Hello, it’s Thursday again - are you surprised again? Has the surprise switched to disappointment yet? Don’t worry - this isn’t a permanent change, it’s just how we’re currently managing the child-baton-swap of the school holidays. I’m here, Business Mum’s there. I’m hoping for a peaceful day.
Do you believe in bad luck? It’s a good job I don’t because in the last few weeks alone I’ve manifested a root canal that’s going to cost more than an advance I got for an entire book once, and microplane’d part of my own knuckle into a dinner that I then burned. My order has been completely forgotten in two different restaurants within two weeks, and yesterday, my parked car was hit outside my house just five days after it returned from the body shop, where I’d had a panel repaired after it was hit while parked outside my house a few weeks before. Somewhere, between the genuinely horrific stories on the news at the moment, and the life-affirming joy of the Olympics, I can’t feel too cursed. The books look good and coffee is hot and the rain is only kissing the ground gently - if I can get through today without incurring any further damages I’m taking it as a win. As a precautionary measure to this end, I cancelled my gym session this morning and treated myself to a cinnamon bun. Work smarter, not harder.
First customer in the door is cash-buyer for another LJ Ross novel. She puts her change in the charity box, which we keep behind the sneeze-guard since it was nicked that time by an infamous-to-us local robber. “You wouldn’t think that would happen” she says, when I explain why it’s so awkward to reach around to it. But maybe, these sorts of days, you would.
Did I just burn my tongue on my coffee? Maaaaybe, but that’s impatience rather than bad luck, isn’t it? Anyway, today I’m sampling an Americano from the new coffee shop on the block - Wood Street Coffee - along with one of their aforementioned homemade cinnamon buns.
Now, this is a different new sweet-treat venue from the brand new patisserie I’ve been banging on about for the last few weeks, which is now open for business and selling-out of cakes every single day. I’m delighted to have yet another opportunity to fill my refillable cup with some decent coffee. Long life the caffeinated high-street!
Window cleaner arrives and we do the joke about BM babysitting while I get ‘a day off at work’ again.
Is Caroline here? I saw your hair and thought… is that Caroline?
(Presumably someone looking for BM, whose name is Carolyn, and whose hair is short, curly and grey.)
Local retailers ‘shop watch’ chat is already racking up messages that I can’t be bothered to read about which local unfortunate is looming outside, or inside, which shop. I’ve said before that while it’s useful to have these alerts for scammers and would-be-thieves, we don’t tend to contribute much because they rarely venture into the bookshop. The character currently being monitored does actually come and stand by the door of the bookshop today (quite flattered). But she escorts herself off down the road before attempting anything remotely illegal so I don’t mention it to the group. I think she just wanted to look at our window display.
Record-breaking browsing occurring this morning! I think one customer has clocked in well over thirty five minutes now. For a very small shop, I take this as a compliment.
I confidently tell someone that the baking book in the window, One Bake, Two Ways, has a gluten-free variation for each recipe in the book. Fantastic! the customer says, because we know a gluten-intolerant vegan. Aha, I say, I can’t promise it’ll cover that… we investigate the book and find that, incredibly, it does in fact contain a vegan variation for every recipe in the book! Unfortunately I completely made up the part about there being gluten-free options. All of the recipes are bound by gluten. Sweet, delicious, gluten.
Him: Do you have anything about The Bounty… you know, the mutiny on it.”
Me: Ah, well, nothing bounty-specific on the shelf today BUT I do have a great book about The Wager!”
Him: Is that anything to do with The Bounty?”
Me: No, but it’s a good boat book.”
Him: Bye then.”
Aw. We were expecting your mum.
A little girl walks around the shop holding a grapefruit which I guess is something that happens if you’ve just bought a grapefruit. You can’t overthink these things.
Some lovely post today in the form of the new book from Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris. I used to love reading Dave Eggers Short Short Stories in my dad’s newspaper supplement at the weekend. I particularly remember one about boxing, and one about seeing Bob Balaban twice in one week (I just googled and this piece is still online and the title is literally just ‘On Seeing Bob Balaban In Person Twice in One Week! Ha!). Why couldn’t that be the thing that happened to me twice instead of being forgotten or getting my car crunched?! Anyway, I didn’t read any of Dave Eggers longer works - any good? - but I have read two of his wife’s novels - and I loved them. What’s this got to do with Dave Eggers new book for kids? Nothing, but it’d be remiss of me not to tell you how much I enjoy Vendela Vida. So, this new book - The Eyes & The Impossible - it’s about a dog! Good start. A fast dog! Even better. Other words included on this press release are ‘timeless classic’, ‘ancient bison’, ‘equilibrium’ and ‘mysterious rectangles.’ Shawn Harris is a the illustrator, which to be honest, is reason enough to buy the book.
You know the day really took a dip once I didn’t have that cinnamon bun to look forward to. This is why I don’t open my birthday presents until the evening.
Oh, it’s very quiet now. This is somehow peaceful and boring.
I check our Bookshop.Org account to see if we’re selling any books there. I LOVE that in the last few transactions I can see an order for two of the books I’ve recently written about: Carrie and The Anthropologists. You’re actually listening to me!
(him) Did you not see any books you wanted?
(her, leaving, empty handed)Yes, quite a few!
Biiiig lull after lunch. Lullsville. Lullapalooza.
…I’ll just ask this lady here (coming up to the till) is there a Greggs round here? (there isn’t)
I read a few sneaky stories from Gary Clement’s K is in Trouble, which seems to be about Kafka and includes a great panel that says “I give you my word as a carp”.
I also like this top right hand panel which reads: To K’s great relief, the ride, which seemed interminable, finally terminated when the train rolled into the terminal.
I don’t want to go in any more places that have books in them!
A man enters the shop and sidles up to the till “…I’ve got a couple of boxes of books in my car… would you be interested in them?” No! I shriek, imaging a boot full of pristine vintage paperbacks that I’d be helpless to resist. Am I being lured? Is the bad luck in the room with us right now? I’m joking, he was a very nice man and I directed him to then nearest second-hand bookshop. If only he’d stayed a few moments longer he could have met the next family who came in and looked at the shelves and then asked me, already-disappointed, ‘oh, is it just new books?’ When I said yes, it is, the dad cringed on my behalf. Like, embarrassing to be you, today, seller of new books. I bet they would have gone to look at the books in the car.
I want this. It’s Japanese and there’s a cat on the front. (Fair.)
half three, another cup of tea.
half four, ok, one more.
If any UK readers want to buy a book from me today, use any of the clickable links in this newsletter to directly support my bricks and mortar independent bookshop.
And hey, if you’re a US reader who wants to buy any of the books I recommend, why not direct your orders to Mavey Books on this link. After a few enquiries from US readers on where to buy from, I asked a pal at Bookshop.Org to suggest a stateside mother-daughter bookshop that I could point people to here (thanks MT!). I don’t know the women at Mavey Books personally, but it sounds like a wonderful shop, recently opened and run by twin daughters and their business mum, plus their shop is named after their dog! Speaking of bookshop dogs, I brought my dog Daphne to the shop last weekend and took a photo of her in the window for your viewing pleasure.
Just about to start cashing up and some people have come in. Better not hit send in case they say something excellent and/or mad.
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Hooray! A lovely final sale, customer was delighted to see we had Ursula Parrot’s Ex-Wife on the shelf as she’d just heard about it on the radio that day, and she had birthday money to spend so it was basically free and it was fate because I’d accidentally ordered two copies of the book, put one on the new titles stand (which this customer did not look at) and had stuck the other face out on the backlist shelf, which is where it caught her eye. Perfect! A happy ending. The end. That’s the end.
Takings were terrible today but the vibes were spot on. Going home to make knuckle-free bolognese and maybe try one of the biscuits that my daughter has been baking with Business Mum her granny today. BM’s text says: ‘We made heart biscuits but they look like bums’. Show me, I said, thinking they would probably mostly look like hearts… butt they absolutely do not. Those are definitely bums, I replied. Anyway, hope you have a great weekend folks! TTFN.
Have you considered buying a second -- reserve -- bun, so you have something to look forward to following bun consumption? I'm the sort of person who keeps an unscratched lottery scratchcard in my wallet, so that at I may be far richer than I think I am at any time.
Sorry things have been so grim, and hope that's the end of your bad luck for a good many months. Daphne is absolutely GORGEOUS, by the way!.