The efforts of volunteers and staff at the Oxfam bookshop in St Giles have been rewarded.

Apparently, the shop has moved from number three to number two in the country in terms of profitability. Only the Glasgow shop, which has a bigger premises, is ahead.

I called in for a volunteer valuation session the other day, and was rewarded with a stack of Folio Society books, the vast majority of which were in pristine condition in their slipcases.

Among the volumes I valued were The Cream of Noel Coward, a handsome gold anthology from 1996, a slightly soiled 21 Tales by Rudyard Kipling, and The Best of Dorothy Parker.

Folio Society books usually stay in very good condition because of the slipcases, and that was certainly the case with the majority of books that I saw.

I then had the satisfaction of climbing the stairs to put the books on the shelf, ready for sale in time for Christmas.

After leaving Oxfam in St Giles, where I plan to return later this week, I popped in to Blackwell's to try to retrieve a Kipling book penned by Kingsley Amis, which I was forced to put to one side on Sunday, due to draconian Sunday trading laws.

The chap at customer services told me that the book had come down from the second-hand section on the top floor but, rather worryingly, had been mislaid in transit.

He took my mobile phone number and I was left wondering if I would ever see the book again - after all there are quite a few books in Blackwell's.

But I was relieved when I got a call later in the day to say that the Kipling had been found, and was now in a safe place waiting for collection. I'll keep you posted.

Finally, it's not often you get given an old book for nothing, but that's exactly what happened to me today and I thought it a very kind gesture.

Boswell and Johnson were involved but I don't want to say too much more until I have had a closer look.