Book joy

I was given a book token for my birthday, oh joy! Being by nature a reflector, it has taken me until now (only four months!) to plan out what to buy with it. I tend to think that novels can be obtained relatively easily by borrowing from friends or cheaply in charity shops, so I wanted books that I could treasure and keep. My plan was to buy them in Salts Mill's independent bookshop to support a local retailer but that plan failed as they don't accept book tokens. Silly them. Lost my custom. Anyway, that meant making a rare trip down to Bradford to the huge branch of Waterstone's - a fabulously well-stocked shop in the fabulously amazing old Wool Exchange building (centre, above). So that actually was quite a treat. 

The shop's interior is like nowhere else:

In the end I bought five books: '111 places in Bradford that you shouldn't miss', 'How to read churches' (about church architecture), 'Spring cannot be cancelled' by David Hockney, 'Wintering' by Katherine May and 'How to stop time' by Matt Haig ( the only actual novel). I will tell you later whether they were a good choice or not. It was wonderful retail therapy though!