The Diary of a Bookseller
Page 15
Books found: 0
Laurie in again and another sunny day. She spent the day listing books for sale on Fulfilled By Amazon. Once we’re up to four boxes she will organise for them to be taken to the Amazon warehouse in Dunfermline.
A customer came to the counter when Laurie was having a break, and pointed at a sealed box with an address label on, which contained a set of Statistical Accounts that we are shipping out to a buyer in the USA.
Customer: ‘I am a bit confused, that box over there …’
Me: ‘Sorry, the books in that box aren’t for sale. They’ve already been sold.’
Customer: ‘I thought not.’
I still have no idea what that was about.
Nicky sent me an email in which she described a customer on Saturday who had come into the shop in full Highland fighting dress: ‘Glorious green gilet and hand-knitted socks, capercaillie feathers dancing on his bonnie Glengarry.’ Apparently he ‘marched proudly into the shop accompanied by a whinging dog which didn’t shut up until he marched back outside. Kind of ruined his image. And he didn’t acknowledge me. Probably English.’
Booked in to have my hair cut tomorrow by Richard, the barber three doors down the street from my shop.
Monsoon’s tech support finally contacted us and managed to take over the computer and fix the problems.
Till total £268
27 customers
WEDNESDAY, 23 JULY
Online orders: 13
Books found: 9
Laurie in. Yet another stunning, sunny day.
I wandered down for a haircut at 10.45 a.m. Richard was, as always, friendly and chatty. As I was leaving, I met Mr Deacon coming in for whatever treatment he has applied to his comb-over. He faintly acknowledged me in a slightly confused fashion. Perhaps out of the context of the shop he couldn’t place me.
Laurie managed to locate and pack all but four of the books that have been ordered since Friday. We had several angry emails and telephone calls about books that were ordered at the start of the month and still have not arrived. There might be a shipping problem with Historic Newspapers, so I will look into it.
Historic Newspapers is a local business that ships old newspapers around the world, and consequently they have a very favourable contract with a courier, DHL, so we put all our overseas orders through them. They drop in twice a week and pick up any parcels we have for non-UK customers.
After lunch I drove to Carsluith again to look at more of the books belonging to the woman with a weeping leg sore. She is slowly clearing her stuff out, and there was a lot of good Folio Society material – one box worth. Gave her £55 towards her grand-daughter’s Oxford fund.
After work I went for a swim in the sea at Monreith with Maltese Tracy.
Till total £236.49
16 customers
THURSDAY, 24 JULY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 3
Laurie opened the shop on what was the hottest day of the year so far: the garden thermometer read 29 degrees.
As we were putting books on the shelves, a couple came into the shop. The wife mauled her way through the antiquarian shelves, coughing and moaning, while he looked at books in the Scottish room. The moment he joined her, she complained loudly about having a headache, catarrh and sore knees. When she finally stopped talking, he offered her some sort of homeopathic crystal to cure her headache. Despite being remarkably annoying, they spent £250 on an eighteenth-century Scottish botanical book.
Laurie organised the collection of four boxes for sale through FBA. They will be delivered to the Amazon warehouse in Dunfermline, and sold and shipped directly through Amazon.
Possibly triggered by our brief encounter in the doorway of the barber’s yesterday, Mr Deacon dropped in and ordered a copy of Alison Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitaine. He looked suspicious when Laurie took his order, slightly as I suspect the character of Mr Pumpherston did in The Intimate Thoughts of John Baxter, Bookseller, in which Alec, the young apprentice, serves him instead of Baxter himself: ‘I think he would admit he has his doubts about that young shaver’, although, unlike Alec, Laurie is perfectly competent to deal with any customer.
Laurie and I spent the rest of the day packing and labelling books for the Random Book Club. Two subscribers failed to renew for another year. After we had finished with the Random Book Club I asked Laurie to sweep up the shop window. It was like a furnace in the summer sun.
Till total £449.99
16 customers
FRIDAY, 25 JULY
Online orders: 5
Books found: 5
Nicky was in the shop today. She spent the day dealing with the postage for the random books, a job that she particularly dislikes, and which I endeavour to ensure falls to her every month.
Just before closing, a customer brought in two large framed maps of Ayrshire, hand-coloured and dating from 1828. I gave her £60 each for them.
Till total £369.50
17 customers
SATURDAY, 26 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Nicky was up early tidying the shop – a significant reversal of her usual work-time activities, which largely comprise making as much of a mess as she possibly can. She asked me to find her an excuse to escape if Smelly Kelly came in to continue his Brut 33-scented wooing. Unsurprisingly, on seeing her blue minibus parked opposite the shop, he pitched up at about 11 a.m. I pretended that I had a parcel to collect from the post office in Newton Stewart and asked Nicky if she would mind picking it up for me, to which she readily agreed. Smelly Kelly then asked if she could give him a lift there as he wanted to visit his brother, at which point there was no option but to fall on my sword and tell Nicky that I would go to Newton Stewart, taking Smelly Kelly with me, if she could cover the shop. The journey was horrendous; the air in the cab of the van was barely breathable so dense was the cloud of Brut 33, even with all the windows open.
At 3 p.m. Mr Deacon appeared to inquire about his order. I told him that it should be here next week. He was clutching a tin of cat food.
Nicky and I spent the afternoon clearing out the van and tidying it up for Vincent to drive it to Inverary tomorrow. I dropped it off at Vincent’s at 4 p.m.
Nicky has decided that she and her friend Morag are going to the Edinburgh Book Festival and intend to promote the Random Book Club. She has instructed me to produce business cards and flyers by Thursday.
Till total £367.46
13 customers
MONDAY, 28 JULY
Online orders: 6
Books found: 3
Laurie was off today, so I was alone in the shop. Vincent telephoned to tell me that the new van is here whenever I want to pick it up.
When I took the mail sacks over to the post office, Wilma asked how things were going with Anna. William overheard and muttered something unpleasant.
On Nicky’s instructions, I spent an hour or two designing Random Book Club promotional material for her to take to the Edinburgh Book Festival. After lunch I emailed it to J&B Print in Newton Stewart with a note that it needs to be ready for Thursday.
After work I picked up the new van from Vincent. It is silver with built-in satnav, electric windows and a tow bar, and much fancier than the old red one. It has a saltire flag on the back door, which should infuriate my pro-union mother.
Till total £434.44
39 customers
TUESDAY, 29 JULY
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Laurie made it in today. Apparently her dog has a punctured eye. The drama of her domestic menagerie continues. The kittens are doing well, though, apparently.
Amazon order for a book called The Reforming of Dangerous and Useless Horses. I ought to have sent this to my cousin Aoife, all of whose horses appear to fall into both categories.
Mr Deacon’s book arrived, so I left a message on his voicemail.
Till total £341.48
33 customers
WEDNES
DAY, 30 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Laurie was in today, which was largely a cloudy day.
Drove to North Berwick to look at a collection of books on Catholicism in a beautiful Georgian town house. Gave the man – a tall man, so wordless that I began to suspect that he may have belonged to a silent order – £200 for five boxes of them, then drove to Eyemouth and found a hotel to stay in.
Till total £541.90
44 customers
THURSDAY, 31 JULY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 2
Laurie covered the shop. She couldn’t find one of today’s orders, which was for a book whose title was Sewage Disposal from Isolated Buildings.
After breakfast I left Eyemouth and drove to a house near Kelso, where I had arranged to look at another collection for sale. This time it was the library of an elderly man whose wife had died recently and who was moving from his bungalow into sheltered accommodation. He seemed happy to be moving, probably for the last time in his life. The bungalow was on a steep slope, and there were a dozen or so steps up to the front door. As his mobility is quite limited, I imagine that comfort is now his top priority, rather than independence. The books were both his and his late wife’s. They were a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, in fairly good condition, probably about 600 in total, including boxed Folio sets of Wodehouse, E. F. Benson and Orwell. I left with about 100 books, gave him £190 and drove home, arriving back at the shop at about 3 p.m. to be met with a customer in cheap polyester suit who asked, ‘Do you remember me? I bought a book about bowling from you five years ago.’
Alison from J&B Print dropped off the new Random Book Club flyers with an invoice for £313.94. Nicky had better get a lot of new subscribers to cover the cost of that.
Email from Helen, secretary of the Wigtown Agricultural Society, reminding me that I have agreed to film and make a DVD of the cattle show on Wednesday. The long-range weather forecast looks dire for that day.
Till total £277.73
31 customers
AUGUST
Like most second-hand bookshops we had various sidelines. We sold second-hand typewriters, for instance, and also stamps – used stamps, I mean. Stamp-collectors are a strange, silent, fish-like breed, of all ages, but only of the male sex; women, apparently, fail to see the peculiar charm of gumming bits of coloured paper into albums. We also sold sixpenny horoscopes compiled by somebody who claimed to have foretold the Japanese earthquake. They were in sealed envelopes and I never opened one of them myself, but the people who bought them often came back and told us how ‘true’ their horoscopes had been. (Doubtless any horoscope seems ‘true’ if it tells you that you are highly attractive to the opposite sex and your worst fault is generosity.)
George Orwell, ‘Bookshop Memories’
Perhaps various sidelines are more important to second-hand bookshops now than they ever were. When I can afford to and I have the opportunity, I attend the auction in Dumfries and pick up bits and pieces to sell in the shop. At the moment there is an oak Georgian bureau (£70), two pairs of Victorian crown green bowling balls (£25 per pair), seventeen jardinières and plant pots (various prices), a sturdy Victorian fire screen (£300), several prints and paintings and a mahogany table (£75), as well as an assortment of trinkets and costume jewellery that Anna has arranged into a corner of the shop that she has called ‘The Littlest Antique Store in the World’. Not my idea. These things, carefully chosen, can add atmosphere to the place by referencing the building’s history as a home prior to its incarnation as a shop – first as a draper’s in 1899, then later as a grocer’s in the 1950s, and since 1992 a bookshop. Add to that mix Sandy the tattooed pagan’s walking sticks and there is hopefully enough to keep the non-reading companions of bibliophiles occupied while their partners browse.
FRIDAY, 1 AUGUST
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Nicky in.
Tracy dropped in this morning to say hello. It is her birthday today.
Me: ‘Happy birthday, Tracy, hope you have a lovely day.’
Nicky: ‘Well, Tracy, you’re one year closer to death.’
Norrie turned up with prototypes of the concrete books that he has made to replace the spirals we had at the front of the shop. I used to make them from real books coated in fibreglass resin, but they were a lot of work in the making and needed to be replaced every three years. The concrete spirals will be expensive but should last for ever.
Mr Deacon dropped in to collect his copy of Eleanor of Aquitaine: ‘I’m in Wigtown seeing the doctor in any case, so I thought I’d collect the book while I am at it.’
My parents called in for a cup of tea at about 4.30 p.m. My father retired from farming about fifteen years ago, around the time I bought the shop (with their enthusiastic encouragement). They sold the farmhouse and steading – which they had converted into holiday cottages when I was a child – and moved to a modern house about five miles away in 2000, thirty years to the day after they had moved into the farm. They kept the land and now rent it to a tenant. My mother, ever the entrepreneur, keeps busy with various projects, while my father has occupied himself with restoring old cars since his retirement. The first was a Bentley, and he is currently working on an Alvis. As I was locking up the shop five minutes after they left, I caught my mother picking the saltire sticker off the back door of the new van.
After work I went to The Ploughman for a pint with Callum and Tracy to celebrate Tracy being another year closer to death.
Till total £263.98
31 customers
SATURDAY, 2 AUGUST
Online orders: 4
Books found: 4
Nicky was in today, and miraculously turned up bang on time. It was a dismally wet morning, but it brightened up in the afternoon, in the middle of which I received a text message from Katie. Apparently I had offered her work for the summer, and she is coming in tomorrow. Oh dear. I will have to cut Laurie’s hours as I can’t afford two sets of wages.
Nicky was all set to go to the Edinburgh Book Festival on Wednesday to distribute propaganda about the Random Book Club, so I checked online to see what events and authors she should target. It turns out that it doesn’t start until next Saturday, and she had misread the dates.
Anna Dreda from Wenlock Books (in Much Wenlock, in Shropshire) and her partner, Hilary, arrived. I had invited them to stay en route back from their holiday on North Uist. We stayed up late talking shop. It is rare to have an opportunity to compare notes with another bookseller, and it is always reassuring to hear that other people are facing the same problems, largely caused by the relentless march of Amazon. Anna has adapted to the situation by cutting paid staff and relying on volunteers – something that I hadn’t considered – as well as organising events in her shop. They are here for a couple of days.
At closing time a man from Ballater, in Aberdeenshire, telephoned. He has a collection of books on polar exploration that he is keen to sell, so we have arranged that I will see him on Wednesday. If it is a good collection, it is the sort of thing that might sell well during the upcoming book festival.
Till total £495.49
36 customers
MONDAY, 4 AUGUST
Online orders: 7
Books found: 7
Bank holiday. Katie and Laurie were both in today. Katie’s further education as a doctor seems merely to have served to make her more acerbic – I was barefoot in the shop when she arrived, and she told me that I made the place look more like a homeless shelter than a bookshop.
A customer brought in four boxes of books on medieval literature. I picked out a few and gave him £60 for them. Katie spent the day alphabetically organising the crime section, finishing the job started by Andrew before it became too much for him.
As I was tidying the shelves in the psychology section, I came across a book called Atomic Structure and Chemical Bonding, which had clearly been put there by Nick
y. I will speak to her about it on Friday. I also spotted that she has created a new section called ‘Home Front Novels’, which I removed immediately and put in the boxes for recycling.
Hilary is very keen on Gavin Maxwell, so I took her and Anna on a tour that included the House of Elrig, his childhood home, the Maxwell memorial at Monreith and a quick look at Monreith House. Afterwards I went down to the cattle show ground to film some aerial shots using the drone, on which is mounted a small GoPro video camera, as the setting sun was stunning.
Several years ago a friend gave me a copy of one of her favourite books: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. It has been sitting on my pile of books to read, so I began reading it after I closed the shop.
Till total £346
26 customers
TUESDAY, 5 AUGUST
Online orders: 0
Books found: 0
Laurie and Katie were both in the shop again today. I really need to split them, as I can’t afford to pay them both. Next week they will work three days each with no overlap.
No orders today, so I suspect that there is a problem with Monsoon. I have emailed them to let them know.
Anna and Hilary left for Much Wenlock, but before they did, they told me that they want to come back with a book group and run a creative writing course in the shop in February. I warned them about the temperature. They didn’t seem to be put off. I’m not sure how it would work financially, so I suggested that they could use the house for free the first year – they seem to think that the drawing room would be an ideal venue – and if it works, we can find a way of repeating it but with a small fee for the use of the house.
Katie spent the day ordering the poetry section, which has become chaotically disorganised.