Шон Байтелл: The Diary of a Bookseller

Later that night at about 2 a.m., having drunk a fair bit, she attempted to return to her accommodation, but having no idea where it was (other than a key with the number 3 on it), she wandered around until she found a house with the same number on the door. She tried the key but it didn’t work, so she banged on the door until a bleary-eyed man in a string vest appeared and asked what she wanted. She made some sounds and started waving her arms. He swore at her and slammed the door in her face. Thankfully, she had been the last person to leave the Writers’ Retreat and hadn’t locked the door behind her, so she was able to get back into the house and make some sort of a bed for herself on a sofa. At 7 a.m. the following day when Janette (who cleans the Retreat during the festival) turned up to tidy the room; she spotted the sleeping Louise on the sofa and tiptoed around her, silently clearing up. At 8 a.m. Twigger came down from his room. On seeing Janette, he bellowed ‘Morning Janette’, at which point Janette put her index finger to her mouth and shushed him, pointing to the recumbent Louise. Twigger looked at her and said, ‘Don’t worry, Janette, she’s deaf. Look.’ He then walked over to Louise and shouted ‘Wake up’ right next to her face. There was, of course, no reaction whatsoever, so Janette got the hoover out and began the task of clearing up the carnage from the previous night while Louise slept silently on.

Till total £149

9 customers

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

The printer ran out of ink after printing off two orders, so I replaced it with a non-proprietary cartridge that resulted in the computer freezing with a message from HP that the machine will only work with branded cartridges. I’ve ordered two more, but this means that these orders won’t go out until Wednesday, so will probably result in negative feedback.

The ‘mouldy’ book was returned in today’s post. It is not mouldy at all. I emailed the purchaser to thank her for returning it and told her that ‘mould is in the eye of the beholder’ and asked her what life on Venus was like.

Anna went to The Picture Shop to check up on Jessie and returned with the news that she is now in hospital in Newton Stewart. We will go and visit her on Wednesday.

I carried on trawling through Ewan’s books. It is such a strange mix that I felt compelled to ask him where they came from.

The mouldy book customer replied to my email:

Not too bad, but I did prefer living on the other planet, which unfortunately is gone now.

Here, we never see stars, days stretch for ages. The screensaver over our heads is orange red, disguising, and it does not change much … Something possibly went wrong with her Highness Ithess who is in charge here.

I have to go now; using computers is strictly forbidden outside of the Temple.

The Bookshop Band (Ben and Beth) have taken on the residency of The Open Book as its first proprietors. Anna, Eliot and Finn took the idea on and have set it up, so we had them over for supper, along with our good friend Richard. He and I grew up in Galloway and have been friends since childhood. He is an actor, based in London. The last time I saw him he was in a production of The Tempest directed by Sam Mendes in New York.

Till total £61.50

4 customers

Online orders: 2

Books found: 1

Flo came in to cover the shop so that Anna and I could attend the auction in Dumfries. I bought another commode and a stuffed squirrel. Anna bought a bay lot (essentially the equivalent of a box full of junk) for £3, the minimum bid in the saleroom. Whenever the price drops to this, her hand automatically shoots up in what appears to be an involuntary reflex. Lord knows what rubbish she has bought this time.

It snowed all the way back from the auction; very cold afternoon. On returning to the shop I discovered that four boxes of books had been dropped off by Samye Ling.

Till total £51

4 customers

Online orders: 5

Books found: 4

Before I opened the shop, I dropped off the van at the garage for a service. I had forgotten about it, so it meant we had no vehicle and couldn’t visit Jessie. When I told Vincent that Jessie was in hospital, he assured me that he would service the van as quickly as possible.

The Shearings coach tour turned up at about 11 a.m. Normally a swarm of miserly pensioners shuffles from the bus and invades the shop. They never buy anything, grab everything that’s free and complain about the prices, but today the only one who came in was a young woman who was polite and interesting and even bought some books. I asked her if they had kidnapped her. She looked blankly back at me, then slowly backed towards the door.

In the afternoon a customer spent about an hour wandering around the shop. He finally came to the counter and said, ‘I never buy second-hand books. You don’t know who else has touched them, or where they’ve been.’ Apart from being an irritating thing to say to a second-hand bookseller, who knows whose hands have touched the books in the shop? Doubtless everyone from ministers to murderers. For many that secret history of provenance is a source of excitement which fires their imagination. A friend and I once discussed annotations and marginalia in books. Again, they are a divisive issue. We occasionally have Amazon orders returned because the recipient has discovered notes in a book, scribbled by previous readers, which we had not spotted. To me these things do not detract but are captivating additions – a glimpse into the mind of another person who has read the same book.

Till total £77.80

8 customers

Online orders: 4

Books found: 2

Wild and windy again today, but on a positive note, the gutter didn’t leak into the house.

The first customer of the day asked ‘Who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird ?’ I told her it was Harper Lee, to which she replied, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t J. D. Salinger?’

At 3 p.m. the telephone rang. It was a journalist at The Observer who wanted to discuss the proposed wind farm.

I shut the shop at 3.30 p.m. and drove with Anna to Newton Stewart to visit Jessie in the hospital. She was in excellent spirits and we got back at 4 p.m. so I opened for the last hour. There were no customers.

Till total £30

3 customers

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

It was snowing when I opened the shop. Nicky was twenty minutes late as a consequence. She took one look at the commode that I had bought on Tuesday and said, ‘That thing’ll never sell.’

We picked the orders then walked through our positions for ‘Readers’ Delight’. Peter, his wife, Heather, and their daughter Zoe arrived at 2.30 p.m. and we filmed it. It took three takes before we managed to get a completely perfect version. There will be no edits, at Anna’s insistence. Poor Peter, who was filming for us, had to walk backwards for the entire time.

Matthew (regular book dealer from London) came to the shop while we were filming and looked nonplussed. He spent £300.

The accountant telephoned to tell me that I haven’t signed and returned my tax return for last year, so I frantically scrambled around my chaotic filing system until I found the relevant paperwork, signed it and posted it back to him.

Nicky stayed the night and regaled us with wondrous tales of some of the treasures she has unearthed both metal-detecting and in the Morrisons skip.

Till total £313

3 customers