How stupid of me — last time I wrote I forgot to mention a trip I made to The Book Lover in Woodin's Way in Oxford, where I bought an early 1970s Beezer annual for my four-year-old son. He is fast becoming fascinated with the bizarre comic antics of cartoon characters including the Numbskulls.
Follow the signs in Park End Street and you will arrive at the store in Woodin's Way, or you can make your approach from an alleyway at the back of the Oxford Castle.
The friendly proprietor Julian Tester told me that he is now making quite a few sales over the Internet, with some customers snapping up books from the United States.
His stock of railway and military memorabilia is swelling to cater for the loss of a specialist bookshop in Reading, and some customers have already discovered what Mr Tester's store can offer.
Visit www.bookloveroxford.com to find out more, or call in at the shop itself, which does a nice line in second-hand comics.
Earlier this week, I happened to be in the vicinity of the specialist Oxfam bookshop in The Turl and ventured in momentarily. I saw a paperback copy of Jane Gardam's Old Filth, a novel I rate highly (about the life of an ageing lawyer who used to practise in Hong Kong) but the book was a little overpriced at £3.50.
Wouldn't you know it, I then had a job just off St Giles the other morning and found myself powerless to resist a visit to Oxfam's books emporium.
There, waiting for me in the paperbacks section was a Penguin copy of John Mortimer's Rumpole and the Golden Thread, reasonably priced at £2.50.
At this point, I'd like to say hello to my mother-in-law Judith, who may be reading this blog from her temporary home in Malaysia.
No Judith, I'm ashamed to say I haven't read Rumpole and the Reign of Terror yet but I can safely say that you will find it entertaining, so do borrow a copy if you can.
Finally, a spin around the maze-like corridors of the Covered Market took me to the Helen House hospice shop, which has a small selection of second-hand books.
There I discovered a pocket-sized, blue, leather-bound copy of Trollope's Barchester Towers, published by Nelson (it didn't say what year).
The novel, written in the 1850s by the man who invented the post-box, is a very readable satire on office politics in the church. I wonder if the Rt Rev John Pritchard, the Bishop of Oxford, is a fan?