Selling while British
Keeping an eye on the customers without, you know, keeping an eye on the customers
Our picks this week
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Sex on the beach: Fire Island: Love, Loss and Liberation in an American Paradise by Jack Parlett. After a break-up, Jack Parlett found himself on Fire Island, a long, thin strip of land south of New York’s Long Island, anticipating “hot nights and midsummer dreams”. Melding personal history and rigorous research, this is an evocative account of how Fire Island became a haven for same-sex love. Exuding joie de vivre, it's a summer must-read. - Dani
Ear to the ground: Look Here: On the Pleasures of Observing the City by Ana Kinsella. Someone wrote an entire book of people-watching! I am green with envy! I love it, of course. Kinsella has perfected the art of hanging out, observing the very many different tribes who call London home and capturing the thousands of tiny human moments that make up this city I love. - Tom
I don’t feel like dancin’: The Arena of The Unwell by Liam Konemann. This debut coming-of-age novel is all about fitting in: how much we want to, how much work we put into it and the terrible toll it takes on us. It also reminds us of the lessons we learn in our 20s, most notably that fitting in with the cool crowd isn't all it's cracked up to be. - Lucie
One of the responses to my survey a few weeks back introduced me to Driff’s, a defiantly idiosyncratic guide to second-hand and antiquarian bookshops that was published in the late 80s and early 90s. The abbreviations for the various booksellers are genius. There are WYLAHs (who Watch You Like A Hawk), GOBs (Grand Old Bores) and ETGOWs (Easy To Get On With). Too many booksellers, though, are FARTS (Follows Around Recommending The Stock).
I tried to keep farts to a minimum yesterday as Backstory took to the streets for the first time, with a market stall on Hildreth Street in Balham. (A warm welcome to the new readers who signed up yesterday, by the way. I promise I don’t usually do toilet humour.)
The guide does, however, point to a serious conundrum for any would-be bookseller. For though there are few things more British than running a shop, there are few things less so than making eye contact with strangers.
Some punters seemed desperate for a chat: just as they would ask the butcher for the best joint of meat, they want to consult the bookseller for a bloody good read. Others seemed keener to be left in peaceful communion with the books. (Perhaps I should nick a few “do not disturb” signs from a hotel…)
For most, I think, it is probably a question of timing. Pounce too soon and I would risk seeming deranged and - worse still - keen. Dally too long and I’d forgo the chance to establish a connection, exchange bookish chat and, you know, sell a book.
My solution yesterday was very simple: biros. A little bit of active rearranging - shuffling the books into neat piles, putting lids back on the pens - while the browsers seemed to be merrily browsing. But ready to talk should anyone seem to be lingering or looking longingly or quizzically at a particular cover.
For the most part, this seemed to work. Although it must be said that conversations, like investments, can go down as well as up. I have never seen someone put a book down as quickly as when I described one a customer was considering yesterday as “whimsical”.
Mostly, though, it was enormous fun. It was so lovely to meet several of you in the flesh and to see people’s genuine enthusiasm for a new bookshop. Some even made pilgrimages from north of the river (shoutout to my friend Jack, who somehow made it from Hackney).
I even sold some books. So I’ll be back every Saturday for the next couple of months - 10am-4pm on Hildreth Street, so long as rain is not forecast. I’ll tweet each Saturday morning first thing to confirm. Hope to see you there.
Tom
In the papers
A digest of the books pages; all books available to buy from You-Know-Who. Let me know if it’s helpful
Nonfiction by Julie Myerson. Despite the title, this is a novel, and one The Observer reckons is “deeper than any of its predecessors”: “As Myerson’s narrator confides, the awful thing about writers is that nothing stops them chronicling even the most devastating experiences… With this new novel, the author goes further than most and the results are nothing less than incandescent."
Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK by Simon Kuper. The FT says it is “certainly alluring, both intellectually and culturally, though perhaps there is space for more light-and-shade detail than this polemical short book allows”. For The Sunday Times, it is “a fine book written at just the right time, and penned by a journalist with a vivid turn of phrase”.
Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe. The TLS calls it “a bleakly comic, wildly original 600-page epic about loss, exile and mental illness, written almost entirely in lightly punctuated free verse”: “In its haunting strangeness and blazing originality, it deserves far more than a cult following." The Guardian agrees: “Though it won’t appeal to all fans of his earliest work, McCabe may be right when he claims that Poguemahone is his best book.”
The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil by Tina Brown. The Guardian says Brown applies “all of her famous wit and intelligence” to identify various maladies in the royal family: “Sadism, parsimony, profligacy, infantilism, randiness, ruthlessness, rudeness, coldness, extreme entitlement and, last, but not least, incredible stupidity”. The Independent argues that “it isn’t always obvious which details in Brown’s work are already in the public domain, or what is closer to well-founded rumour than documented fact, but such is her skill at weaving together the vast amount of secondary material and details gleaned from speaking to more than 120 sources that, for the purposes of entertainment, it scarcely matters”.