Шон Байтелл - The Diary of a Bookseller

Two pairs of swallows have started building nests, one in the alleyway between the shop and next door, and another in the log shed.

At noon a customer tied his yapping terrier to one of the benches in front of the shop while he and his wife browsed. An hour later it was still yapping away. They didn’t buy anything. Shortly after they had left, a man with what appeared to be an eggcup taped over his left eye asked for books on ‘numerology’. I had to ask him what it meant.

Till total £107.99

12 customers

Online orders: 3

Books found: 2

At 11 a.m. a customer came to the counter with a pile of railway books for her husband. As she was paying, she told me, ‘Never marry a railwayman’, as though this might be something I had been seriously considering.

In the inbox this morning:

Dear owner of the most prestigious book shop in Scotland,

I do hope this email finds you well.

I am an indie author of fantasy and paranormal stories, with three e-books currently available and a newly released novella, from my favourite of all places to write about, the ocean. Yes, I am one of those who believe in the existence of mermaids, or as I like to call them, asperini. This novella, The White Queen, is the first in the mini-series, Beyond Endless Tides, in which many asperini shawls [sic] strive for a secured future when they realise the worlds ocean creatures, large and small, are soon to die out due to the number of planktonia diminishing. Many of these shawls believe the key to their survival is to abandon the oceans entirely and live on land amongst the humans, or as they call them, nghozas. The only way to accomplish this is to mate with and become nghozas themselves. Not all asperini believe in this move and like Morg, strive to find another way.

It is forced upon Morg to mate with an nghoza but is fortunate to have with her a friend of her father’s who aids her escape. She knows where to find other asperini and soon makes her way to them, unsure of their creed with regard to the nghoza mating thing. To her delight she is accepted into a family, but when her old shawl turns up, there is nothing she can do but flee. Prior to leaving with the young male of the family, she learns of a mermaid (ligphur), the White Queen, who can see into the great ahead and may be the key to all asperini’s survival. Morg and Ethos, together, make the journey south to seek out the mystical ligphur.

I will leave it there for now, but if you’d like to know more please feel free to ask.

I am emailing you today for I’d be very interested in doing a reading at your venue, and have a book tour in mind, whereby I’d be in the area on Friday 19th September 2014. Is it possible to arrange an event for this date? I understand if I have left this email too late for this date, so please advise me on when best suits you. That is of course if you cater for unknown author’s [sic] like me.

I’d bring my own copies to the event for signings after the reading and of course, should you wish to purchase for your shelves, I will have some ready for you with a sale or return policy, at 35% discount of the lower list price. I am selling through Amazon’s Createspace at £4.99, and feedaread at £5.99, they won’t allow me to sell cheaper for number of pages.

I look forward to meeting you,

Best wishes

Sandy the tattooed pagan brought in three sticks and exchanged them for three books.

Till total £324.47

29 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 2

Today was a beautiful warm, sunny day.

The man who wrote the Observer’s Book of Observer’s Books – a bibliography of Observer’s books – came in and complained that our stock of Observer’s books was not as good as it used to be. After a brief count, I calculated that we have roughly 150.

Nicky came in to cover the shop today so I could drive to Dumfries for Anna to catch the train back to London. We stopped and had lunch with Carol-Ann and Ruaridh at Galloway Lodge in Gatehouse. Galloway Lodge is Ruaridh’s business. It is a large restaurant, and Ruaridh is a friend I have known since childhood. He is unrelentingly rude and offensive towards me, and always has been. Home at 4.30 p.m. to find Nicky being lectured by a customer about how she’d managed to train her cat to use the toilet like a human, even as far as operating the flush. Nicky’s expression was a wonderful blend of contempt and fascination.

Till total £75.50

9 customers

Online orders: 3

Books found: 2

Today was another gorgeous sunny day. Nicky was in again.

After lunch I drove to Glasgow to view the maritime history collection that the customer had mentioned last week. It was a warm, sunny day, and the house was on a beautiful, wide Georgian street in the West End of Glasgow. David (as he introduced himself) greeted me at the door and we went into an impressive first-floor drawing room, through the windows of which the spring sun lit up the room. The books were in twenty or so boxes on the floor, spine up. As I was going through them, David explained that his late uncle had been a naval officer during the war and had amassed the collection over his life. He also told me that he and his wife had bought the flat in Glasgow several years previously, when he had been offered a job that – in his words – ‘it would have been churlish to refuse’. I picked out the best of the book collection and wrote him a cheque for £700.

After I had left, I thought I ought to take the opportunity of being in Glasgow to buy myself a new pair of shoes, so I parked the van in the Mitchell Street multi-storey car park and went to House of Fraser. The van, I noticed, was just about the maximum height for vehicles in the car park. As I left (with a new pair of brown brogues), the barrier arm lifted to let me through, but – presumably programmed for smaller vehicles – began to descend before the entire van had passed through, and a chain on the barrier caught the back door of the van, ripping the entire arm from its housing. Mercifully, it fell off half-way down Jamaica Street, before I had reached the A77.

In November 2001, the month I bought the shop, an old man was browsing in the maritime history section of the shop. He came to the counter and asked, ‘When are you having the bonfire?’ Puzzled, I asked him what he meant. He replied, ‘For your books. I have never seen such rubbish. All they’re good for is the bonfire.’ This was my first encounter with a genuinely rude customer, and back then I was still racked with insecurities about the shop, the stock and what I was doing. Fortunately, another customer witnessed the incident and, sensing my discomfort, stepped in and said, ‘Actually, this is the best maritime history section I have ever seen in any bookshop. If you don’t like it you should probably leave.’ He left.

Till total £127

11 customers

Online orders: 3

Books found: 3

Fiona, who has the shop next door, came into the shop this morning in a mild panic to tell me that they need an extra marquee for a live cooking demonstration as part of the food festival which is happening this weekend. Fortunately, I have a pop-up gazebo, which I bought for an event in the garden last summer.

Nicky and I went through the RBC list of people who subscribed last April and had not renewed their membership following the reminder last month. The club is shrinking again and is down to 137 members. Once we had sorted out who was in and who was out, we packaged up the books for this month and dealt with the postage.