Шон Байтелл - The Diary of a Bookseller

Books found: 0

Katie was in today, covering for Nicky.

Monsoon was down again, so we couldn’t access the locator codes to find the books that have been ordered, the title of one of which was He Was Born Gay , by Emlyn Williams.

After lunch I left for Haugh of Urr, a tiny village about thirty-five miles away, to look at a book collection. They were in a very pretty, small whitewashed cottage. The place was a mess, but full of beautiful antique furniture and paintings, and a mixed collection of books. There wasn’t much exceptional material, and a lot of the better books were mouldy and water-damaged from a flood in March, but I found a copy of Don Quixote from 1755 in two volumes and some A. A. Milne firsts. The books, paintings and furniture had come from a stately home, and had been divided among the family when the bigger house was sold. They looked out of place in the tiny cottage and had clearly been bought with a far grander location in mind. The old man was there with his grandson, and said very little. I noticed that I had the same trainers as his grandson, and when I pointed this out to him, he looked horrified. Left with twelve boxes of books and wrote the old man a cheque for £525.

I returned to the shop to find a list of things to do left by Katie before she went home, including ‘Fix Monsoon’. This is becoming far too frequent a problem, and it is probably time to look into an alternative system. It is now inoperable about 25 per cent of the time, and although the tech support is good, they are based in Oregon and so are eight hours behind us. Conveniently, they start work as I am closing up.

Till total £217.98

26 customers

Online orders: 5

Books found: 0

On my own in the shop all day, and Monsoon was still down this morning, which means that we can’t even find locator codes for the books that have been ordered overnight. Nicky was at the Edinburgh Book Festival, dispensing Random Book Club flyers and wisdom in equal measure. I received a text message from her at 4 p.m. to say that she had given up and gone to the pub.

By lunchtime I had already had a disagreement with a customer about whether or not ghosts exist, and another who had brought in a carefully bubble-wrapped odd volume of Burns (one from a set of four – the other three were absent) from 1840, believing it to be worth a fortune. She looked quite insulted when I told her that I wouldn’t even take it if she offered it to me for free. Odd volumes are difficult to sell – the chances of finding a buyer who is missing the volume you have, and in a matching binding, are extremely low, so unless it is something exceptional, or an illustrated book with fine woodcuts or copperplate engravings, we – and most book dealers – tend to avoid them.

Helen, the secretary of the Wigtown Agricultural Society, emailed me about the video, which I have yet to start editing.

There was a delivery of two boxes of books this morning. It turned out to be the erotica collection from the widow in Norwich. I had forgotten all about it. I checked their values online and decided to offer her £75 for the lot. It is difficult buying erotica, as very little of it can be sold on Amazon or eBay because they violate the puritanical sensibilities of the prudes in charge of both organisations.

Eliot arrived at 7 p.m. for a board meeting and seemed to be in pretty good form, although his shoes were on the floor in the kitchen within minutes of his arrival.

Till total £407.97

29 customers

Online orders: 6

Books found: 5

Katie was working in the shop today. She complained about being ill, so I made her a Lemsip. By lunchtime I was starting to feel pretty unwell too.

Monsoon was down until 2 p.m., at which point one of their tech support team in Oregon woke up and finally took over the computer again and fixed it, so that we were able to process the orders and find the books.

In the afternoon a customer asked where we keep the ‘illustrated poetry books’. I explained that we don’t have a specific section and that he would have to trawl through the whole poetry section. He emerged two hours later, looking delighted with a pile of £200 worth of books, explaining that he had just taken up book-collecting and thought that illustrated poetry was an interesting subject on which to build up a collection. I genuinely thought that this type of person had ceased to exist. I could have hugged him.

By the time it came to close up I was feeling pretty rotten – sore throat, headache, runny nose. Callum called by, and we went for a pint.

I still haven’t unloaded the van from the Haugh of Urr deal on Friday, so I really ought to prioritise this and start listing the more valuable books online to recover some cash.

Till total £469.33

36 customers

Online orders: 3

Books found: 3

Katie called in sick, so I was on my own in the shop. I suspect that I have the same malady she has; I felt awful all day, but the Random Book Club mail-out is due tomorrow so I packed all of the books up and processed them on the Royal Mail web site. We are back up to 153 members. The postage was £247.53. When I dropped off the orders this morning, I asked Wilma if she could send the postman over tomorrow to collect the six sacks. William greeted my ‘Hello William, lovely day again’ with his customary ‘What’s lovely about it?’

Till total £270.98

30 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 2

Both Katie and Laurie called in sick, Laurie at 11 p.m. yesterday, Katie at 8 a.m. today. Tremendously inconsiderate of them both to be ill at the same time.

As I was tidying the shelves in the garden room, I found a copy of The Odyssey in the fishing section. I have yet to question Nicky about this, but the answer will almost certainly be, ‘Aye, but they were on a boat for some of it. What do you think they ate? Aye. Fish. See?’

The postman came and picked up the Random Book Club parcels just after I had locked up, but fortunately I was still in the shop and heard him knocking on the door.

After closing I texted Katie, who has promised that she will cover the shop despite being ill, so that I can drive to Grimsby and collect books from Ian, a bookseller with whom I have had a long working relationship.

Till total £276.70

30 customers

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

Katie managed to struggle in today. I left at 5 a.m. for Grimsby and arrived at 10.45 a.m. Ian’s place is an old church right in the middle of Grimsby. He took it on three years ago with the intention of listing ten thousand or so books online. He has now decided to pack it in because it is becoming impossible to compete with the mega-listers, who put through such volume that Amazon and Royal Mail give them massive concessions that smaller dealers do not get.

Ian and I went through the boxes of stock I had sent to him two years ago to list online for me. I took out about ten boxes of material that I thought I could sell in the shop and sold the remainder to him for £500. He then offered me £1,500 for the books that he had already listed but hadn’t yet sold, which I accepted gladly.

My back is stiff after thirteen hours of driving and shifting boxes. Tonight I will sleep like Chichikov after his successful day of harvesting the names of the deceased in Plyushkin’s estate in Gogol’s Dead Souls – ‘a deep and sound sleep, into that wonderful sleep which only those fortunate folk enjoy who are unacquainted either with haemorrhoids, or fleas, or overly powerful mental capacities’.