Greetings! It is I, your Spiritual Coastal Grandmother1 at the Bookshop. The turtleneck is white but today’s soup is yellow so send me your lunchtime thoughts and prayers. I read this week2 that the Diane Keaton layered look is out and the ‘Eclectic Grandpa’ trend is in now but I will not be parted from my turtlenecks until Spring and a good job too - that sea breeze is Baltic today and I’ve finally had to Shut The Front Door! No, really! The shop is open, but the door is closed; let’s see if anyone can fathom such a thing in the year of our lawd just turn the handle, 2024.
Business Mum lands back in the country tonight which means the end of my ENDLESS WEEK OF BEING IN THE BOOKSHOP FOREVER. Thanks for the company and particularly the subs who upgraded to support me through The Agony (gozz!) and The Ecstasy (receipt chicken!) of those extra days. Can’t wait to not be here again until next Friday, but in the meantime…let’s sell some books!
First customer successfully navigates the concept of Door to order a book for her book club. “I haven’t got a copy in at the moment but my delivery’s coming tomorrow morning,” I say, like a person with a good bookshop, “so I’ll have one then, and I’ll text you as soon as it arrives,” A seamless interaction which does not even include me saying Did you know that we have our own book club3 that might be way better than the one you’re currently in? True story.
I shouldn’t come in here in case I buy a lot of books.
Don’t worry, you probably won’t. She didn’t.
A really small women roots around the bookshop for twenty minutes, I keep offering to help because she’s standing on her tippiest-toes to reach Margaret Atwood. She retrieves each one individually, reads the back then stretches up again to re-shelve them. It’s a real effort. I don’t know if I should offer to help again. She does a few more laps of the bookshop, looks at something from the window display and something on the poetry shelf and then leaves empty-handed after all. It’s midday now and we haven’t had a sale yet. *insert Prince’s riff from Sign ‘O The’Times'*
I’m opening the door, if only to hear some chat. There’d better be some chat.
All aboard, next stop - book post! It’s called The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks and the proof has arrived with a lovely illustrated postcard and a letter from the author printed on some extremely thick letter-headed paper. Even the proof of this book has copper foiling, which means the book production is going to be Extremely Extra, and should be just about everywhere when the book is published in June. It sounds really gooooood!
Choo choo… Here’s the synopsis:
It is the end of the 19th Century and the world is awash with marvels. But there is nothing so marvellous as the Wastelands: a terrain of terrible miracles that lies between Beijing and Moscow.
Nothing touches this abandoned wilderness except the Great Trans-Siberian Express: an impenetrable train built to carry cargo across continents, but which now transports anyone who dares to cross the shadowy Wastelands.
On to the platform steps a curious cast of characters: a grieving woman with a borrowed name, a famous child born on the train and a disgraced naturalist, all heading for the Great Exhibition in Moscow.
But the old rules are changing, and there are whispers that the train isn't safe. As secrets and stories begin to unravel the passengers and crew must survive their journey through the Wastelands together, even as something uncontrollable seems to be breaking in . . .
Someone came into the shop!
He said “We’re just testing the fire alarm”. Ah, so close.
*outside* Can I get a whoop-whoop?
*me, in the empty bookshop* … … whoop whoop.
Exciting news in Book World this week though, my longest-term boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, has announced a novel written with the ‘weird fiction’ writer, China Miévielle, based on Keanu’s BRZRKR comic series. Even for people who don’t BRZRKR and have never read any novels by China Miévielle, this is exciting because Keanu Reeves is Keanu Reeves and we love him and will support him in absolutely anything, as we have since we were eight years old, cos-playing Ted Theodore Logan III, before realising we didn’t so much want to be him as we wanted to be his wife.
Keanu recorded a typically Keanueqsue announcement video, naming all of his collaborators on the project, which is more than some celebrity authors do in their whole literary career and I’m delighted that I now have an email from the publishers including this ‘Keanu approved’ photo of Keanu. I actually think Keanu would have preferred his hair a little longer and scruffier than this but this is the only one marked ‘Keanu-approved’ so this is the one I will share.
Anyway, will I read The Book of Elsewhere? Probably not, but I don’t need to read it to know that Keanu cares a lot about this, and I hope the people who do read it love it as much as I love him.
Blimey, ok, it’s nearly 2 pm and we still haven’t had a sale today. Whose idea was it to publicly document this!? I can’t believe I’m sitting here when there are new episodes of Bluey released today. If this is your first Receipt from the Bookshop, please believe me, there are usually actual human interactions included.
2.30 pm *glitter canons* It’s the first sale of the day!!! I was worried the shop was *too* quiet while this couple were browsing. They were whispering - a lot of people do this in the bookshop, they think it’s the same as the library so I try and type as loudly as I can on the computer so it’s like I’m not listening to the conversation. Anyway, this purchase was really good because it included a novel I wanted to read and some David Grann.
Had a cup of tea. Ate a little thing. Boosted the heating and pressed my feet against the radiator. Momentarily cheered by a customer looking for Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.
Very small child in a bobble hat, walking: ArrrrahhhghhhhaARHhhaaaaarrghhhhh
Parent: Do you want to get in the pushchair?
Child, perfectly composed now: No. …. Aaarrrghhhhaaaa
Oh my goodness, another sale! It was a paperback and a bookmark but at least the till went ker-ching! That’s us edging over £40 today, which means it’s officially a better day than Monday, but not as good as yesterday when we were only open for a half day. Make it make sense!
Did you know that Sylvia Plath wrote some stories for children? There’s three of them in this little book. I’ve been thinking about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes a lot this week because I watched the film with Daniel Craig and Gwyneth Paltrow and even though it’s not a great film I like to see them in the context of the houses and clothes they lived in. Have dug out my copy of Birthday Letters to have a read of this weekend which won’t be as fun as The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit and Other Stories, of course. What’s nice about these stories is there’s one all about kitchen utensils and it made me think of one of the few Twitter accounts I still enjoy following; Sylvia Plath’s Food Diary
Twenty people for dinner, and I didn’t know if I was in the way or not. 1951
I get very tired, & long to cook pineapple upsidedown cakes & write a book of poems, but must put off such luxuries till June. 10/22/57
Here I am, the same old sour-dough. 10/19/59
Anyway, we’ve had this book on the shelf for many years and no one has ever bought it.
Sometimes you think you must have a terrible bookshop because you haven’t sold many books today and then a tiny little boy in a puffer coat with stars on walks around the shop going ‘ooh! ooh! ooh!’ as if everything he sees is a new kind of delight and he chooses a little book to take home and seems very happy with your shop even though it had no other customers in it because at least it had a book about a cat in it and a chair that was just the right size for a tiny boy to sit in.
Well, the total takings today didn’t quite get to £50 but didn’t we have fun? Oh no, wait, we didn’t at all. Tremendously dull day but at least I didn’t get yellow (soup) on my white (shirt). Nice big order coming tomorrow so Business Mum will be welcomed back with a loads of packing paper to squash, phone calls to make and cardboard to cut-up. Don’t feel too bad for her - she told me she’s already planning to do this trip again next January!
Spoke too soon, Mrs Lemon Cake came in to buy a beautiful paperback that I’d put temptingly in the window and sent the day’s total whooshing over the £50 mark. We’re putting coal on the fire tonight!! Actually I’m going to the pictures to see Priscilla so by the time I’ve paid for petrol, extortionate cinema ticket, extortionate yet essential coffee and treat, the balance will be restored and the day’s finances will return to zero. I’m joking, that’s not at all how money works, but this does segue nicely into the reminder that any books you purchase through links on this newsletter directly support my independent bricks-and-mortar bookshop, and we appreciate every single order. If you’d like to buy a book from us you can use this link, and if you’d like to support me directly as a writer you can upgrade your subscription with the click of a button! TTFN.
I’m 38 and absolutely no-one’s Grandmother
Sylvia Plath!? Children’s stories!? Thank you!
Your Diane Keaton look is very much in. It’s been rebranded a “Victoria Beckham shirt sandwich” by none other than NYC style icon Leandra Medine Cohen: https://open.substack.com/pub/leandramcohen/p/the-styling-tip-that-launched-a-million?r=ari8i&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post