Buying Numquam at Adelphi Books

I have always loved going into bookshops - I have a passion for books, as I once did for False Bay Pinotage - our house contains a rich hoard of volumes, some second hand and foxed, others are as new -

If I had my way, The Old School House would be crammed full of books - Lord Sepulchrave might be tempted to perch upon the mantelpiece - Anne, however, keeps a close eye on me -

The first bookshop I ever went into was Miles Bookshop, in Gosport - I was around ten or eleven years old - Mr Miles was a gentle, scholarly, figure - I bought an Observer's Book of Birds -

Since then, I have browsed in second hand bookshops in cathedral cities - I have snatched up bright breeze blocks of novels in airports - hipsters have sold me books about pyschogeography in Bethnal Green -

I can remember, in Winchester, Russell buying me a pocket edition of the poems of Coleridge - when I open the book, it seems still wreathed in cigarette smoke - I am not sure what book Jay bought - later, we reeled out of the Cathedral Close, falling into Russell's Triumph Herald - we drove back, I think, to Gosport, to listen to Peaches en Regalia - 

Adelphi Books is in Southsea - it is a tiny glass fronted shop, with zig zag pathways between perilous stacks of books - the sign outside says Crime Fiction Specialists - large general stock - I always come here whenever I'm in Southsea -

The books appear to be in marvellous disorder - but when Richard challenged the genial proprietor, he was presented with The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist within three minutes -

I found a copy of Lawrence Durrell's Numquam - it wasn't far from a pile of Sci Fi pulps with scary covers - I bought the book, and stood outside the shop, waiting for Richard -

I glanced at a page at random - there was a character called Benedicta saying kiss me -

Richard emerged from the shop - he told me that when you'd read Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, you were supposed to hand it on -

I wondered how you might judge the worth of a book - perhaps it was a case of  the author, in some sense, having a truth to tell -