The Problem With Oxfam Books
Alexander Larman is the author of several historical and biographical titles, his most recent book, Power and Glory, the third and final instalment of his Windsor trilogy. He is also the book’s editor of The Spectator, and it was for that publication that he recently wrote an article entitled The Problem With Oxfam Books. While initially praising an Oxfam bookshop in Oxford of which he has in the past been a regular customer, the piece centres on the following incident:
Yet I’ve rather fallen out of love with the Oxfam St Giles ever since it did something unexpected a couple of months ago: it stopped me buying books. I noticed that there was a small batch of Nancy Mitford first editions and reprints on the shelves and, a Mitfordian to my core, piled them up and brought them to the desk. The volunteer, a witty and literate man, took one look at them, and me, and said: ‘Sorry, these have been underpriced by one of our staff. You can’t have them.’ When I began to splutter about retail law and prices being binding, the manager – another witty and literate man, as is de rigueur in Oxford – informed me: ‘We’re a charity. We’re not bound by retail law.
As a volunteer (not witty, not literate, just one of the “jobsworths” as described by Larman) at my local Oxfam bookshop, I feel qualified to comment aspects of this. Firstly, I would never have mispriced the Nancy Mitfords. Instead I’d have asked a colleague to price them correctly (ie fairly) before buying them myself. Secondly, the two witty and literate men of Oxfam St Giles were incorrect: an Oxfam bookshop is bound by retail law, just as all other retail outlets are. That one of these men was the manager of the shop is kind of worrying.
However, contrary to Alexander Larman’s argument, prices marked on goods in shops are not binding, legally speaking they are merely an “invitation to treat”. If the price is a mistake, then the retailer is not obliged to sell at that price. Having said that, what happened to Larman was nothing short of rude and it’s no wonder he’s annoyed. A similar thing - albeit on a smaller scale - occurred earlier this year in our shop when a customer came to the till with a book of the late Tessa Ransford’s poetry. It had been published in the 1980s by the now defunct Ramsay Head Press, was in perfect condition and had been priced at £0.99. It was probably worth closer to a fiver, £6 at a push, but it was only because of my current obsession with the history of Edinburgh’s Ramsay Head Press that I knew that. But that’s just the way it goes in charity bookshops, you win some you lose some, and I rang it up on the till for 99 pence.
The rest of Larman’s article is familiar territory: even with their “grumbling and complaining staff”, Oxfam bookshops are the reason that second hand bookshops are going out of business. (He does throw in a novel curveball about Oxfam bookshops being “too brightly lit”.) My guess is that second hand bookshops wouldn’t want the sheer volume of books that we receive as donations. They’re not all Nancy Mitford first editions, and these days there’s very little demand for dogeared copies of Michael Ondaatje’s English Patient, multiple copies of which we receive every week. As someone who buys a lot of books, I think there’s room for both second hand and charity shops.
I’m sorry Alexander Larman feels that “the game is very much up” for Oxfam bookshops. I’d say 99% of the customers who come into our small shop are happy with what we offer them and, unlike Larman, realise that the primary objective of the shop’s existence is to raise funds for Oxfam to fight inequality to end poverty and injustice. Bagging a bargain - and there are plenty to be had - should be seen as a bonus.
If there is a problem with Oxfam books it’s the recent threat of job losses to the very hard working retail staff. A cursory review of Oxfam’s 2023-24 annual report suggest that retail is not where the problems lie within the organisation.