Tag Archives: w h smiths

A Short History of the Paperback

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An interesting history of the paperback book, including information regarding “collectable” paperbacks, https://www.ioba.org/standard/2001/12/a-short-history-of-paperbacks/.

As a child growing up in the city of Liverpool, I well remember a glass bookcase full of paperbacks, in my grandfather’s house in Speke (a suburb of Liverpool).

Most Saturdays my Grandfather and I would go into W. H. Smiths and buy a paperback, often by Enid Blyton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton.

I lost the majority of my vision at 18-months-old due to a blood clot on the brain. Consequently my grandfather would spend hours reading to me, as I was unable to read print books.

I think of my grandfather whenever I pass by a branch of Smiths. The scent of books and magazines eminating from the store brings the memories flooding back.

Sadly I no longer have the books my grandfather bought for me, Some of which where, no doubt collectable. However, where they still in my possession, I would not part with them as some things possess value which can not be measured in monetary terms.

High Street Retailers Selling Pornographic E-Books

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An article in today’s Mail On Sunday reveals that the high street retailer, W H Smiths has been stocking e-books with such titles as “Pregnant with Daddy” alongside childrens books. The Mail also reports that Amazon and other retailers stock similar works. Following The Mail’s investigation Smiths has removed the titles in question and apologised to it’s customers. Apparently Smiths receives an automated feed from it’s e-book supplier, Cobo with whom they are now working to ensure that titles of this nature never appear on Smith’s site again.

Books of an erotic nature should not be accessible to children and retailers should take steps to ensure that those classified as children are not able to access them. However the question as to whether we are in danger of working ourselves up into a moral panic arises. Certain fantasies such as the incest taboo are unsavoury but provided they remain purely in the realm of fantasy ought society or the state to intervene and prohibit them? For something to be prohibited should it not first be demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that the thing being banned does positive harm? In the civil service such an approach is called evidence based decision making (I.E. one weighs the evidence cooly and without bias prior to taking decisions). If one applies this way of thinking to the matter in hand books which contain incest fantasies would be prohibited if having weighed up all the available data it could be demonstrated that such works cause individuals to engage in incestuous acts.

When reading the article I couldn’t help wondering whether where Nabakov’s Lolita to have been written today would The Daily Mail be calling for it to be banned as a “dirty book”. I wonder?

Obviously we are under an obligation to protect young children from inappropriate material, however in performing this vital task we need to take care that we don’t over react by going down an authoritarian road.

For The Mail’s article please visit http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2456651/WHSmiths-vile-trade-online-rape-porn-Bookseller-apologises-sales-sick-ebooks-revealed.html

Reading Aloud

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On Monday one of my colleagues mentioned how he reads to his 2-year-old daughter using a Kindle. His little girl likes to look at the pictures on screen, however my colleague said that he prefers print books as the photographs are bigger.

I was heartened to learn that parents still read to their children as it brought back happy memories of visits to W H Smiths with my grandfather. Most Saturdays we would pop into Smiths and buy (well my grandfather would do the purchasing) a book. On reaching home I would sit on my grandfather’s knee or lie in bed as he regailed me with the adventures of The Famous Five or other classics of children’s literature.

Today most of my reading is done using the text to speech facility on my Kindle. After a while I forget that I’m being read to by a dalek and enjoy the experience of listening to the classics of world literature, however there is no substitute for the human voice, of being read to by a much loved parent or grandparent. Sadly my grandfather died many years ago but I often think of him reading aloud to me or of our walks together in the woods near to where he lived.