We are Ann and Michael Sims and we have been selling books by catalogue from our base in Lowestoft for over 30 years. We have had a book selling website on internet since 1996.
Ann was born in Lowestoft but her paternal roots are in Co. Cork. I was born in Newbury, Berkshire but both of us have family connections locally and have spent most of our childhood and adult life in Lowestoft. I was a career fireman but had to take early retirement in 1983 after developing health problems.
At the time we already had an eight bedroomed guest house (Rockville House) which we further developed and we also sold books, both to our guests and by catalogue. As time went by the books began to take over more of the bedrooms and we put the book business on a more formal footing in 1994. We stopped taking guests and became full time booksellers in 1998 and with the growth of the internet we discontinued selling by printed catalogue to concentrate on our website catalogues.
We always carry a reasonable level of stock in Military and Naval History (mainly World War II), in Local (to northeast Suffolk) History and Topography, and in a number of early 20th century popular authors of Fiction. We also have a fluctuating stock in a number of smaller interest areas. Total stock (including uncatalogued stock) is in the region of 10,000 books.