Hello, it is I, your employee of the week and this is the next update live from the bookshop.
I’ve been away for a few days this week, haunting some bookshops that I don’t own. Text reports from Business Mum included one day in which people ‘were definitely Christmas shopping’ and another day where she was so bored she went to buy a sandwich. It’s a cold, but significantly dry, Friday so let’s see how things pan out - will I be feeling the festive spirit, or snacking off for my first festive sammy?
These posts will remain free, with comments open so you can send me queries like ‘How many books did you buy on holiday?’1 and ‘What’s the best high street festive sandwich?’2
“Nice shop, that!”
Some woman I’ve never seen in my entire life - I’m not saying that she’s never been in the shop, but… she’s never been in the shop.
10.45 The only person who has been in the shop so far today is the postman. Come back, Some Woman. It is a nice shop. Come and see for yourself. Please?
11.30 First sales of the day! And it’s three in quick succession; a gift voucher for our shop to a woman in a coat that looks significantly warmer that mine, some royal historical non-fiction to a man in aviator jacket who legit looks like a pilot, and one of those gorgeous Virginia Woolf paperbacks to an impossibly cool young girl in a great suede jacket that I admired and she said was from a charity shop.
Little girl: Can we go in there??!!??!!
Parent: No!
Little girl: Why not????!!!!
Parent: Because it’s a book shop!!!
I crack into a bar of chocolate I find in the drawer next to the tape measure and Stanley knife. It must have come with a promotional book parcel at some point. Unfortunately, it must have been quite some time ago because the chocolate has gone all misty white in the meantime, and when I risk a bite anyway, I remember I don’t like this type of chocolate, even when it isn’t old and manky.
A lady enters the shop :“Is that one in the window for sale? Can I buy it?”
Me, with an enquiring face (pleasesayabookpleasesayabookpleasesayabook): “A book?”
The lady: “The pumpkin.”
A man comes into find a book about Boudica. We search through the catalogue and find there isn’t actually a recent NF paperback from one of the general publishers specifically about the mysterious queen, but I tempt him with the description from Duncan Mackay’s Echolands and the customer decides to ‘sod the expense’ and order a sumptuous £25 hardback. Excellent!
“It’s a busy little shop, that one!”
An absolute joker.
A family come in and pick a great selection of middle-grade and illustrated non-fiction including shop favourites, Katherine Woodfine and Emma Carroll, plus this gorgeous children’s recipe book as recommended by Nigella and Ottolenghi. Mmm!
Why did I bring a cold lunch today? It’s already really cold today, now the inside of my mouth is cold and my throat is cold and my hands are really cold! I’m putting the radiator on. In the words of Boudica that customer half an hour ago, sod the expense!
I’ve been sent a reading copy of The Pandas Who Promised by picture book whizz Rachel Bright and ridiculously talented illustrator, Jim Field. This book is the next part of their ongoing partnership of inspirational animal books with outrageously glorious artwork like The Lion Inside, The Way Home for Wolf and The Squirrels Who Squabbled. The latest book levels up the cuteness factor with a sensitive story of twin red panda cub sisters, set against stunning mountain scenery. What I like most about this series (aside from Field’s epic, cinematic backdrops) is the slight angle the stories offer, even though the theme is often made transparent by the title, there’s always some additional moment or gentle bend in the tale that adds an unexpected layer of emotional depth. By the end of this particular panda story, the cubs have learned an important lesson, but so has their lovely, cuddly mother. Bright has a knack for elevating the potentially-saccharine into something strong and true.
Well, call me Noddy Holder because someone just bought The Guinness Book of World Records and that means IT’S CHRIIIISSSSSSSTMMAAASSSASSS!
A nice lady who by her own account “has lived here all these years and never been into this shop” discovers that we are actually “a really lovely shop” - she needs a piratey present for a little boy so he gets this picture book and this pirate snap game all wrapped up in Emily Sutton dog park paper. Then at the till she’s conned into buying two wooden dinosaurs by her little girl, who is very cute and casually eating an apple while demanding more dinos. Gotta love those at-the-point-of-payment purchases! Go on then, just one more Dilophosaurus!
Quiet last few hours of the day. Cup of tea and a sneaky listen to my Britney Spears audiobook in one ear (no customers came in anyway). Michelle Williams just said the bit about meeting Paula Cole and said the name of the song ‘I Don’t Wanna Wait’ as if it were any old song in the world and that’s why she’s a five time Oscar nominee. Getting her to do this audiobook was a genius move and I’m loving listening to it, but if you’d like to buy a spredged copy of the physical book, we have them in the bookshop and I genuinely think this makes a good Christmas present for a lot of people who think they don’t want to read it… but absolutely want to read it. Non-spredged copy here.
Cashing up now and making my own little purchase because I have a back-log of stuff I really need to pay for. Today’s personal purchases are this and this. I know that I should not, and yet… I can’t not! The Woman in Me buys the books.
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five books across four bookshops
none of them because they all have jam in them.
YOU GOT ADA'S BOOK! I love her SO MUCH! We had her on the podcast and went to her tiny apartment in Brooklyn and met her lovely anglophile son! Spookily husband bought a copy of her memoir Also A Poet TODAY. And I was idly browsing your Bookshop.org page and treated myself to this! I am SO excited! https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/nobody-will-tell-you-this-but-me-a-true-as-told-to-me-story-i-loved-this-book-more-than-i-can-say-nigella-lawson-bess-kalb/2563547?aid=20&ean=9780349013497
Did your mum also tell you that I turned up for bookclub on Monday? 😂