Hello, it is I, your manic disappointed pixie bookshop dreamgirl panda, complete with post-city-break-blues, and this is the next update live from the bookshop.
The day after last week’s post I got up at Stupid AM (GMT) to fly to Copenhagen.1
I got back yesterday morning, at Even Stupider AM, and here I am back in the bookshop on Thursday with not a shift missed. The things I do to live within my budget keep up this newsletter!
These posts will remain free, with comments open so you can send me queries like ‘What was the best pastry you ate in Copenhagen?’2 and ‘What book should I buy for a dentist?3’
On the way here I saw The Specific Woman. I often see her when I walk to the shop, she must live near me and is walking to the square, just as I am. This is why she is Specific: when we opened our bookshop, nearly 13 years ago now, my grandparents travelled from Cheshire to visit us, and see our new venture. As they entered the shop for the first time (not having smart phones or email etc., they’d seen no photos of anything beforehand), so did The Specific Woman. We excitedly greeted my grandparents (my mum/business partner’s parents). We fussed them and probably started talking a million miles an hour about their journey and the shop. The Specific Woman browsed the shop while we babbled away. We had only been open a few days. We were very excited. Some moments, or minutes, later, The Specific Woman approached mum and said “your shop is very lovely, and I hope you do well, but I shan’t be returning - your customer service is dreadful” and she left. We’ve felt devastated for more than a decade. I see her around the town and I want to chase her down. I want to tackle her to the ground and say “You don’t understand! It was my grandparents’ first time seeing the shop! We do normally say Hello! Please come back so I can say Helloooooo…” Look, we’ve doled out plenty of half-hearted customer service over our years, but on that day, it was an honest oversight. Now I try to use her sporadic presence as an ominous reminder to just try, as much as I can remember to, to be The Most Pleasant Shop-Person I can be. I don’t need another haunting.
I pick up a voicemail left yesterday (we’re closed on Wednesdays). I scribble down the details as I hear them. Customer name, a phone number. Something. Unstoppable. Something. Marble. The customer will come and collect at the weekend. It sounds like this is a continuation of a conversation Mum had with the customer last week - she now wants to confirm the order. No problem. I search the catalogue for Unstoppable Marble. No results. I google Unstoppable Marble book. Hmm. I text mum. Unstoppable Marble book? Did you speak to a customer about a book about marbles? The kind that won’t stop? No, she replies. But she did order discuss an order for The Unstoppable Wasp - a Marvel book. Good grief, Charlie Brown Katie Clapham!
Reasons I heard a parent give to a child as to why they could not buy a book; “you haven’t read a book in years” plus “we don’t want to carry it around all day.” Sounds like the kid has their own money but it’s still a no. No shade to this parent, these may be totally legit reasons and perhaps this kid has a room full of books the parent has recently purchased that remain untouched. But this one… is a graphic novel! The kid says he’s coming back later for the book. Come on lad, I want you to win this one.
(But if you do, please then actually read it.) More on this as it happens.
Grandma arrives for a visit. There’s a customer in the shop, so I ignore her entirely. I’m joking. She lives here now (she moved to St. Annes when my Grandpapa died) so she calls in to the shop most days on her little walkabout. Now I’m at my leisure to both ignore her and send her on little errands. She’s gone to get some milk for my tea.
I love this bookshop!
Shall we go in?
No, because I don’t buy anything.
The customer order shelf appears to still be holding that tree book from last week.
I just finished reading Steven Lenton’s Genie and Teeny series with my daughter. She just turned six and these books made for perfect bedtime reads. The latest book in the series, Wish Upon A Star, came out last month but we’ve been saving it for our holiday. We did a few chapters a night and finished it before we came home. Steven’s writing feels really fun and interactive. It’s always crammed full of puns and jokes, with cute characters that you can learn to draw at the end of the book. These books sit perfectly on our emerging reader shelves, and we think they’re ideal for that 5-7 age group. The first book in the series is Make A Wish. Steven Lenton also hosts a fantastic podcast about picture book creators - Studiomate Steve - do check it out!
Christmas! A box of advent calendars just arrived! This is not funny… but what is funny is the way the delivery driver dropped off the parcel and then took the delivery photograph over his shoulder, without looking, as he walked through the door. What can that photograph possibly look like?! He was in motion! He had no idea where the camera was pointed! What is that photograph proof of? Only that at some point I was a blur. Anyway, don’t worry, the advent calendars will go safely into storage until Winter is in the Air. We’re not Monsters.
Ooh, a teenager just got treated to a 30th anniversary edition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Cruel Interventions by Richard Barnett, by a very generous grandmother who “was just so proud of her”. How lovely. From what I could glean, this girl already had the other Richard Barnett illustrated history of medical illustration, The Sick Rose, and was particularly delighted to find the other volume here. What a good bookshop this must be. We used to regularly sell these Richard Barnett books (they’re beautifully produced but not for the squeamish!) but I don’t think we’ve sold one for quite some time now as this volume just sold was still printed with an older price point (I honoured it!). I guess I manifested this sale by mentioning the other Richard Barnett book on dentistry in my introduction to this week’s receipt!
A lovely granddad comes in with his young granddaughter. He tells me he’s just been to pick her up from Manchester, and that she’s staying with them for a few days. He looks so happy about it. He says she’s been telling him all about Tom Gates books on the train journey and now here they are at a bookshop! He treats her to the latest hardback, and another one from the series that she hasn’t read yet. He makes her giggle at the till. Looks like the perfect start to her visit to me.
3pm. Afternoon tea break, including the two books I’m buying for myself today - The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollack, as recommended by Eliza Clark who said the Netflix adaptation did not do the novel justice (I haven’t seen it, but the novel sounds right up my street), and Killers of the Flower Moon, which of course I want to read ahead of Marty’s adaptation, and because I so enjoyed Grann’s latest, The Wager, which I wrote about previously and have now unlocked for you to read.
I’m looking for Dracula, she says.
(He’s behind you, I do not reply.)
4pm. This is the quiet hour, I say, before a stressed Staffie X Something suddenly barrels into the bookshop. He runs around the shop in frantic circles. A concerned man comes in to tell us that the dog is stray, and has just narrowly avoided being run over. The poor dog has a collar but no tag. We close the door to keep him inside and give him a bowl of water. Suddenly the shop is full of people who want to help the escaped dog. This is a very dog-friendly town. I wonder what we can use for a makeshift lead - gift ribbon? There’s no way it would hold him. Thankfully, the original concerned man turns out to be an absolute hero, and fetches a very serious looking lead from his car and offers to take the dog round to the nearby vets. Phew! Note to self - bring one of Daphne’s old leads to the bookshop.
The kid did not return for his graphic novel. Maybe he’s gone home to read a ton of books. Thanks for reading today. I’m off home to write The Unstoppable Marble Book.
You can support my bricks and mortar bookshop by buying your books via this link, and you can support me as a writer by taking out a paid sub to this Substack. Thanks.
More on that in my long post at the weekend (probably).
Cardamom Bun from Juno the Bakery
No offence to Specific Woman but it sounds like she woke up dead set on dragging someone and she chose you.
Sad that kid did not return for his graphic novel. Storytelling comes in lots of different ways, and graphic novels are great. My daughter (aged 18) loves them. I miss all the wonderfully illustrated children's books.