Prevailing Osterley

Until today, I had never been to Osterley. It follows that, until today, I had never been to the Osterley Bookshop.

Encouraging me in my quest to collect every Picador paperback published between the 1970s and the end of the 1990s – during which period the imprint stuck mainly to a design template of white spine with uniform (or fairly uniform) black lettering – my agent John Saddler offered to take me to Osterley in west London. If anyone offers to take you to Osterley, do accept. There's a...