The building of this library – now almost 7,500-tomes-strong – started on August 10, 2013, at Bookworld, the last bookseller in Puerto Banús, the swanky part of Marbella, Spain.

Paul Preston’s standard work on the Spanish Civil War – The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain, published by Harper Press – was bought for €16.90.

It’s not that I can vividly recall the – in light of what was to follow – rather momentous occasion, as much as it is that I register every book destined for inclusion in the WR Library. Apart from title, author, publisher, isbn number, etc, the purveyor, date of purchase, and price paid are also noted.

However, most books in the library have a small, and mostly unremarkable, story attached to them. The circumstance, place, price, or seller may have made a lasting impression. This first-of-a-great-many books was acquired on a Saturday morning.

At the time I was employed by a real estate office – most non-Spaniards in Marbella are – literally around the corner from the bookshop. The job, mind-numbing to a fault, paid a reasonably fair wage and allowed me to spend some pocket change on books. For that, a bibliophile must be most grateful.

In fact, on that Saturday at Bookworld I also obtained hardback copies of the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World by John Roberts (editor) and How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism by Eric Hobsbawn in addition to a paperback edition of Hunter S Thompson’s The Gonzo Papers Anthology.

Book Details

• The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain by Paul Preston
• HarperPress 2013
• ISBN 978-0-0063-8695-7
• 736 pp