookshops in which they can be found, if one is lucky or just persistent. At its heart is an obsession for, but also an absolute love of and interest in, books—in terms both of their contents and as objects—and the world of writers and publishing. I got so much from this, and that collecting isn’t such a bad thing after all (my wife will be delighted...). I really didn’t want it to end, but it has, alas, and I’m a bit sad about that. -
From the 1970s to 1990s, Picador released over 1,000 paperback volumes with the same clean white-spined design. Royle has acquired most of them – no matter the author, genre or topic; no worries if he has duplicate copies. To build this impressive collection, he has spent years haunting charity shops and secondhand bookshops in between his teaching and writing commitments. He knows where you can get a good bargain, but he’s also willing to pay a little more for a rarer find. In this meandering memoir-of-sorts, he ponders the art of cover design, delights in ephemera and inscriptions found in his purchases (he groups these together as “inclusions”), investigates some previous owners and the provenance of his signed copies, interviews Picador staff and authors, and muses on the few most ubiquitous titles to be found in charity shops (Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth, Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, anything by Kathy Lette, and Last Orders by Graham Swift). And he does actually read some of what he buys, though of course not all, and finds some hidden gems.
In 2013 I read Royle’s First Novel, which also features Picador spines on its cover and a protagonist obsessed with them. I’d read enthusiastic reviews by fellow bibliophiles so couldn’t resist requesting White Spines. While I enjoyed the conversational writing, ultimately I thought it quite an indulgent undertaking (especially the records of his dreams!), not dissimilar to a series of book haul posts. The details of shopping trips aren’t of much interest because he’s solely focused on his own quest, not on giving any insight into the wider offerings of a shop or town, e.g., Hay-on-Wye and Barter Books. But if you’re a fan of Shaun Bythell’s books you may well want to read this too. It’s also a window into the collector’s mindset: You know Royle is an extremist when you read that he once collected bread labels!
Originally published on my blog,
Bookish Beck. -
It is often said of the writer Stephen King that if he published his shopping list, people would rush out to buy it. This isn’t really a derogative observation – at least I don’t think it is – merely a reflection on the fact that the author’s prose is so incredibly readable. The best writers (in my opinion) have the ability to engage you with their prose, not just impress you with their vocabulary. They work hard to make each word count, so that you savour the individual choice of word. Nicholas Royle’s White Spines – Confessions of a Book Collector is one such book. I was interested in reading this non-fiction title because Royle himself seems to be a fascinating man, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how fascinating it was to read the thoughts of a man detailing, amongst other things, his book-collecting obsession.
To be fair, there is far more to this book than just that. As well as covering Royle’s dogged pursuit of tracking down every Picador book from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s (as well as certain other books like Sceptres, King Penguins, Abacus, Vintage, Fontana Agatha Christie’s featuring Tom Adams’ covers, Paladins, etc) he also touches on his fascination with discovering ‘inclusions’ within second-hand books (personal items belonging to a previous owner that were perhaps used as a bookmark) and the nature of finding inscribed books and how they came to find their way onto the second-hand market. He reflects on many of the inscriptions, even displaying some minor research that he has done into the background of who these people in the inscriptions might be.
Royle has a relaxed, informal tone; at times it’s laugh out loud funny, and his personality and insecurities come across in the prose, a facet I found reassuringly enduring and relatable. It’s great to hear someone else talk with such passion about books and reading, as well as the nature of being a collector (of anything really), or even just about the respective qualities of a particular bookshop. Royle writes with great enthusiasm about a book’s cover art too, and his interest in an author’s connection with their own first published novel. There are snippets of overheard dialogue mixed with fragments of dreams, so much so that it’s sometimes tempting to wonder whether the author has penned a novel, instead of a piece of non-fiction – or autofiction as it’s usually known – although I suppose it doesn’t really matter, as the end result is so engrossing nonetheless.
I came away from this book with a renewed appreciation of bookshops and second-hand books, as well as a ‘wanted list’ of titles and authors, and a reference of bookshops to visit when I’m out and about. I had a wonderful time reading this, and I can heartily recommend it. Oh, and just for the record – for what it's worth I don’t think I’d be that interested in reading Stephen King’s shopping list, but I’d definitely pay good money to read Nicholas Royle’s. -
Thoroughly enjoyed this account of Nicholas Royle's obsession with book collecting (especially white spine Picadors), which resonated on many levels. It's a tale told with easy familiarity - yet also detailed and compulsive - and eminently readable. Whilst I find little to add to this by way of review, reading "White Spines" has sparked a much longer blog post which I'm currently working on and will link to in the near future. Meantime, "White Spines" is highly recommended for obsessives everywhere.
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White Spines is, as its subtitle suggests, about books and book collecting. A mix of part-memoir and part narrative non-fiction – with occasional detours into bookshop conversations and various surreal dreamscapes – the book details Nicholas Royle’s love of (obsession with?) his collection of white-spined Picador fiction and non-fiction. Like all good books about books, however, White Spines is more than the sum of its apparent parts. Whilst Royle’s passion for Picadors and love of book collecting provides the backbone of the book, White Spines is also a love letter to literature more widely, and to the power of books to captivate, enthrall, and transform.
Royle talks with wit, charm and intelligence about the joy of discovering a good secondhand bookshop, or the exhilaration that the bookworm feels at discovering a pristine edition on a charity shop shelf. He also captures perfectly that bookish obsession with presentation – the frustration of a publisher changing cover design mid-series, the horror of the TV tie-in cover, and the desire to curate shelves of matching, beautiful spines. In his conversations with author and publishing friends, he brings across the inherent exuberance of conversations about books, from the discovery of new authors to the joyful dissection of a shared read.
Anyone who has ever lost themselves having a rummage through a second hand bookshop, accidentally fallen into a charity shop for a ‘quick look’, or contemplated how to fit several new purchases onto already bulging shelves, will find themselves in White Spines. Although my own reading taste is quite different to Royle’s, I found myself nodding along or smiling in agreement with so many of the incidents and experiences that he recounts.
White Spines also provides some insight into the business of publishing. Royle talks to a number of former and current Picador authors, illustrators, and staff to consider how the ‘white spine’ paperback list was built, how the covers were chosen, and why the list (which includes an impressive collection of both authors and titles) became the cultural force that it did during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
That said, the book is not a ‘publishing memoir’, nor is it a documented history of Picador or an account of all of their titles. It is, as I said at the start, a love letter to books and, more specifically, to book collecting. To the physicality of books – to the desire to hold a physical object in your hand before putting it on your carefully curated shelf with its fellows, or the intrigue that comes with finding a letter or note left in a book by a previous reader.
White Spines is a book that spoke to the part of me that loves seeing the stripy spines of my Penguin English Library editions next to each other on the shelf, as well as the part that’s a sucker for a beautiful cover or stunning endpapers. It made me think about the times I’ve found receipts or train tickets in books and wondered about the people who put them there – and about the times I’ve given books with my name or ephemera in away and wondered what will become of them. It is, in short, an ode to the book and a journey of delight through the pleasures of being a bookworm.
NB: This review first appeared on my blog at
https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpre... as part of the blog tour for the book. My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review. -
Another great book about bibliophilia. The author, a writer and editor in London, collects Picadors and recounts his many travels around Britain and the various bookshops he visits and people he meets in his quest to collect. He also ventures further afield to France and Belgium and recounts the books he's collected, the noteworthy covers of Picadors and some of his favourite novels. It's a joy of a book for anyone who loves secondhand bookshops and it is written in a very easy style with many jokes and asides.
Note to self: Yours truly found two great recommendations to read (Quake by Wurlitzer and Forever Valley by Redonnet) and bookshops to visit (Book Barn near Bristol, Le Livre a Venir on Oberkampf, Paris and Librarie l'Atelier on rue du Jordain, 20eme, Paris). -
White Spines: Confessions Of A Book Collector - Nicholas Royle
What makes you collect things? I’ve always done it; from little frogs to novelty erasers, to postcards to now, books. Buying books for their covers? I definitely do this!
This is a very bookish memoir and is about the authors passion for Picador books, specifically the ones with the distinctive white spine and black lettering spanning the 1970’s to the 1990’s when it stopped producing this format.
This is not a documented history of Picador or white spines, more musings, travels, thoughts, dreams and overheard conversations - which I loved BTW- the book version of overheard in Waitrose!
This is simply a love letter to books, bookshops, rummaging, discovery, collecting and the absolute thrill of finding a gem of a book.
I could totally relate to the flutter in my tummy when I find a book I’m looking for but my obsession does not extend as far as this literary collector - well not yet anyway!
‘𝕀𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕝𝕤𝕖 𝕚𝕥𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗 𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕣𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕀 𝕒𝕞 𝕡𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕦𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕞𝕪 𝕒𝕚𝕞𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖, 𝕀 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕜, 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕝𝕪 𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝. 𝕀𝕗 𝕀 𝕒𝕞 𝕘𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕞𝕒𝕕, 𝕀 𝕒𝕞 𝕒𝕥 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕕𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕒𝕟 𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕨𝕒𝕪.’
It’s been a pleasure and an education to read this book. I loved the segments about inclusions, like the heartfelt letter found in a book which was dated 1927. It’s so lovely, then ends with ‘see you on Sunday evening. Keep texting me.’ These little things that fool us and make us smile, you don’t find these in ebooks!
The mistaken identities of writers being mistaken for potentially more famous ones, including the author himself made me chuckle.
You really can feel the love of these books lifting from the page, I thought this man seriously knows his stuff, there is so much detail but not in a boring way. There are so many bookshops I can now visit from reading this.
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Many thanks to Helen Richardson PR, Nicholas Royle and Salt Publishing for my copy of the book -
The White Spines are sacrosanct…
This man is a collector. I thought I was obsessed with book buying and I know a few others who undeniably are but Nicholas Royle takes book collecting to a whole new obsessive level. He is very (extremely) particular about his collections – it has to be the right edition and with some, a particular artist’s work on the front or books with “inclusions” – random things left inside when the book is donated to charity or sold to a second hand bookshop.
White Spines chronicles over 20 years of obsessive collecting, hunting down the precious books for Royle’s collections. The joy of discovering missing book in an charity shop or one with an unusual or intriguing inclusion leaps out from the page. As it covers such an expanse of time, Royle references the past 12 months (written in March 2021 it is the year of lockdown). The reopening of shops and precautions that have to be taken in such a stark difference to his previous free rein rummaging and browsing of any shop he might locate a precious addition to his collections.
I really enjoyed the little random snippets of overheard conversations in the various charity shops and book shops that Royle has frequented over the years. They provide a light hearted look at book buying and who doesn’t love overhearing an amusing conversation and with these taken out of context and just a few lines of dialogue, they made me grin as I played them out in my head.
White Spines is very different to any other memoir I’ve read. There is no beginning, middle and end – well there but not in a story sense. It’s a work of obsession, a desire to complete a what seems to be a never ending collection. I’ll admit, I wasn’t aware of the white spines of Picador before – the green covers of certain Penguin books (I know I’ve got an Agatha Christie one somewhere) but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for them now. -
A book all about books!! And that obsession of collecting/hoarding that inflicts us all at some point as book lovers! And it was such an entertaining read as the Author shared his life through books, and the 'White Spines' of Picador books that he loves to track down and add to his already large collection!
His quest takes him all over the country, and to France, and he shares stories from over the years, to all the various places he's travelling has taken him and where that has led him in the form of bookshops, charity shops, and how irrational it all is at times! Why does he need multiple copies of the same book?! Because there are different editions, obviously!!
He shares really fascinating insights into his life, along with the glimpses he gets into the world of other people by conversations he overhears! He shares his favourite haunts to search for the best books, and I also loved that he mentioned my local area so I could connect with the area he was visiting and travelling through - and even mentioned an old schoolfriend of mine so that put a smile on my face!
If you love books and have that tingle when you track down a much wanted book or edition, then this is the book for you! Really enjoyed it! -
A joy of a book. Suitably picked up from a second hand collection, not one mentioned in the book (and if Mr Royle is reading this, he should try Todmorden’s Folklore Centre as a good replacement for Border Books), and feeling like an amiable, wayward tour around book collecting, bookshops and book obsessions. Our interests do not match much (although I did at one point pretty much pick up every Picador I saw), but the abiding drive is the same. And it’s particularly a joy to see old bookshop haunts visited or mentioned, as if it’s a parallel journey to my own hunting grounds (albeit in my case limited to places accessible only by public transport). This is the sort of book that Royle himself mentions a great deal here: the kind of one where I will hoover up any copies spotted in the wild and shared enthusiastically with friends
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The serendipity involved when the right book is found waiting. Jammed in the shelf, title obscured, half overtaken by another cookbook on gluten or against gluten or “won’t somebody think about the gluten?” Do the other shoppers know the rush? Finding a ticket for Sagrada Familia as a bookmark in a Dublin Oxfam. Carrying a backpack on any journey because “just maybe”?
Thank you, Nicholas Royle. Following along on your search is almost as good as digging through a crate or two. Writing is both relatable and thoroughly enjoyable. I dream of a room with bookshelves for walls and time to read and re-read every word. -
This was interesting but also felt a little weird at times with the author including dreams he had- but in the same font as the book- so sometimes you would wonder what is going on and then realize it was a dream.
I will say he has an extensive collection- but I didn’t realize till half-way through the book that he has a record of all the books and illustrations he has collected.
I do wish that he would have included some illustrations of the books so that we knew what he was talking about cause that would have broken up the massive amounts of text a bit -
Really a 3.5 upgraded. I do appreciate a writer like this who has such a passionate love of reading, writers, books and bookshops. The writing is humorous and gently engaging, full of anecdotes which readers with the same interests (like me) will enjoy. It has found a place on my shelves in the "books about books" section and I'd suggest that anyone whose heart beats faster when they discover a previously unknown bookshop may feel the same.
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A lovely homage to book collecting, and stories, and writing. Royle makes you comfortable and takes you on a journey around the country's book shops and charity shops, with anecdotes about writers, family and friends. A true delight for any book lover.
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If you are a true book worm, this is the book for you♥️my review is on my blog
https://thefallenlibrarian.wordpress....
