"Simon R. Green - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

shit than any man could read in one lifetime. Gandalf's prided itself on catering for every taste
and interest, from the latest paperback best-sellers to obscure philosophical discourses bound
in goatskin. From science to mysticism, Gothic romances to celebrity biographies, from
aromatherapy to creative knitting to erotic feng shui, you could be sure of finding something
unexpected in every genre, on any subject.
Gandalf's had books on everything, including a few it shouldn't. The shop's owner was
fearless, and would stock anything he thought people wanted. There'd been a certain amount
of controversial publicity just recently, when the owner refused to stop stocking the new
English translation of the infamous Necronomicon, even though it was officially banned.
Toby didn't care; he'd already survived far greater scandals over selling copies of Spycatcher
and The Satanic Verses. He'd flipped briefly through the Necronomicon, just out of curiosity,
but found the dry prose style unreadable and the illustrations frankly baffling. People were
still paying twenty quid a copy though, proof if proof were needed that you could sell
absolutely anything if people thought they weren't supposed to be reading it. He'd been much
more taken with The Joy of Frogs, a sex manual where all the illustrations featured cartoon
frogs going at it in unusual and inventive ways. Some customer had ordered the book over the
phone, but so far hadn't worked up enough courage to come in and pick it up. Just as well,
really - the shop's staff had pretty much worn the book out between them. One had even made
notes. The real money still came from the never-ending turnover of brand-name best-sellers:
Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, J. K. Rowling and whoever the hell it was who wrote those
marvellous children's fantasies about Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat.
The only thing Toby really disliked about his current occupation was having to get up so
damned early in the morning. He lived alone, in a characterless semi-detached he'd inherited
from an uncle, and most mornings his bed felt like a womb. He'd had to put his alarm clock
on the other side of the room, so he'd be forced to get up out of bed to turn it off. So; up at
seven a.m. to catch the train at eight, in order to get to work at nine. No doubt there were
those who had to get up even earlier, but Toby preferred not to think about them because it
interfered with his self-pity. Shit, shower and shave, not necessarily in that order, grab the
nearest clothes and then downstairs to breakfast. A quick bowl of All-Bran (motto: eat our
cereal and the world will fall out of your bottom), two large cups of black coffee, and then out
of the house and down through the town to the railway station, with eyes still defiantly half
closed. The body might be up and about, but the brain still wasn't ready to commit itself.
Though he'd never admit it, Toby quite liked walking through the town first thing in the
morning. Down the seemingly endless Trow-bridge Road, with its ranks of terraced houses
with their bulging bay windows and gabled roofs on one side and old stone houses on the
other, each one almost bursting with proud individuality. The street was mostly empty that
early in the day, and there was hardly any traffic as yet. The town was still waking up, and
only early risers like Toby Dexter got to see her with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth
and no make-up on. Down the hill and turn sharp left, past the old almshouses, and there was
the railway station, supposedly designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunei himself, on a day
when he clearly had a lot of other things on his mind. So far it had successfully resisted all
attempts at modernisation, and the small monitor screens offering up-to-date train information
had been carefully tucked away in corners so as not to detract from the building's ambience.
The occasional deadly dull lives . . . Toby envied all of them because at least they had some
kind of purpose.
Toby worked at Gandalf's bookshop, right in the busy centre of Bath. He was officially in
charge of the Crime & Thrillers section, but really he was just a shop assistant with a few
extra duties. It wasn't a bad place to work. The other assistants were pleasant company, and
the shop itself was full of interesting nooks and crannies and intriguing out-of-print treasures.
Gandalf's consisted of four sprawling floors, connected by old, twisting stairways and the