Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, or How I Arrived At April 2014

2013 was an awesome year to buy books and records. Everywhere I looked I found something I wanted to buy. I kept some notes in preparation for this project though never got around to properly starting. Until now, that is.

However, it might be worthwhile to get some background as to why. Since as long as I can remember I have loved listening to vinyl, and started my original collection around the early 1990s (I didn't keep details then, I do now). I can remember listening to Holst's Mars, Bringer of War at primary school (a good school experience) and then getting home and having my parents play their version on their trusty B&O deck. I remember the allure of my Dad's red Beatles double LP, years later supplemented with the later blue.

I can remember when I got books. I have always read to some degree, always enjoyed stories, though books didn't seem to be something for me. Then, sat waiting for a flight in Heathrow with my late Uncle Nigel, it clicked. Nigel told me about the science fiction and fantasy books he had read, and thus interested I asked what he would recommend at that moment: Mort by Terry Pratchett. Luckily the nearest WH Smith had a copy, and the rest is history.

Book and record collecting started in the early 1990s. My collections have grown and shrunk over the years, either by choice (shedding books to move home) or by force (losing majority of my LPs and 12 inch singles to water damage in 2012). They have been added to by partners, family and friends, sometimes I have bought something because I was looking for something else, sometimes I have found exactly what I wanted.

From the Spring of 2013 to Spring 2014 I visited bookshops and record stores in Edinburgh, Morecombe, Robin Hoods Bay (note, not near Nottinghamshire), Cambridge, Great Yarmouth, Leeds, Kendal, Grange-Over-Sands (in a railway station), Kirkcudbright, Whiteheaven and Carlisle, as well as others. I have bought records off eBay and books from Abebooks, scanned through lists posted by colleagues on our work's email system to see if there was anything worth considering. I have also passed up some pretty impressive records and books that I've always wanted to read.