Iiiiiit’s FRIDAY!!! Do you have That Friday Feeling? (In the UK that means you want a chocolate bar, specifically a Crunchie, which actually no one ever feels like having on any day of the week.1) But I guess it probably means good stuff in other counties too. Anyway, schools are back and that means order has been restored to my working week and I can stop confusing you.
Fridays are bookshop days once again, but I will have some bonus days coming up because Business Mum is… (say it with me) GOING ON ANOTHER CRUISE. That’s not today though, today is just A Regular Friday in the Bookshop and I’m here to tell you all about it because that’s what we do now. I’m trying to remember what I used to do in the bookshop when I didn’t spend all day writing this newsletter. Did I … read? Did I… do some other sort of work? Who knows. Whatever it was, I definitely don’t have time for it anymore because it takes me all day to make a day full of very little read like a day that has a lot. Let’s see what we can squeeze out of today…
Honestly, the first thing I heard this morning as someone walked past the bookshop door I cannot even type out because it includes the worst of all the swears, but I will tell you that it was in the sentence “and then she called my mum a -” and it sounded like that was just one thing in a long list of things that she did. So really, who is the - ?
First lady through the door asks about books by Ray Mears. I haven’t heard that name for a while, I say, like someone in a smoky bar in a black and white film. “But he’s still relevant!” the customer says. We look at the catalogue to see what book are available and it turns out he published one earlier this year about British Woodland which honestly we should have had in because that’s the sort of thing that just sells. I’ve got one coming in the next order, but not for the customer, who said she was going home to research the other Ray Mears books, but assured me that she wouldn’t buy them online, she will come back and order them with me. So really, she is a lot like Ray Mears herself; concerned with survival.
I love bookshops.
Gliding past. Not even tempted to come in. A classic.
A customer who tells me they don’t have any grandchildren of appropriate ages still wants to look around the children’s books. No explanation necessary, I say, as a person who has bought children’s books for herself at every age. The customer buys this and two finger puppets and I am delighted for her.
Business Mum arrives with the goods. The goods being some items from the patisserie before they sell out. She brings three miniature cakes (we share them), and two miniature coffees (one each, thank god. It was small, but actually very delicious).
Minutes after BM leaves, a customer arrives who would definitely prefer that she was here. He loves a chat with her, but today he’s got me. I sell him his books and he gets his loyalty discount today. I have a quick chat with him about his purchases, he’s buying The Greengage Summer, which I do intend to read one day. He hasn’t yet heard anything about it - he prefers to order things from the editions he likes (either Penguin Little Clothbound, or Macmillan Collectors Library) without reading any synopses or reviews, to broaden his reading. I say he’s brave and he says ‘you win some, you lose some’, which is also true of the books you read synopses and reviews of.
A lady comes to ask me about slow cooker recipe books. We don’t have one on the shelf today, because all anyone talks about is frying things in air. But we’re definitely moving into Slow Cooker Season, aren’t we? Despite it suddenly being a full blown Summer Day outside, the week after we actually had to pop the heating on for a quick blast one evening. But yes, with the ghosts of Autumn, so come the stews. The customer can’t decide which book sounds good and she hopes her daughter might have an opinion, since it was she who insisted her mother get a slow cooker anyway. She says she’s really grateful to me for showing her what was available, and before she goes off to ring her daughter, she reaches over the desk and squeezes my arm, so I knows she really means it.
A man all in khaki enters the shop (imagine Ray Mears). He’s got khaki walking trousers with lots of pockets, a khaki shirt, a khaki zip up gilet with lots of pockets and a wide-brimmed hat (khaki). He buys The Salt Path by Raynor Wynn, which seems like a very khaki choice to me.
It’s just… storytellers in there. That’s no use to me.
The postman arrives and for some reason I’ve decided today is the day I’ll get an early copy of Intermezzo. Of course, it is not the day I get an early copy of Intermezzo, I’ve got to wait for publication date like all the other Normal People. The postman brings distinctly unbookshaped envelopes, which means I’m not even interested in opening them. It’ll just be catalogues from card companies and posters for books that we didn’t ask for. The postman returns a minute later “I’ve found another one!!” it is… another catalogue.
No customers for a while, I could have listened to another chapter of The Dutch House!
12.15 and I’ve already had my lunch. Now I am listening to The Dutch House so if you walk in the shop right now I’ll be scrambling for my phone to hit pause and you’ll just have to excuse me because I am enjoying this book so much. Patchett pals, I’ve also started reading These Precious Days, and you won’t be surprised to know I love it also.
I text my husband to talk about dinner and he says he ‘almost bought a steak pie’ which is unfortunate, because now he has written the words steak pie, I’m definitely going to need steak pie for tea.
Oh, here’s something I can show you. BM has decided to start making these tiny books for the people in her book club (she runs the Crossover Book Club, which is adults reading teen/YA fiction). You know from her miniature models that people keep trying to buy in the bookshop that she loves to make tiny things that really frustrate her, well now she has committed to making these little pixie books every month, just because she thought it would be cute. I wonder what the book club members do with them. Store them on a tiny bookshelf, in a tiny library, in a doll’s house? I don’t actually know if BM keeps a set for herself, perhaps my old Sylvanian Families are looking very well-read these days. BM, answer us in the comments.
Wow it’s now 2.15 pm and we’ve had no further sales. I could have probably finished my audiobook but the sound wasn’t good enough with the noise of the traffic and all the passersby talking about not coming into the bookshop. I can’t bring myself to actually sit here in headphones…. can I? No! No. Come on, I’ve got to be serious. I’ve got to be ready to sell books the moment someone who isn’t actually looking for a place to get keys cut comes in. I’m poised. I’m professional. I’m scrolling Instagram again. I’m going to make a cup of tea.
Suddenly the drought is over. One person enters the shop, followed by a family, followed by a couple, followed by a pair of teens. Suddenly we’re overrun with people, who all descended on the shop at the same time despite not being together. A little girl is offered ‘one or the other’ and replies ‘we should just take both.’ She’s right, of course. We sell three books.
A shopper with a child asks me to put the purchase of two books in two separate bags so the child ‘can carry her book’ herself. The child has not asked to carry her own book in a separate bag, and the book is a large picture flat, so it has to go in a separate normal-sized carrier bag. Both bags cost us money and I do not charge them for the carrier bags because I gave the first one for free, because I was so glad of the sale, and then asking for payment for the second would have sounded really bitchy, but there’s literally no way this small child will be carrying this bag for more than 10 seconds at most and the mark up on books is really not that much, people!
A boy that used to come to my JUNIOR book club comes into the shop because he’s back from University and now he has a BEARD and I am suddenly ONE THOUSAND YEARS OLD *creaks towards the grave*
Husband texts that he has secured a pie from the excellent butcher’s shop near our daughter’s school so it’s Friday Pieday after all. Woohoo! Ok, one hour left of bookselling - better make another cup of tea.
Well that cup of tea solved nothing. It’s now cashing up time and we didn’t get another sale. I read a bit of a book that I probably need to buy now. HOMETIME.
If you’d like to buy a book from my shop, you can click any of the links on this newsletter to shop within the UK. If you’re overseas, the easiest way to show some love is to upgrade your subscription to this newsletter. You’ll get access to my additional weekly book recommendation essays and my book club discussion threads.
I have more to say on this. A normal size individual Crunchie just has an inappropriate ratio of cinder toffee to chocolate. It’s just not enjoyable. What I do think they should do is add a mini (but normal composition) Crunchie to Cadbury’s Heroes. It’d be perfect in a minature. Why does it have to be in ‘rocks’ when it’s in miniature form in those bags, when actually it is the full size version that would be more useful in rock formation to better balance it out. I’ve literally never had these thoughts before, the perfect argument is just forming as I type it. Should I be a lawyer?
Business Mum here. I would just like to say, in my defence, that my apparent frequent cruising (well ok it is quite frequent), is actually me accompanying my little 85 year old Mum on a holiday that really suits her e.g. no flying and a very gentle holiday style. Yes I get to enjoy the trip too but the important bit is to make sure we share happy times together. So off to Iceland while Katie is in charge at the Bookshop. Hope you liked the mini books.
Katie is totally right - children's books are definitely acceptable to browse and buy at any age.