I always like finding bits and pieces in books used as bookmarks such as receipts, bus and train tickets, shopping lists etc. and in this case a flyer for ‘The Book Club’ I actually have two of these bookends but I must have bought them as although I was in ‘The Book Club’ I never enrolled any one as far as I can remember which these days isn’t saying much! I found one out and put a few books in to demonstrate (note choice at the front) They were not very good as they had a tendency for the base to bow.

I had a email from fellow PAN Fan Jules down in Plymouth to tell me about someone selling two illuminated bookshop signs. Unfortunately, tempting as the one is, they are collect only and in Mafra, Victoria, Australia. I don’t think I can justify the cost of a flight although I could try!

The Georgia State Assembly approved House Bill 247 on Feb. 19, 1953, with no dissent, establishing the Georgia Literature Commission but it wasn’t until 1957 that the commission issued its first ruling against a book, “God’s Little Acre” by Erskine Caldwell. This was a novel written in 1933 about the decline of a poor rural family in Georgia but despite the commission’s recommendation of prosecution, the state judicial system never acted on it.
This gives me an excuse to show my original Hans Helweg cover for this title again which I’ve just had framed along with ‘Tobacco Road’