Hello, it is I, your manic autumnal aesthetic pixie dream girl MC and this is the next update live from the bookshop. It’s a nice crispy dappled day. I’ve got my woolly socks on under my shop slippers, and I’m debuting the latest cosy addition to my wardrobe of blankety shackets - the must-have item for all shopkeepers who feel they always have to keep the door open. Let’s be clear though, even though I look like the poster girl for Pumpkin Spice today, my coffee order was still just Americano with hot milk, please.
These posts will remain free, with comments open so you can send me queries like ‘What’s that pink and yellow book that you were looking forward to coming in?’1 and ‘Do you really wear slippers in the shop?2’
A regular customer comes in to collect a couple of things she’s reserved; the gilded new novel from Essie Fox, and the gorgeous new illustrated gift book from Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher. She stays and chats after her purchase and the postie drops in to hand me a box. Ooh, I wonder what this is, I say, opening it up in front of the customer. It’s two copies of Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle and I can see the customer mentally wrestling with herself over this book she didn’t know existed but now perhaps cannot live without. She peers over as I flick through, “has it got maps?” It’s Got Maps. Dark stripes down the edges indicate there are further decorative pages within the book. It feels almost cruel to show her. She’s already spent £30. “I’d better go” she says, barely able to tear her eyes from the siren call of the Art Deco-ish foil. I book the stock into the system and put one out on the new releases table. I’m going to keep the other on the customer shelf for now, just in case.
They always have beautiful books in the window.
Let’s go in then?
And actually, they did! However, they didn’t buy anything and one of them said “let’s go to the charity shop instead” as they left.
A couple come in to ask if we have a copy of this. Wish we did. Sounds dead good.
The other postie pops in and hands me a nice recyclable envelope. The good sort that doesn’t sneeze lint all over you when you open it. Inside is a proof of the new Jo Nesbo novel, which looks like a Point Horror book. It’s called The Night House and it sounds absolutely mad because the plot is that someone gets sucked into a telephone. On the cover, the phone has blood on it, so you know it’s sucked-into-a-phone in A Bad Way. Jo Nesbo has sold over 55 million books worldwide, and there’s something very moving to me about someone who has been so successful with a certain type of book, only to reveal that their passion project is a story about a slurpy death phone. I haven’t read any Jo Nesbo before, but I might read this one. Maybe it will turn out to be a dark metaphor for the way we all live now, our brains being lightly sucked into our phones as we scroll away our lives, but let’s hope not. Schlurp.
Grandma drops in on the way back from her church coffee morning. She’s brought cake for Business Mum, but I’m here today, so the cake is mine. Praise be.
I’ve genuinely seen five different people cycling on the pavement outside the shop already today, and it’s only 12.20. The pavement is not wide, there are cars parked along one side of it, and there are huge posts coming out of the ground, both for signage and streetlights. I’ve seen these people cycling on this unhospitable pavement and I’ve heard several people almost get knocked into by a bicycyle. Both parties, angrily muttering in different directions. This isn’t really bookshop news, but I just feel like today’s the day someone’s going to get hit by a bicycle outside the bookshop, and then it will be.
Lunchtime lull: nom nom nom.
Nice bookshop, isn’t it? … Bit dear, though.
Me (to the books): My Dears!
A man comes in and buys two Edward Marston novels, orders a third and enquires about a fourth. I think perhaps if you were to chart our all time best selling authors, Marston might make the top ten because people either read no Edward Marston novels, or 37 Edward Marston novels on the trot. Marston has written so many books, I’m wondering if he’s the adult version of Daisy Meadows, the Adam Blade of trains. This is a publishing joke about him not being a real person. Don’t worry friends, Google assures me he is. Of course, his name is not really Edward Marston. Anyway, I wonder if Jo Nesbo is real?
We order most of our books through one wholesale distributor and they’re incredibly efficient and we love them very much. Sometimes, their online catalogue is hilarious. Books have to get tagged so we can search for them and I understand it’s a fallible system. Today, I was searching through the young graphic novels and comic strip books and I found this. This book isn’t a young graphic novel or comic strip book, but that’s besides the point. Who is this book for? Why did this book come out last year - more than seven years since the series ended. Name one person who watched this show and thought “yeah, but what I’d really like is the recipe for Ben’s Calzones.” Donna’s mimosa’s, however? Mmmohkay! (Treat yo self.)
Of course, I’m going to buy a book today. I’ve whittled it down to two, though this also sounds great. I wrote quite a personal piece this week for paid subs, about the doubts I have as a writer. A trustworthy subscriber suggested looking at The Artist’s Way, or doing The Artist’s Way. As this is an excellent bookshop, we have a copy in stock. I am contemplating buying it. Taking it home. Doing it. However, I’m also immediately drawn to Helene Hanff’s Letter from New York,3 a bind up of her updates from New York, written to read during her monthly five-minute slot on Women’s Hour.
Here’s a line from October:
… January 1st is a delusion. The New Year begins in October when New York is suddenly alive and jumping with new Broadway shows and new books in the bookstores and a new Philharmonic season and new restaurants opening and everybody moves quickly, everybody makes plans, there are new worlds to conquer and anything can happen!
Outside the shop, two older women, linked at the arm call out “Come here!” and “Hey, bugalugs, come here!” I glance up to see who they’re talking to. The bugalugs in question is small dog on the end of a long lead. He’s only gone his allotted length. How much further can he need to come back from? The lead is neon.
Don’t argue with me on a Friday.
(Hoping to hear the rest of this on Saturday.)
A middle aged couple come into the bookshop and I’ve decided they’re on a date. The way they whisper like this is a library. She giggles. Perhaps they’ve just been for lunch. Lunch with wine. But, perhaps I’m being short-sighted and this is a happy marriage? Laughing together in the bookshop, little glances. Then he asks her “have you read John Grisham?” and I know he’s flirting. They’re not married. Not yet.
You can support my bricks and mortar bookshop by buying your books via this link, and you can support me as a writer by taking out a paid sub to this Substack.
Paid subscribers also have the option to join my book club. Thanks so much!
Birkenstock Boston Oiled Leather Tobacco Brown - what a bunch of random manly words for what are essentially little elf shoes.
A truth about me is that I’ve never read, or seen the film, of 84, Charing Cross Road!
“Bugalugs” giving me all the ‘Granny Mobile’ vibes! 💙
Also, adore the new shacket.