The End. What I have learned from writing 400 posts on this blog.

My intention in starting to write this blog was to let readers know that Oxfam Wilmslow (or perhaps Oxfam in general) was interested in books. We weren’t interested only in the revenue from sales, but enjoyed researching them, loved reading them and derived pleasure from being part of our local book browsing community. The volunteer team at Oxfam Wilmslow has enjoyed sharing the excitement of discovery, the poignancy of revived memory and mystified ignorance when confronted with the strange and obscure.

I can tell you that over the past year the most searched for posts have been:

• The book of Shirley Baker’s Street Photographs of Manchester and Salford (one of my personal favourites)
• A Folio Edition of Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
• An exhibition catalogue of Andy Warhol’s Portraits
• A book of Derek Gardner’s paintings of Nelson’s Ships
• and finally our Leonard Baskin’s prints, illustrating Ted Hughes’ Cave Birds.

However, I also had other hopes and, during the past eighteen months, I have learned that this blog has not fulfilled my need to identify a community within my town. I had hoped to appeal to local people but I find my readers are geographically widespread and the local nucleus is small. As I say good bye I can think of many that I shall miss. I want to thank you all for your interest and encouragement. I have learned a lot and hope to put it to good use.

Now I have another project in mind. I shall spend the summer thinking, planning and assessing its feasibility. It could be that I’ll be trying something different in the autumn.

As this blog attracts readers to old posts and as some of these books are still on sale, I shall leave it up for a while.