Unsworths, the second hand and antiquarian bookshop on the Euston Road is having a closing down sale. Up to 75% of the price off. I bought a suitcase full of stuff. It felt like the end of an era and almost like the end of the second hand book trade. Buying second hand books from the internet just isn’t the same - you can’t feel the quality of the books or get a true idea of the condition. There is no pleasure or enjoyment in just typing in an author or a title, there is not the same sense of excitement experienced as your eyes travel along a shelf of books sensing that you’re about to find something you’ve been looking to find for some time.

I’ve also thought the second hand book trade in London was divided into two. A quaint old load of shops with not much of any interest. And then a set of shops that had an underground and counter culture atmosphere; Collets on Grays Inn Road where I bought a copy of Morgan Phillips Price’s book on the Russian Revolution; Bread and Roses in Upper Street - now that really was years ago. This odd little bookshop off Wells Street in Hackney where I bought dozens of the first series of International Socialism for …10p each? The bookshop in Charlotte Street that had a tiny second hand section at the back where there was always a gem or two. The original Skoob in Sicilian Avenue with a basement full of history, politics and marxism. I used to spend hours in there just browsing and reading. Whole afternoons. One of the staff in there gave me a whole box of Scientific American from the 1960s for free. I wish I still had them.

Those shops have gone, the individuality, the characteristics and the atmosphere. We’re left with formulas and commodities.