IN November 1964, popular music was about far more than just the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Sandie Shaw and Roy Orbison, all of whom were at or near the top of the UK albums or singles charts on this particular week. (The Beatles’ album, A Hard Day’s Night, topped the charts for 21 weeks).

The selection to be found in the record department of the newly-opened John Menzies bookshop at 100 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, included The Gay Gordon, by The Joe Gordon Folk Trio; Party Dance Time, by Joe Loss and his Orchestra; O’er the Border, by Jimmy Shand and his Band; and, for jazz fans, The Jazz Greats of Modern Times, featuring a clutch of stellar names.

The record department came complete with a private listening room and several listening booths (the latter a long-gone feature that music fans of a certain age may recall with a flicker of nostalgia).

Glasgow’s newest bookshop had a wide range of fiction and non-fiction in hardback and paperback, as well as fancy goods, greetings cards and stationery, while its theological book department had been transferred from the long-established Buchanan Street bookshop of John McCallum.

Among the ‘books for autumn reading’ from publishers Heinemann on sale at the new store were Julian, by Gore Vidal, Sir Michael & St George, by J.B.Priestley; Paul Gallico’s The Silent Miaow; and Kate & Emma, by Monica Dickens.

Publishers Corgi took out an advert to remind readers of its new paperbacks, among them John O’Hara’s “high-octane” The Big Laugh, Robert Holles’s “explosive” Guns at Batasi, and Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov. “He wrote ‘Lolita’,” the advert added in helpful brackets.