Old book 1

A lightly edited dream about buying a paperback book costing around £20.

I had bought a book from a branch of Borders about something of historical importance and involving at least some maps. No idea now what the something was and that had probably not been part of the dream, just the bit about it being of historical importance.

Get it home to find that the book was slightly damaged, with a hole punched through the top outside corner of a few of the pages, in a couple of places. Slightly worn and not brand new at all. Also that I had been offered a small discount - £1.43 to be precise - which for some reason I had not taken. Unable to find the receipt in the usual place for recent receipts, that is to say the back of my wallet.

Back to another branch of Borders, where I find that they have a number of copies of the book on their shelves, mostly smart new copies. I take a look at one of them to find that it is the work of a different printer, perhaps an English rather than a French printer. Much the same, but binding slightly different, maps slightly different. Generally rather smarter and certainly brand new.

I collar a couple of young men who had clearly been wondering why I had been looking so closely at the book. They explained that there had been a great old to-do about the printing of this particular book, refunded me the £1.43 in small change and carefully wrapped the damaged book in a small white paper bag before returning it. I managed to drop the pennies on the floor and was trying to recover them while one of the young men continued with the story, the other having sloped off to deal with another customer. A story involved the young man having read the book himself, at the time he left school a few years previously, in some ancient edition hugely larger and a lot more tatty than the book he had returned to me. I felt my case weakening as I had not known that my book was a reprint of something from years back.

But what was clearly not going to happen was the exchange of my copy of the book for a better copy. I think I woke up as I was walking meekly out of the shop, having failed to make a full-on row and having failed to get one of the smart new copies of the book. Purchase completely spoiled.

The Borders bit springing from reference 1, a few days ago now, the old book bit from reference 2 of last night and the maps from looking at an old atlas from Bartholomew in a curiosity shop in Sandown yesterday lunch time. An atlas which I had not, for once, bought. So proving that dreams do have some basis in life even if they have little basis in fact.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-work-for-sundays.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/carex-deceased.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/bank-holiday.html.