At 3.15 p.m. four heavily built American men came in looking for ‘old Bibles’, so I showed them several from various periods going back as far as 1644. They didn’t buy any of them, and all insisted on calling me ‘Sir’.
Till total £271.49
13 customers
FRIDAY, 30 MAY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Uneventful day. Spent most of it reading.
Till total £114.98
12 customers
SATURDAY, 31 MAY
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Another quiet day in the shop. Re-priced some of the stock in the antiquarian section, including a third edition (1774) of Thomas Pennant’s A Tour in Scotland 1769. The mid-eighteenth century appears to have been a popular time for books about tours of Scotland, normally illustrated.
Probably the most well-known tour – largely because of the already established fame of its author and his companion – is that of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson in 1785, when they toured the Hebrides. On their travels, they took with them a copy of Martin Martin’s A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703), of which Johnson was (typically) critical. This copy of Pennant came from a large house in Ayrshire which contained a wonderful library of such things. Daniel Defoe got in before Pennant and Boswell, writing A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–6), and among the other Scottish tours currently in the antiquarian section are Garnett’s Observations on a Tour Through the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland (1811), with maps and beautiful oval copperplate illustrations, and Campbell’s A Journey from Edinburgh to Parts of North Britain (1802), again with fine copperplate illustrations. The descriptions of the landscapes, the people and their lifestyles, along with the contemporary illustrations, provide the most accurate impression of what life in that period must have been like, making them not only beautiful books but invaluable social historical documents. Finding such items in a collection is always a joy.
Callum and I had arranged to go for a bike ride after work, leaving here sharp at 5 p.m. so I was prompt with closing and started locking up at 4.55 p.m. I told the only customer in the shop – a woman who was in the Scottish room – that I had to close for an important meeting. She shuffled reluctantly into the front room and started looking at the cookery books. Just as I was explaining (again) about my important meeting and trying to manoeuvre her towards the door, Callum strolled in wearing what were clearly cycling clothes and holding a bike pump, shouting, ‘Right, are you ready to go on this bike ride then?’ The woman left amid a barrage of tutting.
Till total £179.48
24 customers
JUNE
There are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. In the end one gets to know these people almost at a glance. For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them.
George Orwell, ‘Bookshop Memories’
Things have changed a little since Orwell’s day. Perhaps the National Health Service has accommodated the ‘not quite certifiable lunatics’ who dogged his daily life in the bookshop back then or perhaps they’ve found some other equally frugal means of distracting themselves. We have one or two regular customers to whom this description might apply, but far more common today is the customer who will spend a few short minutes in the shop before leaving empty-handed, saying, ‘You could spend all day in this shop’, or the young couple who will find the most inconvenient place in which to park their vast, screaming Panzer of a pram while they sit exhausted in the armchairs by the wood-burning stove. Nowadays, when customers have that ‘aimless’ look about them, it is almost a certainty that it is because they are waiting for the pharmacist (three doors up) to fulfil their prescription or for the garage in Wigtown to call and tell them that their car has passed its MOT test and they can collect it.
SUNDAY, 1 JUNE
While Amazon appears to benefit consumers, there is an unseen mass of people who suffer thanks to the punitive conditions which it imposes on sellers – authors have seen their incomes plummet over the past ten years, publishers too, which means that they can no longer take risks with unknown authors, and now there is no middleman. Amazon seems to be focused on matching if not undercutting competitors’ prices to the extent that it seems to be impossible to see how it can make money on some sales. This puts the squeeze not only on independent bookshops but also on publishers, authors and, ultimately, creativity. The sad truth is that, unless authors and publishers unite and stand firm against Amazon, the industry will face devastation. Amanda Foreman wrote an excellent piece about this in today’s Sunday Times.
MONDAY, 2 JUNE
Online orders: 3
Books found: 3
Laurie’s first day back at work in the shop. Predictably, there were massive problems with Monsoon. Laurie is a student at Napier University in Edinburgh, a place that she loathes with undisguised contempt. She has worked in the shop for the past couple of summers. I have taken her on for this summer, which will probably be her last before she enters the hideous world of attempting to find a real job.
For the first time in the thirteen years since I bought the shop, I have been left with no choice but to turn the radio off. Terry Waite is guest of the week in Rob Cowan’s Essential Classics on Radio 3.
Tracy, with whom I often compare notes about the general public, dropped in during her lunch break at the exact moment when a customer came to the counter. The customer put a book on the counter. When I picked it up to check the price, I noticed that there was an ancient ‘59p’ written in pencil on the first page next to our price sticker of £2.50. During the ensuing argument over which was the correct price, I could see Tracy attempting to stop herself from giggling. When the customer reluctantly accepted the price and said ‘I will just get rid of some change’, she lost all control and began laughing hysterically. The customer took five minutes to work out the correct change, which consisted entirely of 2p pieces and pennies.
Till total £330.49
16 customers
TUESDAY, 3 JUNE
Online orders: 2
Books found: 2
Opened the shop five minutes late because the key jammed. The first customer of the day brought two Rider Haggard first editions to the counter, £8.50 each. At the same moment the thought ‘Those are seriously underpriced’ entered my head, he asked, ‘Will you do them for £13?’ When I refused to knock anything off them, he replied, ‘Well, you’ve got to ask, haven’t you?’ so I told him that, no, you do not have to ask.