15 Customers
SATURDAY, 31 OCTOBER
Online orders: 1
Orders found: 1
Nicky arrived in her customary good cheer and fashionably late, as ever.
Email on the shop’s Facebook:
Dan
30 October 14:57
Good morning bookshop! My name is Dan I am a published author from Colorado I would love to meet you guys and potentially set up some events! I love your store! I have copies of my debut poetry collection which is titled 36 it would be a honor to be able to drop some copies off to you guys so your staff could check it out! And possibly pass some out to your customers! Also I would love to make a donation to you guys as well just to show support to you guys just a local artist trying to support a local business. Thank you for your time!
The Bookshop
31 October 12:43
Hi Dan, thanks for your email. Not sure what you mean by ‘local’ – We are in Scotland.
Dan
2 November 01:42
Hey! And I meant I’m a local artist from where I am!
My mother came in to drop off my belated birthday present: a picture of Captain painted by her octogenarian stoner friend Jean from Colorado. It’s a bizarre sort of cubist affair. Jean and her husband used to come and stay in one of the holiday cottages on my parents’ farm. They became good friends, and always kept in touch. A few years ago Jean began to suffer severely from arthritis. She would regularly email my mother complaining bitterly about the pain of it until one day she was prescribed medical marijuana. Since then she’s never looked back and aside from the health benefits, has become a huge recreational user. Initially, this has confused my anti-drug mother considerably, but recently she’s come to find Jean’s correspondence highly entertaining. Last Christmas, Jean was going to put the fairy lights on the tree in her apartment in the sheltered housing community where she lives. She got them from the cupboard, then decided to test them before putting them on the tree (they were still in the cardboard box). She switched them on, then had a smoke and decided that they looked rather nice, glowing in the brown box, so she decided to just leave them there. As far as I’m aware, they’re still there.
Till Total £104
12 Customers
NOVEMBER
Customers can be queer about prices. Some raise their eyebrows when you tell them what a book will cost; others purse their lips. Both are trying gently to convey that they would buy the book if it were a shilling or two less. Some glance at you hopefully over their spectacles; some just shake their heads. These are the let’s-meet-each-other-half-way clanjamfray. Others don’t even go to that length. When you say a book is seven and six, they bark at you ‘Five bob.’ To them I reply that I am sorry I’m not permitted to lower the price of a book. ‘Keep it then,’ he says. So I keep it. No chaffering, is Mr Pumpherston’s rule. ‘This is a bookshop,’ he says, ‘not an Arabian bazaar.’ I have known him to reduce a book to an old customer, but never if the customer himself has first tried to break down the price. If a customer tries to haggle the book is snapped shut and replaced on the shelf. Mr Pumpherston declares that if you’re ready to break down your prices, it’ll soon go round that you charge too much in the first place. There’s a lot of sense in that dictum.
Augustus Muir, The Intimate Thoughts of John Baxter, Bookseller
If you’re in a trade in which people feel entitled to haggle, no amount of ink spent venting your frustration at people’s eagerness to beat your prices down is too much. It is a constant, grinding feature of daily life in the second-hand trade, and many people, as Mr Pumpherston implies, believe that you factor in a margin for this kind of negotiation when you’re fixing your prices. We don’t, and I don’t imagine that many businesses do. You look at a book, remember what you paid for it and price it accordingly. Customers don’t try to negotiate at the petrol pump, or the supermarket whose owners and shareholders make millions, if not billions in profits, but it seems that it is acceptable to try to screw the profit out of struggling small businesses at a time when everybody is fully aware that we’re up against it thanks to, well, you know who by now. Generally, like Mr Pumpherston, I’m considerably more inclined to discount if customers don’t ask. If they do ask – and do so politely – I may reduce a large sale, but if they demand a discount they almost certainly will not get one. I’m tempted to start using his Arabian bazaar retort in such encounters, just as I’m tempted to use Dorothy Parker’s ‘What fresh hell is this?’ when I answer the telephone.
It’s strange that Scots have a reputation for meanness. In my experience the Scots are generous to a fault, and I honestly can’t remember the last time anyone Scottish haggled with me over the price of a book. Americans, too, don’t tend to argue about the prices we set. Before the days of online selling, there was an unspoken rule in the second-hand book trade that a 10 per cent trade discount was offered on all sales to other booksellers (although Irish dealers always demanded 20 per cent). This seems laughably small, now that even non-trade customers expect considerably more than that.
MONDAY, 2 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 3
Orders found: 3
I was on my own in the shop today, so I decided to read Death at Intervals, another book by José Saramago, author of Blindness, which Emanuela had given me. Sat by the fire and got stuck into it.
Went to make a cup of tea at about 2 p.m. and returned to find that Captain had stolen my seat by the fire.
Telephone call from BT about advertising in the phone book, which, like bookshops, has become a relic of the past as everyone now has their contacts in their mobile and can access information online anyway. For the past few years I’ve taken an advert in the phone book at a cost of £425. I told the rep today that I didn’t want to do it any more, and he asked if he could call me back. He did so five minutes later and the price had dropped to £250. I reluctantly agreed to it. Now I’m starting to regret my decision.
Till Total £65.50
8 Customers
TUESDAY, 3 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 1
Orders found: 1
There was an email this morning from an Australian magazine asking for photos and anecdotes about the shop, so replied with both.
Drove to a book deal in Gelston again, at the same house. This time it included a good copy of Edinburgh Revisited by James Bone and a four-volume set of Burns. Less than one box, gave her £65.
Made Cullen Skink for supper.
Till Total £361.50
12 Customers
WEDNESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 4
Orders found: 4
Nicky in.
Order from Kuala Lumpur, and another for a book from the erotica section to an address in Iran.
An old man came to the counter with four mint paperbacks from the humour section – one priced at £1, two others at £2 and the other one at £1.50 – and said, ‘You don’t seriously expect me to pay that much for these, do you?’ He left empty-handed.
Nicky found a book of French phrases (1960 reprint). Not sure quite what sort of holiday you’d have planned if you required the following:
You are requested not to wander about during the service.
Onions do not agree with me [although Anna’s father would find that one useful: he hates onions].
The cooking is plain.
I have fallen in the sea.
The boy has drowned.
I am wanted by the police.
He has committed suicide.
The weather is dreadful.
Later on, Nicky told me that she’s going to stop working here. She’s applied for a job in an old folks’ home – ‘Most of my pals live there anyway’ – and had decided that she disapproves of my lifestyle. I think the fundamental problem is that she thinks I made a mistake ending things with Anna, of whom she is very fond.
Till Total £119
9 Customers
THURSDAY, 5 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
Opened the shop slightly late, on a cold, wet day.
Local farmer Sandy McCreath came in. He spent an hour telling me about his dyslexia. He wants to make a documentary about dyslexia within the farming community, and while he is clearly well informed about the condition, trying to get an idea of how the documentary would look is nearly impossible. I don’t think he really knows. I suggested that he speaks to Dyslexia Scotland – ‘Oh, I cannae do that. I’ve fallen out with them.’
Callum came in because he was worried about the rain running off the roof and down the flue of the new boiler, which the extension is designed to protect. We spent an hour, patching a repair together.
Isabel came in to do the accounts.
Till Total £40.50
5 Customers
FRIDAY, 6 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
Drove to Aberdeen for a book deal tomorrow. Text message from Granny: ‘I’m sorry if I disturb you but this morning when I put in order my face, Zoe, my cat bite my ankle.’
Till Total £42.50
4 Customers
SATURDAY, 7 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
Drove home, via a house in Rosemount. Middle-aged woman whose late husband had an interest in history: several Spalding Club books among the collection. Gave her £300 for five boxes. Back home at 4.30 p.m.
The Spalding Club was founded in 1839, and named after seventeenth-century historian John Spalding. It produced books, mainly in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and largely relating to the history and archaeology of Aberdeenshire. They’re easy to identify, being mostly the same size (large 8vo) and bound in olive green buckram. They’re usually limited editions, and normally sell for between £20 and £60, depending on the title. They rarely sell quickly, but they are very well produced, and academic works of a high standard. These will probably sell online.
Finished reading Death at Intervals. I struggled with it, compared with Blindness. Although the concept of a country in which people stop dying is brilliant, the execution seemed more laboured and the pace much slower than that of Blindness.
Till Total £106.43
8 Customers
MONDAY, 9 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 6
Orders found: 6
At 11 a.m. a woman came to the counter with a book which she’d brought in and said, ‘My grandfather gave me this book, see. He was a missionary in Africa, see. He left me this book. I can’t remember who the woman is, but it’s a story about this woman who was a missionary, and it’s got a photograph of her on one of the pages, see. It’s meant to be there, because there’s an oblong bit for the photo, see. Is that the kind of thing you’d be interested in?’
No.
Wet and miserable day. After supper I lit the fire and started The Master and Margarita.
Till Total £20.50
3 Customers
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 5
Orders found: 5
I found all the orders this morning, which was windy and wet.
Two customers brought in a good collection of modern paperback fiction, for which I gave them £50. It’s ideal material for the Random Book Club.
At eleven o’clock a woman came to the counter and explained that her boss, who had been in the Writers’ Retreat during the festival, had left a brown trilby behind. It was the one that I thought was Nicky’s Tyrolean yodelling hat, so I returned it to her.
After lunch I drove to a house in Glencaple, near Dumfries, to look at a book collection. It was another widow selling her late husband’s library, and it is probably the best collection I’ve seen this year: everything in pristine condition, a mix of old and new, plenty of fishing and shooting (including about a dozen BBs) and more Ian Nialls than I’ve ever come across before, as well as an early printing of Culpeper’s Herbal (volume II only – the anatomical volume). Her husband had been a surgeon, and there were a lot of curious medical biographies which (I hope) would have been small print runs, and consequently now scarce and valuable. I gave her £700 for ten boxes.
Eliot sent me a text message at four o’clock asking if he could come and stay tomorrow for an unspecified period.
Till Total £135.49
9 Customers
WEDNESDAY, 11 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 1
Orders found: 1
Opened the shop. Wet, miserable day, so I lit the fire in the shop.
Telephone call from Abe at 11 a.m. Apparently a customer isn’t happy with the condition of a book we sent to them. It cost the customer £7, and we sent it to America, making a loss on the postage. I checked the emails and found one (to which I had failed to respond) from him:
Dear The Bookshop
You recently sent me a copy of The Scottish Castle Restoration Debate, your order number on the shipping note is xxxxxxx.
The advertisement on the Abe web site as far as I remember described the book as in very good condition and your shipping note repeats that assertion.
There are a couple of creases in the lower couple of inches of the back cover, the five or six pages behind these creases all appear to be water damaged to a lesser degree as one gets further into the book, but the damage to the last page immediately behind the back cover is especially bad with a small area of the coating of the inside face of the cover having been transferred to the preceding page.
The plasticized coating is beginning to peel away in places from the edges of both the front and the back covers and there is an approximately two inch stain on the edge on the pages opposite the spine of the book which fortunately has only traveled a minimal distance from the edge of the pages in to the book but is still easily noticeable.
None of this damage occurred in transit as the packaging was in perfect condition.
I realize that it has taken me a couple of weeks to get back to you but I only have intermittent access to the internet and I have spent some time trying to find out if there was some way that I could leave negative feed back about this order on the Abe website, it appears there is not, something that I will be contacting Abe about in the not too distant future.
I would have described this book as in average condition at the very best, it is certainly not in ‘very good’ condition.
Yours,
Bryan
How depressing that his first instinct was to leave negative feedback, rather than try to resolve the problem with me.
Eliot turned up at three o’clock. His shoes were on the floor of the kitchen by seven.
AWB meeting at The Old Bank at 5.30. This time I remembered it, which is just as well since I’m secretary.
Till Total £77.50
6 Customers
THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 5
Orders found: 4
Wild and stormy – apparently we’re in the midst of an Atlantic storm.
I’ve decided that we ought to make a Christmas video for the shop, in the style of the John Lewis Christmas advert. I’m thinking of adapting ‘’Twas the night before Christmas’.
At four o’clock a Cockney man came in and bought three Bernard Cornwell books. He told me that once he’d finished them, he’ll have read all of Cornwell’s work. I suggested that he tries Patrick O’Brian next.
Eliot fell asleep on the sofa at 7 p.m., so I read The Master and Margarita. Granny told me that I would love it, and if the first hundred pages are anything to go by, that’s an understatement. I am transfixed.
Till Total £29.30
5 Customers
FRIDAY, 13 NOVEMBER
Online orders: 2
Orders found: 2
Nicky arrived on time at 9 a.m., but there were no treats from the Morrisons skip today. There has been a discernible chill in her approach to me since she announced that she’s leaving.
Still stormy and cold. Eliot left
at 7 a.m. amid a chorus of slamming doors and stomping feet.
Nicky (whispering and pointing at a customer): ‘See that guy over there – he was in last week for two hours. He didn’t buy anything, and asked me if he could photocopy some pages from a book.’ This was a common occurrence in the early days after I’d bought the shop. People would just want a few pages from a book (usually relating to an ancestor), and we – very occasionally – obliged them, but it doesn’t really happen these days. It’s possible that now people surreptitiously photograph the relevant pages on their phones, or that the information is available online.
Nicky and I unloaded the boxes from the Glencaple deal, and she started going through them. I asked her to guess how much I’d paid for them. She said £100, then she started sorting through them and checking values online; one of the things she found was a Georgian ladies’ blank notebook which had a lock and key, and had been partially illustrated and written in. It appears that they’re not worth as much as I had anticipated, and her estimate was probably more accurate than mine.
Nicky and I were discussing what to do for The Bookshop’s cheery Christmas video:
Me: ‘Why don’t we base it on Byron’s ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’?
Nicky read it aloud:
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
Confessions of a Bookseller Page 26