Greetings, Global Friends of the Bookshop, it is I, your tireless book angel of the north!
It’s another grey soggy Friday on the Fylde Coast, and today it’s the type of rain that people will describe as “the fine stuff that is actually really wet”. Stupid, eh? I prefer to call it covert rain. It isn’t pelting you in the eyeballs or pummelling the pavements, but it is secretly soaking every garment you’re wearing. If you’re inside, you might not even know it is raining, because it isn’t knocking on the windows, plus it’s almost completely invisible. This is why people still venture out into before realising the dampened error of their ways. Covert rain claims another victim, muahahahaaa! People say that it’s very boring to talk about the weather, but there are definitely worse things to discuss. I’m hoping to chat to lots of people today about this specifically wet type of rain, because at least they’ll be in the bookshop.
Can’t make it to the bookshop because of location/inclination/covert or other more insidious types of rain? Order a book from me here or thrill me with a upgraded subscription to this newsletter, to keep me in waterproofs.
First enquiry of the day is one of those that really makes you think. The customer is looking for a book on how to use a smartphone. She says if you don’t know a teenager to show you, you’ve had it! I do a quick search, hoping that such a book exists and that it might be simple, clean and cheap, but the only thing I can find is Android Smartphones for Seniors…For Dummies. I can tell by the fact that this book is over 300 pages long, and costs £25, it is not what the customer is looking for. Also who wants to be called a senior dummy? Feel quite put out on behalf of all seniors who are not teenager-adjacent, and annoyed at phone companies are who are so intent on making their packaging the same size as the phone itself they’ve done away with basic instruction booklets.
Fire alarm test man sticks his head in the door to give me the look. He used to say “Sorry to bother you, I’m just warning you we’re about to do a short fire alarm test.” He does this every week so the speaking part got shorter every time. “We’re going to do the fire alarm test.” to “Fire alarm.” to Face Gesture That Means We’re About To Test The Fire Alarm. I warn the browsing customer accordingly, who says she’s just been in the hairdressers next door when the same thing happened, but I am not in time to warn the customers who enter the bookshop just as the alarm pierces the air and everyone’s eardrums.
“There’s this book I want to get…”
- someone walking straight past the bookshop.
A customer comes in for a copy of Wuthering Heights and I tell her about Fifteen Wild Decembers which, actually, I haven’t read, and the film ‘Emily’, which actually, I have seen! You know, with Emma Mackey from Sex Education!!! (customer hasn’t seen ‘Sex Education’ so I should stop talking now.) Anyway, did you know you can get a copy of Wuthering Heights for £2.99?? My large Americano cost more than that! With standard milk!!! Imagine your seminal masterpiece costing less than my caffeine water. Gah!
Next sale of the day is another genius of an Emily. It’s The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. Customer and I share a quick gush over this author. The thing about Emily St. John Mandel is, she’d be so intimidating if she wasn’t so lovely (I’ve met her!) but when you read her work it’s just very clear that she has so much more going on in her head that I will ever have in mine. Sigh, I love her.
Proof in the post alert and it’s a zesty number from
! I love Justin’s Substack so I’m delighted to have an early copy of his next novel. It’s called LEADING MAN and it’s out on the 9th May. Here’s the first line; ‘I wish I looked good wet.’Ha, don’t we all, as we pass through the covert rain that insists on plastering our hair to our cheeks and making our jeans feel weird. Justin is a very funny writer and I’m really looking forward to reading some of his fiction. Here’s the full synopsis.
Leo's content to be in the background, letting his louder, more charismatic best friends shine. For a thirty-something gay people pleaser it's always been safer that way.
But, suddenly, a gorgeous love interest from the past steps out of the wings, Leo's pushed to his limits by his overenthusiastic new boss and - strangest of all - he begins to question whether the friends he loves so dearly have been holding him back.
For the first time ever, the spotlight is on Leo. But a spotlight reveals everything. And now all the things Leo has hidden away in darkness are in full focus. If he's to get everything he's ever wanted, Leo will need to face his past, and the future, head on. But he might not like everything he sees.
Big thanks for sending the proof, Justin and the Little, Brown team!
So we’ve got this box placed to the side of the window that collects old glasses/spectacles for a charity and the people are going mad for it. Genuinely, they are delighted by the prospect of having a purposeful place to bring their old specs to, and I get it, because let me tell you as a bespectacled person myself, you cannot just throw those things away. Even when they aren’t the right prescription for you. Even when the style is so dated it’s threatening to make a come back. You just, cannot chuck a pair of glasses into the bin. They’ve seen too much! They were practically a part of your face! You have to show them some sort of respect even in retirement, and it turns out that a fitting funeral is gleefully bringing a big bag of them (because you definitely have more than one pair) to the bookshop where there is a cardboard box with a mysterious sign that says “Old Spectacles Collected Here.”
There hasn’t been anyone in the bookshop for hours now. I literally could have been at home on my sofa under my dog watching another six episodes of the new Netflix adaption of One Day. BTW, your friend and mine, David Nicholls, has a new book out in April and I don’t even mind that I wasn’t sent a proof of it because I will gladly pay good money for another of his wonderful stories. It’s called You Are Here. Lush.
Business Mum, if you are reading this before you come in tomorrow, I have just used the penultimate tea-bag. We have a TEA CRISIS!
Business Mum, an update. I wasted the penultimate teabag on a cup of tea I couldn’t drink because the milk in the fridge has gone off. We now also have a MILK CRISIS.
Business Mum, This Is Just To Say
I have drank
the bottle of iced coffee
that you got with that meal deal
many months ago
and which
you were
probably
saving for Summer
Forgive me
I didn’t even enjoy it
too sweet
and too cold
It’s momentarily stopped raining so I’ve opened the door. I am immediately rewarded with two customers and a dog in a coat.
Business Mum has put some of her models in the shop window to complement the current selection of Asian fiction we have in the display, and of course the models are getting more attention than the books we actually sell because we’re a bookshop. BM makes these models from kits she orders online and then takes months and months gluing all the tiny little pieces together and sometimes wiring them for lighting and complaining about how fiddly they all are before posting pictures on her Facebook and buying another kit to start all over again. Once they’re made, they’re very impressive, but they do demand quite a lot of surface space, so she brings them to the shop and we stick them on top of the bookshelves with all the dust and dead bugs.
People ask about them a lot and they get much better answers from BM than they do from me. Anyway, BM has had so many enquiries about them since she put them in the window she says she might order a few to sell, which sounds a lot like just buying a lot of stuff that she herself will end up buying and calling it business, which, actually, is exactly how I buy the books.
*into the upstairs flat intercom* “I’m here to deliver a latte”
- Some delivery guy, delivering a coffee to someone who doesn’t know you can buy Wuthering Heights for £2.99
Last week I was added to a Whatsapp group for local retailers to share information about local shoplifters, sending descriptions and general updates about crime in the area, etc. It’s been a bit of an eye-opener to be honest! As a shop that’s not directly in the central square of the town, and with a stock that’s obviously less tempting to someone looking for a five-finger discount than Tesco and Home Bargains, our crime rate is incredibly low. In fact, we actually only know of two items that were absolutely definitely stolen from under our noses. One was our charity donation box from the till, full of cast-off pennies, and the other was Madeline. I was going through a big Mo Willems phase at the time and I thought it’d be cool to have some of the toys of his characters to go with the books we sell. We placed a one-off order with an American company who made cuddly The Pigeon toys. The same company also did a beautiful rag doll toy of Bemelman’s Madeline, but by the time we’d priced her up to include any sort of profit on the fees we’d paid, she cost £50, making her the most expensive item in the whole shop by a long way. One day, she was stolen and it felt really sad. Not because of the money really, but because the person who took her might not have really known her. Maybe they just saw her price tag. I just thought it was a shame, because she deserved to have an owner who loved her for who she was. I think about her a lot. Where did she end up? I hope she found to way to someone who loves her.
A few Substacky things: I wrote this guest post for
about earning money on Substack, which is getting a lot of really sweet comments. Thank you!February Book Club in the bookshop and here on Substack is Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin and the discussion thread is live now for paid subs.
Finally, I got my first Founding Member subscription this week from author
which has just made me feel so incredibly centrally-heated. She included this message ‘Without indie bookshops, we are lost. Loving your work, Katie.’ Thank you so much, Eleanor.I also wanted to share this upgrade message from
which really made me laugh.I’m off home now. We’ve sold just five books and three toys today, but at least those others people found a place to put their old glasses. They’ve probably been able to reclaim an entire drawer back! What would you do with a drawer? Have a great weekend everyone, I’ll be back in the bookshop next Friday for another Receipt.
Must remember…tea and milk, tea and milk, tea and milk
!!! I wasn’t expecting you to mention the proof here at all but I’m very excited you did! It’s like hearing Janice Long read out your name on the radio. Hope you enjoy Leading Man!