Pinch! (your brow in exasperation) Punch! (-ed in the eye by a raindrop) It’s the First of the Month! Yes, Spring has officially sprung been delayed because the temperature is dropping like drizzle on the coast of Lancashire. Funny that you thought I was sending you a newsletter about a bookshop and yet every issue is about the weather. But bookshops, like great stories, must be in context, and the context for today is that it’s horrible and no one will be shopping. Let’s see how I style this one out…
You can directly support my bookshop by ordering your books through this link (in the UK) and you can support me (worldwide) by upgrading your subscription to this newsletter, which also supports the bookshop, because that’s where I spend all my money anyway.
Big news for aggressively-online book industry people this week with the announcement of a new novel from Sally Rooney, less than 24 hours after I said to no one in particular I wonder when there’ll be a new Sally Rooney novel. It’s called Intermezzo and it sounds exactly like something Sally Rooney would write. I’m so delighted that she’s back to remind everyone that she’s more than just an adjective used to describe literally any book about young people. I can’t wait to read it!
I process a lovely 12-book order for our very best remote customer who shops with us every month. I tell her the total to pay and she randomly adds £10 on with the instruction that I buy a book for myself too. I honestly don’t know what we’ve ever done to deserve such sweet customers but there’s a delivery coming today and half the box is things I’ve got my eye on for myself so I am extremely grateful for this timely treat!
It’s 11.13 and no one has opened the door yet. I decide to chomp into my late breakfast and just at the moment my mouth is full, someone comes in to the shop. I wave my hands in the international sign for ‘sorry about this, but I appear to be eating,’ and then quickly swallow so I can say “Hello, sorry about that, no one has even been in all morning and now you’ve caught me eating!” Anyway, it was a good job this customer stayed and browsed for a bit, which stopped me taking the next bite, because then another opportunity for me to speak to an actual human being arose, in that the telephone rang…
“Good Morning, Storytellers, Inc.!” I said, in my telephone voice, which sounds exactly like Business Mum’s voice.
”Oh,” the caller said. “Is that not Plackitt and Booth?” (Plackitt and Booth is the lovely independent bookshop in the next town along; the Lytham part of Lytham St. Annes, to our St. Annes on the Sea part of it. Yes, a ridiculous situation for a town to be in.)
Anyway, this gentleman had the name of their shop but the phone number for us, which was fine because he was trying to track down a local interest book, so really one was as good as the other, and probably neither of us had it.
I managed to find a newspaper article about the chap who was writing the book the customer was looking for, and amazingly, it had the author’s phone number on it! So I passed that on, along with the correct number for the other bookshop as well, and felt like a very good citizen/detective/tourist information service.
A customer arrives to collect a book and says “thank goodness you’re open!” and I say “Yes!” in a sort of why wouldn’t we be? way and she says “I tried to come on Wednesday…”
“Aha,” I say, “we close on Wednesdays.”
“And I tried to come yesterday.” she says.
“Oh dear,” I say. We were also closed yesterday, a Thursday, for some author events in school. She was very nice about it and ordered another book, so yes, thank goodness we are open today!
I got two proofs in the post this week that I want to tell you about.
The first is the highly-anticipated The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley which has so many shouty quotes on it that I can’t actually be bothered to read them - I can see Max Porter and Julia Armfield rate it, so I’m in. The main reason I requested this proof is that a friend told me it was something to do with Erebus/Terror, which is all I really need to know, but by all accounts this is going to be THE book of the summer. Thank you VP for the proof - I’m excited!!
The next proof is verrrry tempting too - pitching itself as ‘Wuthering Heights meets Daisy Jones and the Six’, Layne Fargo’s The Favourites is set in ‘the sparkling, savage world of elite figure skating’. Now if you’ve ever seen Tessa Virtue and Scot Moir’s Moulin Rouge performance you’ll know how sexy ice skating can get, but also how moving it is, to be so excellent at something. I’m hoping this novel can give me that 2018 PyeongChang feeling. I can’t offer you a pre-order link for The Favourites yet, as it isn’t publishing until Jan 25, but I want you to know that when I searched for one, I stumbled across this book by the similarly named Laine Faro, which, actually, you can’t order either. Mamma mia!
Delivery!
Just one box today; a few customer orders and a copy of Camus’ The Outsider, in French, we didn’t order at all!
Today’s delivery also includes quite a few things that are actually for me, including The Book of Love by Kelly Link. If you’ve never read the Vulture profile of (fellow-bookshop-owner) Kelly Link please treat yourself. I had cause to forward it to a friend this week so I’ve recently enjoyed it again. I particularly love that photo of Link with her famous writer besties, they look so cool and powerful. I don’t actually read much fantasy but I’ve been charmed by the reviews for this one, and I’ve enjoyed her short fiction before so I’m looking forward to the novel. The other books I’m buying today are Leslie Jamison’s memoir Splinters, because I loved her book of essays Make it Burn, Make it Scream, my daughter’s piano lesson book and these Thomas Morris short stories - after enjoying his interview on the
podcast with Alice Vincent and Charlotte Runcie. I can’t wait to read the seahorse story that he talked about in their chat.NB. I get a staff discount when I buy books from my own shop but I do still pay enough to still give the shop a profit. Today’s purchases are actually a lot more than I usually spend (hardbacks!) but I just got my Stripe payment for February’s subscriptions so a huge thanks to everyone who’s keeping me in good books this month - I really appreciate it, and I promise to tell you about the ones I really love.
It’s not a charity shop.
Are you sure? Are the books not… pre-loved?
(yes, they are, because I love them all)
BM; I’ve left you some mushroom soup in the fridge.
Hey, did you see I got a shout-out on the Substack Office Hours this week? Turns out all you have to do to get noticed by Substack is write a bite-sized compliment that they can use to market their AI. As a writer, I’m obviously terrified of AI, stealing my words and then stealing my job, and then stealing my thoughts and arresting me for a crime I haven’t committed yet, but the Substack support chatbot is ridiculously good. Argh, my ethics have been compromised by a smooooooth operating system!
A lady comes in and says we are her last hope to find what it is she’s looking for - she’s already been Everywhere Else (deep breath) - she’s looking for a …velvet iPad stand.
A quick apology: last week the intro to my newsletter made a little jibe about a weak coffee I had at a local cafe and almost as soon as I hit publish I felt terrible about it and edited it out. I’m sorry - totally unnecessary to drag a fellow indie business. Don’t worry, I’ll literally be haunted by this forever, so I’ve almost definitely learned my lesson.
Closing up now, despite having almost no casual browsers/impulse purchasers today, a few customer collections plus that epic remote order and my own splurge puts today safely in the ‘not as awful as this time last year’ category. More importantly, it’s 5 pm and fully light outside, meaning I can walk home without worrying about what I’m stepping in (I had a Bad Experience a few Friday’s ago.) If you enjoyed today’s Receipt please do share, re-stack and recommend. Have a great weekend everyone, and Happy reading!
Kaliane Bradley is a pal of mine and Ministry of Time is going to be BRILLIANT! ✨️
Lush. Another splendid edition. Love the ‘we’re not open Wednesdays’ conundrum. We opened a deli back in 2015. In January 2016 we had the WORST retail January EVER because “you’re not open on a Monday, are you?” … yep, that was the last business in this premises. “Oh, you’re not them then?” So true! We’re not!