That row of books

Memory never being what it actually was, my return to London after a decade (a decade and a half, really, if one counts the time I was there for my final days of "study"), I had surely misjudged Charing Cross bookshops.  In fact, I felt that there were some more than what I did visit (on two occasions, try as I might to squeeze them into busy times), and I was trying to match my own memory with what I had remembered- in particular, of two underground/basement level spaces.  What I saw was an abbreviated version of what I had lodged in my mind, and, even worse, I was unable to find anything good to take home with me.

Come to think of it, there was one art bookstore in particular on that street, where I saw the Derek Jarman garden book for the first time.  Since then, it's always popped up in my memory- the book, not the store.  And, most definitely, that place is no longer.  Perhaps, it moved to another location, but no matter.  Time's time.

A joke is that there is a Chinese massage parlor, of all things, on the block.  But, perhaps even worse of an affront is that the site of 84 Charing Cross, the bookshop profiled in Helene Hanff's book, is now proudly occupied by what seems to be a busy Pizza Hut chain.

The death of print is becoming no exaggeration on this street of streets.