Online orders:
Orders found:
Opened up as usual, but as I was switching the lights on, I could hear a strange sound from the back of the shop. I followed it until I was close enough to recognise the sound of the flapping of wings and tracked it down to a starling which the accursed cat must have dragged in. It was fine, and it spent the next hour flying around the shop, evading my futile and incompetent attempts to catch it. Eventually, on the top step of a ladder and flailing around with a fishing net, I managed to get hold of it and took it outside and let it go.
The shop computer rebooted overnight, and now Monsoon won’t open, so I have no idea if we had any orders. My email to Monsoon requesting assistance was pinged back.
After work I lit the fire in the snug. Looking through my enormous ‘To Be Read’ pile in the snug, I spotted a copy of The New Confessions, by William Boyd, which a friend had given me years ago. I can’t imagine it being quite as perfect as Any Human Heart, but decided to give it a go.
Till Total £14.30
2 Customers
FRIDAY, 13 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 6
Orders found: 3
Nicky was in the shop today, so I spent a lot of the day tidying up and preparing the house for the people from Shropshire who are coming up for the Readers’ Retreat on Sunday. Anna (Wenlock Books) and Emily (who’s helping to organise everything) are going to be staying in the house, so Janetta, who cleans the shop and house twice a week, has prepared bedrooms for them. The others are staying in the Ploughman Hotel and the Glaisnock guest house.
At 10 a.m. I had a book deal in a house about two miles from Wigtown. About two thousand books, most of which I didn’t want, but they’re selling the house and wanted the whole lot cleared, so I boxed them up and took them away, leaving them with a cheque for £750. Some good regimental histories and nice Arthur Rackham illustrated material too. Rackham is one of a handful of illustrators whose work is instantly recognisable and almost universally known. Along with Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, Jessie M. King, Kate Greenaway and a handful of others in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, they created what is wistfully referred to as the Golden Age of book illustration. Sadly, when you find books illustrated by them, often several – if not all – of the plates have been removed, rendering them practically worthless.
I returned to the shop at two o’clock and unloaded the van. Nicky began going through the boxes, and we played the usual ‘Guess how much I paid for them’ game. She guessed £200. Perhaps she would be better suited to running the shop than me after all. She stayed the night, and we had a blind beer-tasting session. She still maintains that she doesn’t like beers that are named after birds. That didn’t stop her from describing a bottle of Corncrake Ale as delicious.
Till Total £57.50
4 Customers
SATURDAY, 14 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
A clear, still day. Nicky opened the shop.
After work I lit the fire and began re-reading Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, the Penguin Modern Classics edition. I tend not to re-read books, thinking that my time would be better spent reading something new, but a customer was talking about it just before I closed the shop and I remembered how much I’d enjoyed it, so I picked a copy off the shelf.
There are some titles, and some authors, that as a bookseller you feel you really ought to have on your shelves to differentiate you from the Danielle Steel and Catherine Cookson stock that dominates so many charity shops. And it’s not just the obvious classics – Jane Austen, the Brontës, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and their like. There are books that, as a bookseller, you feel embarrassed to be asked for and not have in stock: Machiavelli’s The Prince, anything by Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Conrad, J. D. Salinger, Isaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Moby Dick, Brave New World, 1984, The Go-Between, anything by Murakami, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Daphne du Maurier … The list is endless, but more often than not, when we’re asked, we won’t have the book the customer is looking for. It’s different for shops selling new books: they can pick and choose their stock, provided it’s in print. In the second-hand book trade, we’re at the mercy of what comes in: we can’t ‘order’ a replacement for Catcher in the Rye when the only copy on our shelves has sold. It often feels as though customers consider us to have failed them when we don’t have a well-known title in stock, but these are the titles that sell most readily, and replacing them is a matter of sheer luck, depending on when we next chance upon a copy.
It is entirely possible that the reason we never seem to be short of The Da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey is that the tendrils of these books don’t reach deeply enough into the souls of readers for them to wish to hang on to the books, so they’re less reluctant to dispose of them. The Catcher in the Rye must surely – over the years since it was first published in 1951 – have been published in greater numbers than Dan Brown, but still we don’t see them in the same numbers being offered for sale in the second-hand book trade.
Till Total £78
6 Customers
SUNDAY, 15 FEBRUARY
Online orders:
Orders found:
Anna Dreda and Emily from Shropshire arrived at about 4 p.m. The rest of the Readers’ Retreat crowd appeared at about six for supper, a vegetarian chilli which Emily had cooked and brought with her. Four of them were staying at the Ploughman, and were really not happy with their accommodation, so I spent about an hour calling around to see if anyone had any spare beds. No luck so far, but I’ll try again tomorrow.
One of Anna’s Readers’ Retreat guests asked me during supper if the house was haunted, possibly shivering through cold rather than fear. I assured her that it was not, and that I was pretty confident that ghosts were nothing more than figments of the imaginations of those who wished them to exist.
MONDAY, 16 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 1
Flo was in the shop today. She’s the daughter of Jayne, who has the shop next to mine, and has worked for me on and off (largely when it has suited her) over the years. She’s a student, and the very embodiment of petulance. The first thing she said – on spotting a dirty rag on the counter – was ‘Is that Nicky’s scarf?’ Her job for the day was to parcel up the random books for this month’s mail-out, a job that I used to approach with eager enthusiasm, but which has now become a dull chore.
At 9.30 a.m. I lit the fire in the big room above the shop for the Readers’ Retreat and discussed plans for the week with Anna and Emily. Evening meals will be cooked by Emily, as will some lunches, with Maria bringing in the remainder. Maria is an Australian woman who has settled in the area with her husband and children. She runs a small catering business. She bounded in at 9.45, armed with food and equipment and her customary relentless good cheer.
I’ve managed to resolve the accommodation problem by putting two of the four unhappy Ploughman residents at Beltie Books. The other two are going to sleep here, which means that Anna and Emily will have to vacate their rooms. Emily is going to sleep in the bed in the shop.
Supper here with the twelve from the Retreat; vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Up late drinking and chatting. Bed at 1 a.m.
Till Total £378.47
17 Customers
TUESDAY, 17 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 3
Orders found: 2
Flo in the shop again today so I set her the task of setting up mail merge for the Random Book Club spreadsheet.
Me: Flo, have you finished that spreadsheet?
Flo: I’ve sort of half done it.
Me: Well, you’ll sort of half get paid then.
Flo: Fuck off, you should be paying me more.
This is typical of the high esteem in which I’m held by members of staff.
Telephone call after
lunch from someone in Edinburgh whose father died recently, leaving 30,000 books, mainly classics. I have arranged to view them on Friday.
Left the shop at 2 p.m. (with Flo in charge again) to look at books in a house near New Abbey, owned by the people who I went to see on my first ever book deal with John Carter, from whom I bought the shop. He kindly accompanied me on my first few buying trips to help ensure I didn’t make any catastrophic mistakes. Back then the family selling their books was also selling their home, Kirkconnell House, which had a fine country house library. This time, sadly, the old lady we dealt with had died and her daughter was disposing of the contents of the house she’d moved into after they’d sold the castle. Unfortunately it was mostly rubbish: Reader’s Digest condensed books, and dozens of books about flower-arranging, that sort of thing. On the way there I stopped to pick up boxes from Galloway Lodge jam factory. Their discarded apple boxes are perfect for books. Ruaridh, who runs Galloway Lodge Preserves, is the younger brother of my childhood friend Christian, and is among the most irreverent of my many rude friends.
Returned home in time to say goodbye to Flo, followed by a meal with the Readers’ Retreat guests. Bed at 1.30 a.m.
Till Total £274
23 Customers
WEDNESDAY, 18 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
The first customer of the day:
Customer: Do you have a book called Sports Car Racing 1958 to 1959?
Me: Probably not, but you’re welcome to have a look in the transport section.
Customer: Ah, but I bet you’ve got a special collection of things like that which you don’t put on show.
It’s astonishing how often customers clearly think that we have the book they’re after but – for reasons best known to them alone – we have decided that we don’t want to sell it to them. Shortly after I bought the shop, I remember John Carter telling me about an acquaintance of his in the trade who was bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t understand why he had £100,000 worth of stock but never seemed to make any money. With his typical pragmatic wisdom John replied, ‘You don’t want £100,000 worth of stock, you want £100,000 instead.’
A family of five came in at 3 p.m. The children mauled and pawed their way through the books in the antiquarian section in front of their parents before the father spotted the notice requesting that customers handle the books carefully, read it out loud, then finally told them to stop. It’s extraordinary that thought didn’t enter his head until he’d read the notice. I wonder if he has ‘Remember To Breathe’ etched onto the inside of the lenses of his glasses.
Supper cooked by Emily: vegetarian curry. I’m starting to crave flesh.
Till Total £273
6 Customers
THURSDAY, 19 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 3
Orders found: 2
Email this morning from an Irish customer who is interested in a very early Irish railway book we have in stock, dated 1836, asking what my ‘best price’ would be. The book is priced at £900. I offered it to him for £775. He told me that he’d think about it.
On my way up to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I had the grave misfortune to be passing an overweight elderly male customer in grey polyester trousers as he bent over to look at a book on a lower shelf. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a visible Y-front line, and I very much hope it will be the last.
A large man with a beard, ponytail and crutches spent an hour crashing around the shop, knocking things over then looking at me and saying, ‘That honestly was nothing to do with me’.
Sara Maitland, author of A Book of Silence and many other excellent books, came to speak to the readers’ group this afternoon. After chatting with her I discovered that my sister used to go out with her nephew. As she was popping out for a cigarette, she spotted the Einstein quotation (‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former’) on the counter and asked, ‘Are you sure he said that? It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing he’d have said.’
Supper with readers’ group. Bed at 1.30 a.m.
Till Total £184.99
20 Customers
FRIDAY, 20 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
Nicky worked in the shop this morning. At 10 a.m. Kate the postie delivered a parcel for her. Kate has a barcode scanner for anything sent recorded delivery, and it is a constant source of unhappiness for her. Either it doesn’t work or it scans the wrong thing or something else goes wrong with it. Today was no exception. Nicky’s parcel contained about ten plastic dolls, which she confessed to having bought from eBay after a few beers. Apparently they’re called Bratz, and she disapproves of how over-sexualised they look, so she’s intending to redo their make-up and turn them into ‘nature girls’.
The Irish railway enthusiast emailed back to say that he wasn’t interested in the book at that price as it was ‘far too expensive’.
I left Nicky in charge of the shop at noon and drove to Edinburgh to look at the large book collection in a house in the west of the city. The collection had belonged to an academic, and the estate was left to his widow and son, John, both of whom were there when I arrived. It was nearly all classical Greek and Latin material, very hard to sell, and on my estimate, nearer 6,000 than the 30,000 titles John thought they numbered. Among it was some good antiquarian and railway material. I picked out enough for a van load of non-classical shop stock and offered them £600 for that. The widow said that she’d like to get a second opinion before deciding, so I returned empty-handed. Seven hours’ driving for nothing.
Thankfully I arrived home in time for supper with the Readers’ Retreat group in Beltie Books. Another late night, this time 2 a.m.
Till Total £147
14 Customers
SATURDAY, 21 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 3
Orders found: 2
Nicky opened the shop, so I spent the day repairing things like loose door handles and painting skirting boards.
We sold a book called Our Friend the Poodle online. Shortly after I’d found it, a customer came in with a box of books to sell. It was mainly paperback fiction, but there was a first edition of Three Men in a Boat. This isn’t a rare book – a decent copy sells for around £50 – but it was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager, so I gave her £30 for it and put it in my own collection. The Readers’ Retreat group left to head back to Shropshire after lunch.
David, a journalist from the Free Press (one of the local newspapers), called for an interview about the book spirals and the complaint lodged to the planning department about them. I was careful not to paint a negative picture of the planners and shoot myself in the foot.
After the shop closed, I dismantled the shelves in the gallery (the largest room in the shop) and painted the wall which Callum had insulated before Christmas. I didn’t have time to paint it then, so I had just put the shelves back over the drying plaster. I managed to get paint everywhere. I’ll put the shelves back up tomorrow.
Till Total £160
19 Customers
MONDAY, 23 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 1
Orders found: 1
Very unusual for there to be only one order on a Monday morning, I’d normally expect six or seven.
Quite often in the winter, if I’m working in the shop, I hear the door open and expect a customer to appear, but at this time of year it is as likely to be a passing local who – on seeing Captain, the cat, sitting outside the shop staring at the door handle – will open it enough to let him in then close it behind him. Today it happened three times.
Peter Howie, an engineer from Creetown – across the bay from Wigtown – brought in six boxes of his mother-in-law’s books. Went through them. Only about two boxes’ worth were of interest, so I offered him £60. One of the more interesting books was a Victorian book of lithographic illustrations of India, but since it had been bound usi
ng gutta-percha, the binding had perished and the illustrations had become loose and had been damaged. Most books bound in gutta-percha eventually reach this state; there must be something in its chemical make-up that defies longevity. During the second half of the nineteenth century, gutta-percha (the rubbery sap from the Palaquium tree) was seen as a sort of industrial panacea: it was used to make everything from golf balls to fillings for teeth to electrical insulation (the first transatlantic telegraph cable was insulated in it). It was also used, briefly, in book manufacturing. Traditionally ‘gatherings’ (huge sheets of paper, with 16 pages printed on them, folded so as to produce 8 leaves in octavo bindings) would be sewn together over cords on the spines to produce books, but it was far quicker (and cheaper) to glue them using gutta-percha. After the discovery of vulcanisation, gutta-percha became all but redundant, but books from this window in history do still occasionally turn up, invariably in the same condition.
My mobile phone charger has become temperamental. Now it only charges when the phone is face down.
Till Total £77.48
8 Customers
TUESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY
Online orders: 1
Orders found: 1
At eleven o’clock a customer came to the counter with a book that was priced at £1. He and his wife then spent four minutes going through all their pockets and purses to scratch the money together. They were 20p short and asked if they could pay the balance on their credit card.
Shortly afterwards there was a telephone call from a customer who had found a book we’re selling online for £3, postage £2.80 (Amazon’s standard rate): ‘Is that really what the postage is going to cost, because I don’t particularly want to pay more than the actual cost of postage. Can you do the postage for less if I buy it directly from you? £2.80 seems a bit steep for posting a book.’
Confessions of a Bookseller Page 5