Barr_Beacon
The Prodigal Brummie
This is a long shot but has anyone got any photographs of Andromeda science fiction bookshop? I think it was in Summerhill near the College of Food & Domestic Arts.
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Andromeda Bookshop
- Thread starter Barr_Beacon
- Start date
K
Kandor
Guest
No Buddy, it ended up just a few doors away from the Alex theatre,
The tallest building in Birmingham now occupies its old spot.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2006/01/16/radisson_opens_feature.shtml
The tallest building in Birmingham now occupies its old spot.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2006/01/16/radisson_opens_feature.shtml
Barr_Beacon
The Prodigal Brummie
I visited the 'new' shop on Smallbrook Ringway once. Lacked the magic of the old one.
rockin_rog
rockin_rog
I've just joined this site today. I was the owner of Andromeda and I have a box full of photos from our three sites - Summer Row, top of Suffolk Street (#84) and the last one at the bottom of Suffolk Street (Nos 2-5). We were never in Smallbrook Ringway and Birmingham's tallest building is not built on the site of the shop. Nos 2-5 is now a Costcutter store. When I find the photos I'll post a few here. I'm still interested in science fiction and I'm still a member of the Birmingham SF Group which meets every month and has been doing so since 1971.
Mark Tooze
master brummie
These were taken in the window of the Summer Row shop in the mid 1980s. The TB1 model is not believed to be an original studio model by the way, but I think the Terrahawks cube it is sitting on was an original:-
Spent many a happy hour (and quite a few quid.....) in the various Andromeda shops over the years!
Spent many a happy hour (and quite a few quid.....) in the various Andromeda shops over the years!
Stokkie
master brummie
Bought a couple of William Hope Hodgson and had a conversation with a collector of first edition Hodgsons there. Bought some J. G. Ballard short stories too. An excellent shop, and clean. My favourite of the Birmingham secondhand bookshops - they sold new books and magazines too like Interzone.
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Today i looked for entries about the Andromeda - Bookshop at Birmingham on the internet and found this site.
Thank you so much for giving us the chance to order excellent science-fiction and fantasy books in original language on the continent too.
We would not have been able to otherwise.
The "highly recommended" mentions in the mail-order catalogue enabled me to get to know the best SF - books which was extrememly helpful as i could afford a small amount of books only being a university student at the time.
I did manage to go to 2 UFP - conventions in the eighties at Birmingham. It was so much fun and good times, so lively.
Thank you, Birmingham.
By the way , i am a woman from Germany.
Thank you so much for giving us the chance to order excellent science-fiction and fantasy books in original language on the continent too.
We would not have been able to otherwise.
The "highly recommended" mentions in the mail-order catalogue enabled me to get to know the best SF - books which was extrememly helpful as i could afford a small amount of books only being a university student at the time.
I did manage to go to 2 UFP - conventions in the eighties at Birmingham. It was so much fun and good times, so lively.
Thank you, Birmingham.
By the way , i am a woman from Germany.
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I don't remember UFP cons in Birmingham although I went to a lot of others in the city through the 80s and 90s. Maybe I was never that much of a trekkie. I'm not sure if Rog Peyton (he owned the shop) is still around anywhere but around the time he left the BSFG (they are still about) he wrote a list of his all-time best that is reproduced here https://www.birminghamsfgroup.org.uk/Feature1.html .Today i looked for entries about the Andromeda - Bookshop at Birmingham on the internet and found this site.
Thank you so much for giving us the chance to order excellent science-fiction and fantasy books in original language on the continent too.
We would not have been able to otherwise.
The "highly recommended" mentions in the mail-order catalogue enabled me to get to know the best SF - books which was extrememly helpful as i could afford a small amount of books only being a university student at the time.
I did manage to go to 2 UFP - conventions in the eighties at Birmingham. It was so much fun and good times, so lively.
Thank you, Birmingham.
By the way , i am a woman from Germany.
Andromeda went through 3 different locations over time. I could probably find out when and what the addresses were from the old BSFG newsletters - many of which you could find elsewhere on the internet anyway. It was run by Rog Peyton almost to the end. Part of that time Dave Holmes was next in charge. Dave set up his own shop somewhere outside of Birmingham and I've not kept up with him. Rog was also a regular with the Birmingham SF group from their beginning in the early 70s. Through the 90s he did the newsletter most of the time. By coincidence something just reminded me that I took a bunch of pictures on this day in ... and this is one of them. Not a picture of the shop but he was a fixture.
Attachments
Stokkie
master brummie
Thanks for posting Rog's list. Can I point out that the late Octavia Butler is very much in print these days! Indeed I co-supervised a PhD on her more than 20 years ago. I'm pleased to see much more SF and fantasy in the general bookshops at the moment. I think the last SF event in Birmingham I attended was devoted to J. G. Ballard whose daughter kindly came along. I was an academic rather than a fan, so tended to attend conferences rather than conventions. Though there is often an overlap.
Barr_Beacon
The Prodigal Brummie
I loved visiting the Andromeda Science Fiction Bookshop in Summer Row in the 70s. One of the highlights of my visits was meeting Isaac Asimov the author and getting his autograph, in June 1974.
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Barr_Beacon
The Prodigal Brummie
Here is Asimov's itinerary of his visit to Birmingham until his departure on the Queen Elizabeth 2 luxury ocean liner on Sunday, 16th June 1974:
Thursday 13th June
2.00-5.00 pm: Birmingham Book Signing Sessions - (2.00-2.45 pm) W.H. Smith & Son, 29 Union Street, Birmingham 2; (2.45-3.30 pm) Hudson's Bookshop, Lower Temple Street, Birmingham 2; (3.30-4.00 pm) Midland Educational Bookshop, Corporation Street, Birmingham 2; (4.00-5.00 pm) Andromeda Bookshop, 57 Summer Row, Birmingham 3.
8.00 pm: Public Lecture to the Birmingham Science Fiction Group at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Suffolk Street, Birmingham.
Friday 14th June
2.00-6.00 pm: Recording of BBC-1 "Parkinson" TV show.
8.00 pm: Public Lecture organised jointly by British Mensa and the Science Fiction Foundation at the Commonwealth Hall, Craven Street, London WC2.
Sunday l6th June
Departure at midday on the Queen Elizabeth 2.
Thursday 13th June
2.00-5.00 pm: Birmingham Book Signing Sessions - (2.00-2.45 pm) W.H. Smith & Son, 29 Union Street, Birmingham 2; (2.45-3.30 pm) Hudson's Bookshop, Lower Temple Street, Birmingham 2; (3.30-4.00 pm) Midland Educational Bookshop, Corporation Street, Birmingham 2; (4.00-5.00 pm) Andromeda Bookshop, 57 Summer Row, Birmingham 3.
8.00 pm: Public Lecture to the Birmingham Science Fiction Group at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Suffolk Street, Birmingham.
Friday 14th June
2.00-6.00 pm: Recording of BBC-1 "Parkinson" TV show.
8.00 pm: Public Lecture organised jointly by British Mensa and the Science Fiction Foundation at the Commonwealth Hall, Craven Street, London WC2.
Sunday l6th June
Departure at midday on the Queen Elizabeth 2.
I've checked through what I have of the old BSFG newsletters and this is a rough timeline
The first bookshop opened in August 1971 at Old Hill
In November 1973 the shop moved to 57 Summer Row then to 84 Suffolk St in December 1981 and finally to 2-5 Suffolk St although I don't yet have the date for that. In May 2002 the shop was bought out by the people who owned Dungeons & Starships on Digbeth and closed soon after. Rog retired from selling books at the end of 2009.
Dave Holmes opened a shop called Magic Labyrinth in Leicester after leaving Andromeda. He died in February 2017.
The first bookshop opened in August 1971 at Old Hill
In November 1973 the shop moved to 57 Summer Row then to 84 Suffolk St in December 1981 and finally to 2-5 Suffolk St although I don't yet have the date for that. In May 2002 the shop was bought out by the people who owned Dungeons & Starships on Digbeth and closed soon after. Rog retired from selling books at the end of 2009.
Dave Holmes opened a shop called Magic Labyrinth in Leicester after leaving Andromeda. He died in February 2017.
Upstairs in the Suffolk Street shop, where they had the magazines and second hand paperbacks... when trains for New St station passed by/under the shop it all seemed to shake! Fond memories of that shop, bought loads of Robert E Howatd books from there in the early/ mid-eighties. In hindsight we took stores like Andromeda for granted., most are gone now. We had it so good. Internet is fine but not the same as a bricks and mortar store.
Nearest you get to that at the moment is the basement of Forbidden Planet on Bull Street. Same specialist books, less imports, no second hand.
There's some second hand that might suit you at BookTower on poplar road in kings heath but that's little more than a shelf or two. If you have an ereader or some such the following might be of interest.
Books by Howard, Robert E. (Robert Ervin) (sorted by popularity)
Project Gutenberg offers 75,550 free eBooks for Kindle, iPad, Nook, Android, and iPhone.
Most of these sites will have free books available from other writers, you just have to look.