Hello again! Allll the fours, it’s Receipt Number 44!
[*EDIT - I realised after posting this that actually it’s #45 today and now the rest of this paragraph doesn’t make sense, but trying to change the past is a terrible idea, so just go with it…*] Actually I’ve got no idea what the bingo call for 44 and clearly 44 isn’t ALL the fours. Google says it’s ‘Droopy drawers’? I’ve never been to Bingo so that sounds both believable and completely stupid. Doesn’t have much to do with bookshops either, but then again, neither does bingo. Let’s move on.
Nice, dry, cool day in town today, there should be a delivery and then I’ll have some customers to message and delight with the news their book has arrived in time for the weekend. I’m swooshing around in my baggy trousers that remind of the skater trousers I used to wear when I was (sweet) 16. Dirty hems dragging on wet pavements, wallet attached to a chain for no reason, ready to rage against the machine at any given moment. Good times. These days I’m more likely to go to a garden centre than to a grungy club, but they’re both to do with roots. Anyway, let’s not get nostalgic about the sticky floors of times past, I’m here in the bookshop and I’m ready to rock… SUBSTACK, ARE YOU READY???
I CAN’T HEAR YOUUUU… I SAID… ARE… YOU… RRRRREEAADDY?
Oh you are? Lovely. Let’s open the bookshop…
First customer comes in to collect a book that’s in the order that hasn’t arrived yet.
Second customer wants a lovely book for a three year old and takes the beautiful, gorgeous, Mouse on the River by Alice Melvin. These books have delicate fold-ups and flaps to explore behind and they illustrations are so lovely you’ll want to live in them. She says the child will enjoy the additional nature info in the back because she’s very interested in everything and that it was only yesterday she told the customer that ‘sheeps poop out lambs’. Fact.
Child: Can we go in there, Mummy, please?
Parent: No, Darling. What is it? Storytellers… Incorporated?
(it was meant to be funny, like there are storytellers incorporated here i.e. books and also sound like a long established business when we were actually just starting out and had no idea what we were doing. Anyway, I hate it now, thanks for bringing it up.)
Oh lovely, some lite jazz music is drifting across the square, someone must have a saxophone outside WHSmith to serenade all the people eating their sausage rolls from the bakery next door. We often have musicians in the square, and there’s live singing in the little amphitheatre every Wednesday throughout Summer. My favourite local performer is the old guy with a keyboard who calls himself ‘Doktor Hotfingers’.
Order arrives and I furiously text the customer who just missed their book to see if they’re still in town. They are! They’re having a brew nearby and will be back shortly. Phew. Anyway, the book is this extremely want-able Angela Harding-illustrated small hardback edition of Simon Armitage’s haiku-inspired ode to Spring, Blossomise.
It’s (legs) Eleven O’Clock and benevolent BM has left me the last hob-nob. *Christoph Waltz voice* That’s a bingo!
This looks lovely, doesn’t it?
Yes, but let’s go to Marks and Spencers
(I mean, yeah, but we don’t sell the same things so you could easily do both?)
A lady comes into order a book “Chemistry…” (me, uh oh we won’t have this) “… Lessons, by Bonnie Garmus.” Of course we have that. Customer is surprised and delighted, makes her purchase and then has a small coughing fit. She says “I’m not ill!” from the doorway and I reply, “it’s fine” and then I wonder what on earth I mean - it’s fine if you are ill? it’s fine if you’re not. I’m sorry I said “it’s fine” when what I meant was “do you need a glass of water?”.
We’ve got to get back - I’ve got washing that needs pegging out.
Laundry, the thorn in the side of book-buyers everywhere.
Thought I recognised the song that the street musician was playing (When the saints go over there?) but then 25 (duck and dive) minutes later I had the same exact thought.
The shop phone rings and an automated voice reads out a text message that is just ‘Hello to the good people at the bookshop’. Must be a wrong number. There’s only one good person in this bookshop. Since when can you text a landline? How do you even do that? If I get really bored later I’ll reply.
Retirement Gran and her friend with the same name pop into tell me about the coffee and cakes they’ve just had at their church social. “What are you going to do now?” I say. “We’re going to go to the bank to get some money and then go and have another coffee.” Can’t wait to be old.
I unpacked the delivery and send the text notifications. As well as customer orders we’ve got some Peter Swanson restocks (my go-to crime writer, btw), some Stacey Halls restocks, the new Laura Purcell which looks very good next to the new Sarah Perry. Another of Kate Pankhurst’s Fantastically Great Women books for my daughter who’s gotta catch em all and a Persephone edition of Julia Strachey’s Cheerful Weather for the Wedding for me. There’s also Wombats! Go to Wizard’s Wharf by Maddie Frost which might make it to the young graphic fiction shelf, or might not…
A man browses the non-fic and selects David Grann’s The Lost City of Z. I ask if he’s read David Grann before and in reply he says that he’s always meant to come into the shop, and that he likes to read. I mean, it’s not what I asked, but I’m glad of it all the same.
Two (one little duck) teens come in with frostaccinos or whatever. One of them wants to get a bookmark for a gift and keeps showing options to the other one who just says ‘yes, that one’ to any of them. The purchasing person says “I just worry when it’s a gift” so whoever gets gifted a little set of cute bookmarks - I hope you like them, and if you don’t, don’t you dare let your friend know it.
Unbelievably, our next sale is also a bookmark! A gift for a teacher. Bookmark sales are like buses; infrequent, and more expensive than you expect them to be.
Business Mum pops in to say hello on the way to and from the hairdresser. She’s not working today but she does manage to sell me a ticket to the play she’s in next month. She’s so dramatic sometimes.
I’ve got three (cup of tea!?) books in the post to show you:
Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey (Atlantic) - this hefty tome comes with some seriously good recommendations - it’s a love story that spans decades as teenage runaway Milly and young boxer Pip fight the unforgiving city as their lives intercept across forty years. ‘Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound enquiry into character, loneliness, and the nature of love.’
Couldn’t be more different - my next envelope has A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon This sounds completely unique; ‘A millennial turned magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in this delightful, witty and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga.’ I mean, what?! This book is just 176 pages long, so I’m going to read it asap, and it’s illustrated! As a rule, I mostly hate magic, but I’m inclined to give this a try because it sounds absolutely crackers.
And the good folks at Walker Books have sent me the latest from Lauren James - this is an internet thriller called Last Seen Online and looks like it has all sorts of fun forms throughout - texts, emails and message boards. ‘a riveting YA thriller about fandom, fame, obsession and revenge, from the queen of the killer twist.’
Mrs Lemon Cake arrives with a shopping list of six books and claims that she’s made too much progress on her TBR it needs topping-up again. That’s the spirit (that keeps us in business).
It’s (knock on the door) 4 o’clock. But there aren’t any knocks on the door, in fact, no one has been in for a little while now. I need a little after-school-flurry to finish the day up. We did a couple of school events this week with author Rachel Morrisroe who did some fantastic sessions with two schools. We organise the book sales for the school events but we always keep plenty of stock in at the shop for the children who forgot their forms on the day, or didn’t want to order the book before the event but were so charmed by it they since want the book. It’s always fun to be in the bookshop for a few days after a school event because you sense the children who have come for that book the moment they step into the shop and then you can dazzle them with your apparent telepathic qualities by pre-empting their purchase before they even say it. Even better, this week I get to say “Are you here for a Supersausage, by any chance?” which is honestly just a really funny thing to say…
I love bookshops. I’d have a bookshop if I was rich.
(We’re all poor here!)
Last customer of the day is probably our oldest, she’s 92 and has a penchant for the Penguin Little Black Classics, that she gifts to people with hand-painted cards. Today she’s collecting a copy of an old book that we’ve sourced online from another bookseller for her. She often buys several copies of the same book to gift to various people, one particular old book that she loves is a book about the seashore. Today she’s got time to talk and she tells me about her life of campaigning for the sand dunes and how the tidelines should be returned to nature - she’s not in favour of The Christmas Tree Project or the constant tidying of the tide paths. She said she promised to stop writing her angry letters to the council and newspapers when she was 80, and she’s kept that promise, but she still campaigns indirectly, by gifting The Seashore book to people in various positions of power, hoping they’ll realise the real beauty of our beach and stop interfering with the wild flowers that grow there.
Shame there wasn’t a chance for me to use more of my favourite Bingo calls today oh wait - let me check the final figures… ooh we took £55 in cash - 55, Snakes Alive! Sold 8 children’s books - 8, Garden gate! Sold 1 National Book Token - 1, Kelly’s Eye??? What on earth? Why does Kelly’s Eye mean one?! 10 loyalty points were redeemed - 10, Prime Minster’s Den, ok, I get that one but I still hate it…
Oh no, BM asked me to do ONE (Kelly’s Eye) thing today and that was select the book for June’s book club and…I’ve forgotten to do it. I’ll have a think on that tonight. In the meantime this is our current read and I’ll open the discussion thread at the end of the month for paid subscribers.
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Can we have a whole article just on the 92 year old lady please she sounds incredible 😍
Had to look up what a Hob Nob was, now I want one, this makes third time a food reference in your post had me doing research. Thank you for broadening my horizons (and hips) with sweet treats!