Hello! Hi! Hello! It’s me, your friendly, independent, localish bookseller and this is the Receipt from the Bookshop, number 52. While my Substack is well on its way to its second birthday, the live Receipts - my free Friday newsletter, written in real time during the day at my bookshop - is celebrating its first birthday today!
I’m genuinely surprised I’ve maintained it and it’s absolutely because of all your enthusiasm and comments, which I look forward to every week, so let me start this week by saying THANK YOU. Whether you’ve only been here since St. Annes got a Starbucks, or you struggled through the open door dilemma of Winter with me, I’m grateful and surprised in equal measure. I really do appreciate how invested you are in this thing that sounds so incredibly dull when I try to explain it to Offline People (well, you see, I just go to work, and write down what happens... it’s better than it sounds!)
One year on, I think writing these Receipts has made me a more patient bookseller… because I have to wait until the customers leave before I can write about them. And perhaps it’s made me a better listener… because I need to catch all the savage things people are saying about the shop. Look, don’t tell Business Mum or anything, but writing these Receipts has actually made me look forward to coming to work a bit more. Sometimes it’s extremely dull sitting in a mostly empty bookshop, and it’s easy to get bitter about it. But when life hands you lemons, you’ve got to write about them - squeezing the charm out of every mundane moment and refreshing yourself in the process. Now let’s all drink down another zingy glass of whatever the hell this is…
Her: Have you got a copy of Little Lord Fauntleroy in the little blue books?
Me: I’m afraid we haven’t got it in the Macmillan Collectors Library edition.
Her: Ok, I’ll have Lady Chatterly’s Lover instead. Not similar, are they?
Me: Nope!
Her: Well, don’t stop selling those little blue books!
Not much is happening already, so I’ve just checked my Notes app to see if I could scroll back and see when I had the idea to start writing the first Receipt from the Bookshop, but the only note around that date is my daughter’s Nosebleed Diary. Chances are, I had the brainwave as I was walking to the bookshop that day, concerned that I didn’t have any other ideas for my Substack that week (it was all just book reviews and creativity essays at that point). My newsletter had another title then too, but it was terrible…
KA-POW! Superhero remote customer sends me her amazing monthly order which is nine books this time because she’s ‘trying to be restrained.’ We love to see this sort of restraint. Impressive. Powerful. An inspiration to us all!
Business Mum arrives (on her day off) to pick up boxes for school deliveries and explain all the customer orders on the shelves to me because *drum roll* she’s going on holiday next week!! What a timely celebration of the anniversary of the Receipts - I wrote the first Receipt when she was on holiday and she commented ‘Quiet day, then?’ from a Sicilian piazza.
Also very sweet of all the passersby to uphold the tradition of not coming in to the shop. No one has been in for over an hour. This is as boring as me trying to describe this newsletter. (And sometimes I write down things I overhear people saying outside… And sometimes, I write down when there’s no milk in the fridge…)
A lady buys a couple of picture books and she has a bell attached to her purse which strikes me, a person who is never quite sure if her purse is in her bag, as a very good idea. Ding-a-ling, spending money on books you haven’t got time to read again! How jolly it sounds, ring-a-ding-ding, another book, seriously? Ding ding ding!
Oh, look a lovely bookshop.
I’ve been there.
Have you?
Have I?
Let’s keep walking.
I’ve got some book post from my favourites at Daunt Books, The Edges is ‘a powerful gem’ from Angelo Tijssens, translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson. One way to ensure I will definitely read a proof is to make sure it’s under 100 pages long. I cannot resist a tiny book! A quick flick to the first couple of pages also provides these persuasive elements; the epigraph is by Stevie Smith, and the dedication reads ‘For Twinkles’.
I’ve also had a proof from Walker Books of When the World Tips Over, the new novel from Jandy Nelson, who writes the most wonderful teen romances. I loved her books The Sky is Everywhere and I’ll Give You the Sun so I’m excited to read this. It’s out in September, and it’s a whopper! I know I just said I love tiny books, but I can also be tempted by the odd absolute loaf, and Nelson has already proved she’s worth the time investment.
More cool post from the good folks at Influx: Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand sounds really great - a 2007 noir thriller that has a cult following in the US, publishing in the UK for the first time in September.
Her Body Among Animals by Paola Ferrante was nominanted for the 2024 Shirley Jackson Award, and will appeal to fans of Kelly Link and Julia Armfield (hello, it me.) This short story collection merges horror and fairy tales with pop culture and science fiction. Publishing in August, yay!
You Will Grow Into Them by Malcolm Devlin is another short story collection for the braver readers among us - these nine stories ‘tackle the unease of transformation, growth and change in a world where the mundane is only a veneer hiding the darkness below.’ Shudder…out in August!
A young girl buys a Dog Man book and knocks all the books on the shelf over (my fault, the balance is completely wrong when the shelf is too baggy and I don’t have the right weight of bookend.) The problem with bookshelves is that they sort of need to be mostly full to keep the books upright, but you want your books to face out and look tempting, so you do that and then all the spine on books start leaning, and if someone actually buys the face out one, there’s a landslide. Really, the whole shop is rigged.
A dad can’t convince either of his daughters to choose a book and we haven’t made a sale in a couple of hours. Tiddly pom.
*glances at bookshop* I like that little shop *continues walking*
BM arrives back from her pre-holiday haircut and pre-holiday nail appointment. I tell her the milk in the fridge is off again, perhaps there’s a problem with the fridge?
She goes to investigate… “Sometimes” she says, “it smells a bit strange,” she gets out a glass, pours some milk, “but still tastes absolutely fine”, she smells the milk “oh no, that doesn’t smell good”… she tastes it anyway?!?!.. “Oh no! Definitely not.”
Obviously this is very, very funny to me.
Oh, a bookshop. That’s not going to work, is it?
(thirteen and a half working years later, actually)
No one has mentioned the election to me in the shop! Is this because they all secretly voted Reform? I know this can’t be true because if there’s one thing a Reform voter is going to do, it’s brag about it. It’s more likely they all voted Conservative, because our constituency is the lone blue area on the map of the North West. It’s so embarrassing to live here sometimes. Still, I can’t believe no one has mentioned it.
A family come in with a teen daughter who remembers coming here when she was little. That’s the problem with decades; when you’re a bit older they seem smaller. Ten years ago I was 28, I was essentially the same person I am now whereas ten years ago this teenager was a tot! A little tiny person who was happy to play in our little den with the soft toys and the beanbags and look at her now, a tall young woman who wants to read Stephen King!
A grandmother comes in to pick to some birthday gifts for two of her four grandchildren. I help her choose a signed edition of Liz Pichon’s Shoe Wars, Elle McNicoll’s Kind of Spark, plus two finger puppets because even grown up girls need cute and cuddly friends, and then an elegant notebook and special pen “for them to write all their secrets with.”
Well, that’s it! A whole year in the bookshop. I did wonder if I should disappear when we got to one year, to turn myself into a mystery (Is that all? That is all. Is there no explanation of the mystery of The Vanished Bookseller and her weekly newsletter ?Ask yourself if there is any explanation of the mystery of your own life and death. - Farewell.) But actually, it’s too much fun writing to you all…
Today’s receipt will go out to more than 3K people, across 78 countries! I regularly get comments from readers that the arrival of the Receipt signifies the start of the weekend. For readers in different time zones it arrives at lunchtime, or lands overnight and is ready for breakfast. Whatever time of day you read it, wherever you are in the world, I’m delighted that you stopped by this newsletter version of the bookshop. I’ll see you next week for some Bonus Bits from the Bookshop (while BM’s away!) and the regular receipt next Friday. Byeeeeee!
I would just like to say that your photos of our little shop make it look really rather lovely. Maybe that is why people are always saying what a lovely shop it is… before leaving without a purchase or walking past without even a browse. At least we have that. Looking forward to reading the best bits of the week while I am in ‘Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen’
Lady Chatterley's Lover for Little Lord Fauntelroy might be the most interesting substitution I've ever heard!