Click to expand, Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs old postcards. A booksellers ramble mostly about Stephen King.

 Starting with Ramsgate

I think these two of Ramsgate Harbour are 1960s or 1970s. The trots (boats moored side by side) mostly had people living on them, collectively known as the inner harbour cruising club.

This next one postmarked 1910 as you can see, Ramsgate pier on the right for more info on this we publish a book about it, here is the link 

This one postmarked 1913, so before then. This is before The Queens Head and the buildings around it was redeveloped so worth a bit of clicking to expand and look at the back of the Old pun etc.  

Margate next

I think these two Margate ones are 1960s, the top one shows Margate pier, we publish a book about it here is the link

Finally Broadstairs 

Not sure of the date I am guessing 1920s

Now for the ramble. Running a secondhand bookshop gives a particular slant on life and a particular view of the area you live in. This means I can answer the question. What books do Thanet people read, which author is the most popular? Up until recently it was Terry Pratchett, but recently this has changed to Stephen King. 

To be honest I am not all that keen on horror fiction and had never read any of his books, what I didn't realise is that he also writes fantasy fiction, something that I am fairly keen on. I have been reading his "Dark Tower" novels which are a series of seven books, which - if you like - are Stephen King's Lord of the Rings. I have to admit that it is a very good series and I am going to be hard pushed finding something that I haven't read and is as good. There are some parallels with "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder and some with "The Magus" by John Fowles, as well as the obvious major fantasy quests.  

I did read Salem's Lot during reading the Dark Tower series as you pretty much have to to follow The Dark Tower series, so it may be another Stephen King next. Any Recommendations?

I also think that it is about time I reread the local history books that I publish, this is something I hope will help with my Thanetonline blogging which had rather dried up. I will probably start with John Lewis's book written in 1736, The History and Antiquities as well Ecclesiastical as Civil of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent The Second Edition, With Additions here is the link to it A word of warning here, don't read the first edition which is a much shorter book and had a lot missing compared the the second edition, which is by far the best.

I am still using the blog as my main place to post and then linking the blog post so social media like Facebook, this is mainly because blogger handles large pictures better, so when you click to expand the pictures expand a lot more.