Postcards

Second-hand books tell the most surprising stories

It’s relatively common, I find, when opening a newly purchased second-hand book for the first time, for something to fall from its pages. Most likely this will be a branded bookmark or printed stocklisting paper from the dealer who sold it. But it’s not unusual to find something more interesting, something belonging to the book’s previous owner. Apparently the singer Nick Cave donated 2,000 books to an Oxfam in Hove this summer, and new owners of his paperbacks discovered old plane tickets and Post-it notes tucked inside. We serial readers of actual physical books are constantly in need of bookmarks and will grab at anything to hand to use as

John Connolly, Gavin Mortimer, Dorian Lynskey, Steve Morris and Lloyd Evans

26 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: John Connolly argues that Labour should look to Andy Burnham for inspiration (1:51); Gavin Mortimer asks if Britain is ready for France’s most controversial novel – Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints (4:55); Dorian Lynskey looks at the race to build the first nuclear weapons, as he reviews Frank Close’s Destroyer of Worlds (11:23); Steve Morris provides his notes on postcards (16:44); and, Lloyd Evans reflects on British and Irish history as he travels around Dublin (20:44).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

How postcards made Britain

Worse for drink, and lonely in his Hollywood apartment, F. Scott Fitzgerald sat down to write a postcard. He began, ‘How are you?’, an important question as he was planning to send the postcard to himself.  Although he never sent it, perhaps he understood the magical ability of the postcard to cheer us up. They’ve been doing that since the first ones – plain cards bearing a pre-printed stamp – were introduced into Britain in 1870. It took time for the current format as we know it to develop: picture on one side and, on the other, a space for the address and some words. By the Edwardian period, 800