Nominations for businesses to be visited by Cashmobs has now closed.
The chosen business is The Idler which was established over 30 years ago. They sell new and secondhand books, Book Tokens, artists materials, greetings cards and Naxos CDs.
They also sell leading makes of art materials including canvases, mountboard, and a range of water colour papers and modestly priced paints and brushes for the craftworker. They operate a book search service for out of print books and can supply new books to order.
They have the best selection of greetings cards in Hadleigh. Their range of Art Angel greetings cards feature works of well-known printmakers, many of them local artists,and is perhaps the most popular selection of greetings cards they have ever stocked.
The new electronic Book Tokens are now available. These have the advantage of being obtainable in any value rather than the five pound increments of the old Voucher scheme. They are, of course, accepted in most bookshops through the UK. (The old paper vouchers are still valid)
I always find their stock most interesting. This includes:
“Suffolk Coast from the Air”. and its companion volume
“Suffolk Coast from the Air 2”,
the story of the Hadleigh Branch Line,
Suffolk Ghosts and Legends and
Ordnance Survey Maps of the local area,
George Ewart Evans’s Ask The Fellows Who Cut the Hay in an exciting new edition illustrated by David Gentleman,
David Kindred’s Hadleigh, a portrait of a Suffolk Town, which is a selection of photographs taken over the years by the late Peter Boulton .
Michael Portillo’s television series based on Bradshaw’s Railway Guide has prompted a reprint of the book first published in the 1860s. They stock this edition together with a range of other railway books both new and secondhand.
The success of the children’s book “War Horse” which is a best seller nationally has prompted Halsgrove, to publish “War Horses” which tells the true story of horses used in various conflicts around the world. It is lavishly illustrated and presented as are all the Halsgrove publications.
They also hold a large stock of publisher’s remainder books. These are books which are sold off by the publishers at roughly half-price in order to clear their warehouses.
They have a large stock of second-hand books on the Second World War and a recent purchase has widened their stock of Giles Annuals, several early volumes are now available. They have a poetry section which is very popular and as they sell Art Materials they have a great number of Art Books including art instruction books.
James Chambury was one of Hadleigh’s leading artists and a customer at The Idler. His daughters have recently edited a book containing a selection of his work, many of East Anglia and some of the work he did in The Oman.
I look forward to being in the shop on the 4th.