Call for unwanted Enid Blyton books- all in a public house c

[redlionweb]

We own The Red Lion pub in Knotty Green near Beaconsfield (http://www.redlionweb.com" target="_blank) which is situated just opposite where Enid Blyton used to live at Green Hedges. The pub is currently undergoing extensive refurbishment and, when we reopen on November 12, we would like to theme one of the three rooms as the 'Enid Blyton Room'.

Thanks to this forum (see other thread about prints and photos) we have managed to track down a source for prints/illustrations (and possibly photographs) to hang on the walls of the newly dedicated room. Now though, thanks to a suggestion from GreenHedges on this forum, we thought we could improve on the original idea by having bookshelves in the room full of Enid Blyton books. These would be for customers (including families coming in for Sunday lunch) to read while enjoying a drink.

We're not after pristine or valuable editions for display purposes - just unwanted old books to create a user-friendly 'library' of books that are suitable for customers to actually handle and browse.

If you think it's a good idea and you have some unwanted books, please can you let me know via this thread. Or you can simply send them to: The Red Lion, Penn Road, Knotty Green, Beaconsfield, Bucks, HP9 2TN (http://www.redlionweb.com" target="_blank). In return, if you're ever in Beaconsfield, pop in and I'll buy you whatever you're having.

Thank you GreenHedges for the suggestion - hope to see you at The Red Lion one day soon!

[Green Hedges]

Glad you're going through with this.

What would make it work particularly well is scale. So it might be a little off-putting to begin with even when you've got as many as two or three hundred books. But as you can see from the Book Listing part of this website (not in the Forums), there are as many as a dozen different paperback editions of each of the 15 Mysteries, for example. Tony's wonderful resource there, which he's adding to at a substantial rate of knots, shows what the various covers look like, but it would be fun for people to explore the different editions, looking for p.c. motivated changes, comparing illustrations and so on. But as well as that, a whole wall-full of books would be quite a spectacle even if every one of them was a paperback.

An advert in a local paper might help, maybe in conjunction with advertising your 12th November kick off. Because then people don't have to cope with postage and packing. They just turn up with a car bootfull of books which they swop for a pint of Smuggler's Top (once your open). I don't suppose you'll get it anything liked fully stocked by then, but it would be a good ongoing project, the shelves gradually filling up to your regular customers' delight!

As well as Beaconsfield, don't forget Bourne End (aka Peterswood in the Mysteries), there might well be some sleeping colections of Enid books there just waiting for a good home to go to.

I'll try and put something in the post tomorrow. Good luck.

Kate and I will certainly drop in one day to see your Enid Blyton room. Probably next spring.

[redlionweb]

Thanks Green Hedges.
As it happens, we've got a full-page ad going in the Bucks Free Press on Friday, November 16 so I'll include a bit about the 'Enid Blyton Room' and your 'pints for publications' idea (another terrific one) there.
Thanks for all your help - you've been brilliant!

[Daisy]

You'll be running a lending library before you know it!!