Part I: A quest for nature books
In St. Edward’s Passage, one of the many stone-and-cobble folds of the Cambridge city centre off of the teeming King’s Parade, there is a secondhand bookshop that is exactly what you would expect a Cambridge bookshop to be. Looking over the little jungle-y churchyard of St. Edward King and Martyr Church, an unassuming but functional blue awning announces in bold letters G. DAVID, EST 1896, and a few outdoor shelves, crates, and display windows announce a clutter of books. Entering puts you in a bookshelf sandwich. You are pressed breathtakingly close to dozens of dashing and eclectic strangers; breathing books, inhaling titles. (The same could be said about your proximity to the other patrons dancing past you in the between-bookshelf space.) The first glimpses on my first visit were enough to put me in a literary swoon—poetry by Ted Hughes, contemporary fiction, something called Treasured Island: A Book Lover’s Tour of Britain, Ursula K LeGuin, Dickens, Darwin. There were quirky posters and postcards pinned to the wall, black and white photos of historical David’s Bookshop milestones, photos of notable people with G. David bags (including Michelangelo’s David), and an envelope addressed only to “David’s Bookshop, The Passage, Cambridge” with a sticky note proudly announcing that it found its way here. And there were more rooms, and a downstairs. (No photography allowed, or I would have eaten it all up in my camera.)
Needless to say, I left with more books than I had come to buy.
