Good Morning Recipients! I feel like that’s your fan-group name the way Beyoncé has her Hive and Taylor has her Swifties, you’re my…. rec(e)ipients! Catchy, no? Most importantly, undeniably true. However you receive this newsletter; app, email, read aloud down the phone or screenshot and shared, you’ve definitely got the receipts. Business Mum is officially Cruise Mum for the next nine days so it’s me, me, me, in the shop, here to disappoint all the people who just come in to talk to her.
It’s a crisp’n’dry bright blue sky day, disrespectfully cold for early September. My skin has been tricked into thinking it’s already Christmas and I’ve received my horrible annual gift of eczema much too early (TMI? I thought you were my Receipients!) If I disappear from the s/h/elfies in the next few weeks, you’ll know it has conquered the rest of my face. Scales aside, we should have an okay day today; Richard Osman’s latest was published yesterday so there’ll be a few collections for that one, and the latest spredged Tracey Chevalier (apologies to Tracey Chevalier). Alright, enough chit-chat - LET’S GET THIS SHOW Bookshop ON THE ROADpen for business. *flips sign*
First customer is one of my favourites because he brings his order written out on lovely cards printed with his name, address and phone number which means no one (me) is in danger of writing them down wrong. Today he’s ordering some art books and we go through the Taschen catalogue to see which ones he’s interested in. This means I am tested on my pronunciation of lots of famous artists and I think I do alriiight. He decides on a book about Leonardo and a book about Raphael which is interesting because I didn’t know any of the turtles did tapestry.
A lady with a lovely accent wants to look at the hand puppets; we have lots of different animals to choose from. I show her the big selection and the basket of smaller hand puppets, then leave her to browse in case she wants to try any of them on and do funny voices in private (hope so). She approaches the till with a puppet that I genuinely haven’t seen for months… “I was looking for something that is not a real animal” she says, “well,” I say, “this is … a wiggler!” Somehow she’s found the only one in the whole shop -must have been lurking at the bottom of the basket - and I guess some days your destiny is just to meet your wiggler in the right place at the right time.
A lady comes into the shop and leaves her husband and dog outside. I say, “you can bring him in!” and she doesn’t even make a funny joke about her husband moulting all over the books or sniffing the other customers’ legs. Anyway the husband does enter with the dog and then says to him, “you’re allowed in, Charlie! She obviously doesn’t know you…” which I liked. Charlie was a very good boy and when he tried to mount the desk his mum said “he thinks any shop he’s allowed in must have treats for him at the till” which I think is actually very constructive feedback.
A very nervous looking woman enters the shop and comes right up to the till “CAN I JUST LOOK AROUND?” she says, like someone who assumes I will say no. “Of course” I say, and she does, and then she leaves, so hopefully that was nice for her.
It’s very quiet and still out there. No rustle in the trees, no feet on the pavement. I only mention this because after a week of winds so strong I had to wear a hat to keep my earbuds in, it is now as calm as sleeping cat, as still as a pancake, as quiet as an armchair. The problem is that tomorrow it’s the annual kite festival, and we don’t want a repeat of last year.
A man enters the bookshop and his wife says at the door, ‘it’s just for kiddies’. He stares at the wall of books that are all clearly for adults, somehow without seeing. “It’s just kiddies” his wife says again, from outside the shop. “Oh, is it?” he says, and is drawn back out of the shop before I can shout I THINK THE PERSON INSIDE THE SHOP HAS A BETTER IDEA OF THE STOCK THAN THE PERSON OUTSIDE THE SHOP AND ALSO I WORK HERE AND THESE ARE ALL BOOKS FOR ADULTS AND I AM A PROFESSIONAL BOOKSELLER SO I REALLY DO KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.
Another couple walk by and once again a woman declares my shop to be ‘just for kids’ based on nothing but a window full of kids books… alright, alright, but still, there’s adult books clearly visible in the shop, which is the bit you see when you look through the window for crying out loud. Ok, I’m going to stick a few Richard Osman’s in the window and see if that helps. It doesn’t exactly complement our ‘back to school’ display, but needs must.
As I’m putting a shelf of Osman in, a pre-order customer comes to collect their copy. Then another couple enter and also buy a copy. Big Thursday Murder Club fans who didn’t even know Osman had a new book due, so this is just a happy coincidence and his wife says she’s glad they could buy it in a small bookshop like this rather than one of those… big bookshops. I nod, sage as as sage leaf. “I might even start reading it today!” the delighted gent says, “What a treat!” I say and his wife adds “Well, it’ll keep him quiet!”
Oh no… it’s books.
Not to make it All-Day-All-Osman but I hadn’t realised the unsuspecting man had picked up a copy from the reservations shelf instead of the shop copies (how did I not notice him behind me?) so suddenly my pre-order shelf was one short and I went EEP!!! But it’s ok because I didn’t actually put ALL the additional copies out for sale yet. This isn’t my first Richardosmandeo.
A delivery arrives and I indicate the sturdy wooden chair and say ‘on there’d be great’ but the guy just puts in on my desk anyway and for some reason in this moment I am *certain* it’s Intermezzo, come early like my eczema, but in a good way. I tear open the box with my claws like Fantastic Mr Fox digging a tunnel but it’s just some history book that won’t have any longing in it or anything.
A customer that I know well enough to ask if she minds if I nip to the bathroom is browsing. She doesn’t mind at all but I am still very speedy because it never feels quite right to leave the shop unattended. When I was much younger, Business Mum and I went through a phase of watching Eastenders and they were always asking each other to ‘mind my stall’. This was because they needed to go and start a fight or have an affair or something, but it always seemed so wild and reckless to me that you would trust anyone to mind your stall, whereas now I understand that what you mean when you say ‘can you mind my stall’ is actually just ‘can you tell anyone who asks that I’ll be right back.’
“Can you try and restrain yourself in here?”
A customer says to her other half who buys nothing.
Had to eat my emergency cupboard noodles for lunch and they turned out to be the healthy rice and brothy Itsu ones rather than the dark syrupy Nissin ones. Hmph.
A family enter the bookshop and seem to be delighted by the new releases. A new Richard Osman! A new Matt Haig! Lucky for them, I simply choose not to see the furious typing on the phone as they exit without purchase…
A lovely old man in about seven jumpers wants to look at the Rupert annual. He says he still dreams about Rupert sometimes and his flying boots, in fact he had a dream only this week in which he rescued someone because he had Rupert’s flying boots. He’s 85! He asked if I own the shop and I say, yes, with my mother, and he says “that’s wonderful, Darling, well done”.
I’ve got an envelope from Daunt Publishing which means something chic my way comes! YESS! It’s their latest Celia Dale re-issue, A Spring of Love. I loved Celia Dale’s A Helping Hand and Sheep’s Clothing - her domestic nasties are spiked with glee. If you like appalling people behaving badly, she’s your Celia. Take it to the pub, serve with a Gin and It.
Pal at Daunt has also sent me a proof of Alice Chadwick’s Dark Like Under - one to note down now for February next year for fans of Melissa Harrison, Jon McGregor and Clare Fuller. ‘Languorous with sun-soaked, rural beauty. Thrumming with life, it captures the promise and risk of late adolescence and is a profound exporation of friendship, loneliness and grief.’ Sounds fantastic. Also the chapters are really short.
A man comes in to ask for directions to a cash point and then notices he’s in a bookshop. Are you independent? He says. We are! I say, proudly, surely he’ll buy loads now. “I’m actually an author” he says (ffs). “I write in all genres. More than 25 books. Maybe I’ll bring you some some time.”
(smiling) “Please,” I beg “do not bring me 25 books.”
Have a good chat and a moan with another local shop keeper. Always fun. I spoil the vibe a bit when I tell her about the art books my first customer of the day ordered - one of them costs more than the whole day’s takings on a normal day. I could have closed the shop and had a snooze for the rest of the day, but who would ever be able to sleep in a bookshop (Business Mum. Every day. After lunch.)
I receive an email from an author ‘To whom it may concern’. The email says this author thinks ‘my store looks fantastic’ and he’d like to ‘visit as an author’ to do a ‘meet and greet type event’ as well as leaving some of his books for me to stock.' The link he sends for me to look at his book is an Amazon link, which appears to be the only place you can purchase this book, because it’s self-published through an Amazon-affiliated publisher.
Last customer of the day is here to collect a Richard Osman pre-order for his wife, who probably won’t speak to him for the rest of the weekend because she’ll be reading. “That’s the great thing about books.” he says.
I’m back in the bookshop tomorrow (Kite Festival Day!) and Monday (Huge order coming) and I’ll be sending Bonus Bits from the Bookshop to my paid subscribers as there won’t be a book essay next week while I’m working extra days here.
If you enjoyed today’s Receipt from the Bookshop, share it with someone you solve murders with.
I can confirm I have woken BM more than once from a shop nap 😂
I wonder whether Oseman is aware of how much influence he has on marital harmony 😁