Simon Beattie
Way’s Bookshop, Henley
An excellent start as we call in on the ABA’s newest recruit, Simon Beattie. He amazes us with the innovative design of his catalogues. Collectable in themselves. Quaritch-trained of course, so knows his books. We leave Chesham and Metroland in great heart that we have such good young booksellers as this.
Diana Cook at Way’s
Next stop Henley – and more delight. We call in on Diana at Way’s Bookshop. A friendly welcome. First-name terms with all the customers. One sitting in the corner tells us that he has been coming in every week for years – and can’t recall ever leaving empty-handed.
We buy some books. All seems happy and vibrant.
Jonkers Rare Books in Henley
Next, round the corner to say hello to the Jonkers. I spy a number of books that I also have in stock – but not such copies as these. The whole shop seems full of the best copies one is ever likely to see.
Books at Jonkers
Henley should be very proud of hosting two shops which in their very different ways are both exactly what bookshops should be.
The afternoon runs out. No time to get to see anyone else in this part of the world, save that we arrive in Wallingford just in time to catch Toby English.
Buy more books. Have a quick chat about the upcoming PBFA York bookfair. Now the most important of all the English fairs in his view. Something to ponder.
Toby English
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About Laurence Worms - Ash Rare Books
Laurence Worms has owned and run Ash Rare Books since 1971. He represented the antiquarian book trade on the (British) National Book Committee from 1993 to 2002 and has been six times an elected member of the Council of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. He was largely responsible for drafting the Association’s Code of Good Practice first introduced in 1997 (and its recent update), served as Honorary Secretary of the Association from 1998 to 2001 and as President from 2011 to 2013. He is a former member of the Council of the Bibliographical Society and continues to serve on the Council of the London Topographical Society.
He writes and lectures on various aspects of the history of the book and map trades, and has lectured at the universities of Cambridge, London, Reading and Sheffield, as well as at the Bibliographical Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Warburg Institute, the National Library of Scotland and at Gresham College and Stationers' Hall. Published work includes the compilation of fourteen ‘lives’ for the “Oxford Dictionary of National Biography”, a number of articles for “The Oxford Companion to the Book” and the chapter on early English maps and atlases for the fourth volume of “The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain”. Essays on the British map trade are also appearing in “The History of Cartography” published by the University of Chicago Press. His long-awaited “British Map Engravers”, co-written with Ashley Baynton-Williams, was published to critical acclaim in 2011. He also contributed the numerous biographical notes to Peter Barber’s hugely successful “London : A History in Maps”, co-published by the British Library and the London Topographical Society in 2012.
The Bookhunter on Safari 
Hello Laurence, I’m anticipating a bumper, fully illustrated account of days two and three! Did they have the bunting out in Hay?
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Oddly enough, they didn’t. Disciplinary action?
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