First person through the door is the man here to do some other safety testing on all the plug sockets. Different to the guy that was here the other week doing what sounds like exactly the same thing. I am assured I don’t need to do anything or know anything about anything, but I bet this isn’t true.
This is wonky horse. He belongs to the Bookwormlet, but I’ve brought him to the shop to look after him while she’s at school. I said I would show him around the shop. These are the Russian classics in the pattern Vintage editions, wonky horse.
I’ve just seen an email come in with the headline ‘Children ‘trying to zoom in on pages’ as survey finds third of new pupils unable to use books’. Yikes. I also saw that lovely piece about Sweden’s schools reverting back to physical books, and the people in the comments saying this would actually damage their chances of employment. Er… who is trying to employ a child? Even without my own personal financial interest in a physical book renaissance (ahahaha, what, you mean I might sell a dozen books a day instead of five?!) it seems pretty obvious that schools should prioritise physical books if they’re going to become even less prevalent in the home, but I would say that wouldn’t I? It’s 11.05 am. Customers so far - zero.
“it’s… an empty bookshop”
Rude. I am clearly in it.
Finally someone comes into the bookshop and it’s Mrs CH, here to collect something for Mr CH. “I’ve been causing havoc in the post office” she says, and explains that she’s just been to post the hand puppet that she recently bought from us to her grandchild. As usual, the post office asks for a short description of what’s inside the parcel and Mrs CH had replied ‘beaver’ and apparently the lady behind the glass had not been able to make eye contact afterwards.
Well it’s midday and the only sales I’ve had were two picture books to my sister-in-law for my cutie baby niece, which I obviously discounted, and then the finger puppet that cutie baby niece took a fancy to and I bought for her. Is this any way to run a business? Of course it is. It is the very best way to run a business.
Ooh that sounds like an interesting book [reads out the poster for The Ending Writes Itself].
Yeah, it does sound like an interesting book.
(they continue walking)
A lady comes in with one of our shop vouchers that she won in a raffle. She says she never wins anything so she was really happy to win this, and she wants some help picking a happy read for her holidays. She doesn’t take too much persuading to take a gamble on You Are Here by David Nicholls. Doesn’t add any money to the till but surely happy holidays for her ensue.
A man comes in to ask about the parking situation on the street and I am able to give him the almost unbelievable news that it is free to park on the street here for 90 minutes, but I add the grave warning that the parking inspector is always in the vicinity and the limits should not be tested. He puts his hands up in mock arrest, ‘no no, certainly not’, and I can tell from the way he says it that this is a man who wouldn’t dream of even of looking at the limits.
Delivery man brings a box of the May/June Booktime magazine, which pretty much guarantees that the next few people in the shop will only be here to collect their free magazine. Booktime is only distributed through independent bookshops, so I make a cup of tea and have a browse in the hope that my book might be in it somewhere. Oh thank god it is, because they have a page on Independent Bookshop Week and I am an ambassador.
A very small black dog is sniffing at the door of the bookshop and refuses to walk on. Her owner is asking her nicely to come along, and I hear him tell a passer-by that he ‘can’t drag her’. He comes back to her and tempts her with a little treat, but she just has the treat where is, and still refuses to move. The man looks up at me and says “she’s an avid reader”.
I hear the lovely sound of clip-clop-horse-hooves coming over the crescent. What sort of horse will be the clip-clop be? Will it be a jodhpur-clad woman with perfect posture and sun-tanned shoulders, taking her horse towards the beach for a gallop? Maybe a police horse as broad as a bus, rolling sturdy muscles side to side as they slowly patrol the streets? Neigh - it’s a mullet’d horse to match its owner, pulling the trap of a traveller decked out in sportswear. A while later they come back up the crescent at a cracking pace, probably just popped to the shops to pick up some bits.
Crikey it’s now 1.30pm and takings today are a grand total of £16.93.
Business Mum arrives bearing baskets. Again. Didn’t she do this a few weeks ago? This time they’re actually baskets for the shop, for our animals, who currently reside in cardboard boxes. “That’ll keep you busy this afternoon” BM says, as if moving armfuls of cuddly toys will take any more than a few moments. “And you can stamp up all the Booktime magazines” (we stamp the shop details on the back of each issue), but I accidentally do the whole batch while we’re still chatting.
“Do you have any puzzle books in? I can’t do ‘em - I’m not clever enough.”
A young lady and her grandfather come in. She says she’s here to check if the book she wants is still here, because she’ll be getting her first wages next week and she wants to buy it. It’s the Mina Lima edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and it’s £40. We take it off the shelf and put it on the customer orders for her, and even though we insist we don’t need a deposit, her Grandfather gives us £20 and tells her that now she only has to pay the difference. Aw, grandad’s, eh?
I move the toys into their new baskets, and even though BM prefers to keep them in their individual plastic bags to keep them clean, I go rogue and free them all.
The phone rings and it’s the PRS people asking if I want to follow up on the quote they gave us for the license to play music on the shop. Turns out it’s quite a lot per year to stream music for your business, even for a small premises like ours (like, £540/year). It’s a big chunk of change for a rubbish small business like us, and I’ve had mixed comments here on whether people even like music in the bookshop. But as one commenter said, most importantly it’s whether I like it, and I do. I really do like being in a shop with nice music playing. It does put me in a better mood and I think I am more likely to make a purchase as a result. Not in a mind-controlling sort of way, just in the I am having such a lovely time way. There were comments too, on the type of music that it should be - some people said they only like it if they like the music, which is true of anything, everywhere. You only like it if you like it. But I agree that it shouldn’t be overly invasive music in a shop, mostly instrumental, nothing that BM will be tempted to sing along to (she’s a good singer, I just don’t like people singing in small spaces, makes me feel awkward and then also like you can’t interrupt them? Just me?). But the bookshop has been eerily quiet today, it would have been nice to have some music on, and then perhaps it wouldn’t have seemed so spooky and more people would have come in? I also think people feel like they have to whisper when they’re in here because it’s so quiet, and some gentle piano music might help people relax. I don’t know if I’m asking your opinions on this this time because it really does come down to if I really want it and if BM says we can afford it. It would block out the music that drifts over from the pub though, which would be nice (currently playing The Macarena.
BM texts me to see if I have sold any more books since she was here. Nope.
Thought I was going to get a sale right at the end of the day there. A couple came in to look at the buggy books that were in the window (Where’s Mr Duck? and Where’s Baby Chick?) and then asked if there were any more like this so I got out That’s Not My Train and Dear Zoo and Peter Rabbit and the man said to the lady “shall we just get them all?” and she said “no, now that I’ve seen them… I think I’ll leave it.”
And that was Monday. It was very strange. Hope I don’t have to work another Monday any time soon! Incredibly dull. We took just £44.97 today AND YET it has ended up being green (opposed to red) in BM’s spreadsheet because it outperformed the same day last year, which was Easter Monday, so we were closed! Brilliant. What a triumph! BM said she actually had a really good day on Saturday so it’s just me that’s cursed. Sorry about that. Back in the bookshop to run this business into the ground next week. It’ll feel like a long wait because I’ll be back on Friday’s next week. Paid subs get the posts in the meantime. You can buy a book from me here, but don’t do it out of pity, like. See you soon!
I forced a smile for the photo even though I didn’t feel like it. Oh, I keep meaning to say - a few of you contact me every now and again to tell me the photo is always reversed - thank you, I know, I am too lazy to take the steps to flip it, and something about my face looks ‘other’ to me when it’s flipped, so I don’t bother. I’m sorry that you have to read the book titles backwards, but not sorry enough to change my routine with this. eitaK
Delivery had loads of stuff in it that’s actually for me. In the book industry we call this ‘getting carried away’. You see, there were a few very exciting suggestions in the comments on my discussion post earlier this week about niche jobs in novels, so I had to order some of those, and then I wanted to get some Helen DeWitt, and the other Gwendoline Riley that I haven’t read yet. Oops. And I have my Lena Dunham to buy today too.
I have a nice conversation with a man whose eyesight is failing. A lot of the books he wants to read have print that is too small to read in the evenings, and we have a look through some of the books together to see which have clearer print. He looks at the Russian classics and I have to tell him about the marvellous experience I’ve had listening to the audiobook of Crime and Punishment, narrated by Will Poulter. He’s interested in the idea of an audiobook but hasn’t tried one yet. I show him Libro.FM on my phone, and admit that Crime and Punishment with Will Poulter was an Audible exclusive (I’ve cancelled audible now it’s finished!). I tell him about listening to it on the beach while I walk my dog, and about the clever feature my earbuds have to still let in the rest-of-the-world-sounds so I can hear people saying hello (to my dog). He likes the sound of all of this, so while I haven’t been able to successfully sell him a book today, I have given him something to go off and research, which might mean he can continue to enjoy books even if his eyesight gets worse.
A couple in woolly hats come in and browse the bookshop making appreciative comments and sounds. The lady buys a bookmark and says the shop has expanded since the last time she was here. I assume she’s going to say ten years ago, when we were just a children’s specialist, but she says ‘oh, some time last year’ when the shop was pretty much exactly as it is now.
A little boy in a bike helmet is being carried out of the shop with his new ladybird fairly tale book and he has the sweetest, highest-pitched voice, and he has said ‘bye’ to me about seven times already but every time I say ‘bye’ back, he replies with another ‘bye’ and because it sounds so cute, I keep saying it back again, so we’re still saying ‘bye’ even after the door has been closed behind him. ‘bye!’
I deal with the cardboard and put away the delivery. I read all of this picture book series by Georgie Birkett. It’s SO lovely and sweet and funny.
Then I look at these delicious Seek-and-Find books from Haluka Nohana and I desperately want to take them home but I do think I should leave them here for someone to buy…
“I’m waiting to finish my Kindle, then I might buy a book.”
A lady comes in to collect an order and she asks how my day is going. I admit that it has been quite dull, no customers for hours, etc.
“What do you do?” she says.
“Drink tea. Eat biscuits.” I say.
She is aghast. “Not biscuits!”
I phone a customer to tell them their book has arrived it. I practice saying the title of the book aloud a few times before I dial, and then end calling it the book you ordered anyway.
A lady comes to collect her order and tells her friend “it’s for his Christmas.”
I have a cup of tea (and a biscuit).
A lady telephones to order an Elif Shafak book, and because I don’t instantly know this title, I presume we haven’t got it and take her details for the order. Next time I walk through the shop I notice the exact book she asked for, sitting on the shelf. Sigh. I phone her back and she isn’t coming into town until next week anyway, by which time we would have had the order, so she didn’t even need to know that I am incompetent.
A man comes to order The Letters of Muriel Spark, which looks lovely. No other comment.
Music outside: The time has come to! Galvanize!
Me inside: oh no.
Next customer also wants to order something, and she retrieves a clipping from a magazine. It turns out it’s from the Wetherspoons magazine! Who knew!? Anyway, there’s a piece in there about a chap who wrote a story about a knitting dinosaur while he was enjoying his local Wetherspoons, and now he’s self-published the dinosaur book and Wetherspoons have written a piece about him writing in Wetherspoons! Their article says his book is available ‘from Amazon’, but our customer wants to order it from us, and thankfully she can! I don’t know what has thrilled me more, the fact that this lady, who doesn’t know this writer at all, just ‘wants to support him’ because she thinks it’s nice that he also wrote a book while being in Wetherspoons, or thinking about the people who work at the Wetherspoons magazine, beside themselves with gratitude to finally have something to publish in their magazine other than pieces about pints and jacket potatoes. (I checked the most recent issue of Wetherspoons magazine online before making that joke and there are actually two articles about jacket potatoes this month!)
I’ve had some lovely book post in the form of the new short story collection from Rachel Khong. My Dear You is ‘Playful and tender, dark and witty, each of these stories is infused with a profound sense of compassion. They express a powerful curiosity about the human experience, and the inescapable choices that meet us all: to have or not have children; to pursue connections with others in spite of life’s impermanence; how to live – and live well.’ I know my friend enjoyed these stories, so I can’t wait to get stuck in. Please appreciate this lovely rose bookmark that came with it.
A lady comes to drop some specs off in the box that collects glasses for international aid, and then enquires about ‘a lovely book about churches’ that we had in last time. I don’t know when last time was, but we’ve sold it since, and replaced it with something different. I say I can order another in and she leaves me with the old “I’ll check in next time I’m passing and see if you’ve got it”. The thing is, if you tell me you want it, I can definitely have another. If you don’t, I might not…
A man comes in carrying a huge hamper of Easter chocolate. Oh no, Business Mum has won a raffle.
A little girl comes in with a jangling rucksack. A moment later a quiet mother in a headscarf follows. They go into the back room and it’s only a minute or two before the little girl is at the till with a Wimpy Kid book, her mother preparing her phone to pay. When the transaction is complete I ask if they want a print out of the receipt (no thank you) or a bag and at the same time the mother says another ‘no thank you’ the little girl says ‘yes please’. Her mum is surprised and laughs, but I entirely understand not wanting to put a new book straight into your old bag. The book goes in a bag.
It’s so quiet, I am going to have a little snoop at Famesick until it’s time to close. If I buy this now, I’ll be our best in-store customer today. Even with my staff discount! Lol - atrocious! It’s not a case of people in but not buying, it’s just been a day of barely any people at all! Where are they all!? As is so often the case, a nice order from my Super Remote customer makes the day’s takings slightly less embarrassing overall. Thank you SR.
If you’d like to buy a book from us today you can do that here. If you want to pre-order my book, which is basically this Substack, bound in a beautiful hardback that you can gift to people who don’t want to hear the word Substack as a noun or a verb, you can do that here, or email BM on [email protected] if you want to pre-order a signed copy (this is just UK at the moment, folks!). As I mentioned up top, I’ll be back here in the shop on a different day next week. Sorry about me! Hope you have a wonderful weekend. See you soon.
A few fads ago, there was a mini trend circulating online showing groups of friends giving power point presentations to each other about their jobs. The joke was that most of us barely know what anyone in our lives does all day at work. It’s funny, but also entirely true, and there’s no shame in it, because how many people know what you do all day? We’re completely predictable to all of our colleagues and completely mysterious to everyone else. Remember that film, True Lies, where Arnold Schwarzenegger is secretly a spy and his wife has no idea? That’s the least far-fetched role Arnie has ever played, and in some films he’s literally just a normal dad.
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No delivery due today so I haven’t got any cardboard to complain about, there is milk in the fridge and I have remembered my lunch. I’ve got a spare jacket to put on and I’ve already had a long walk this morning with my dog and audiobook, so really, I am as well and prepared as I can be for a day of bookselling. I’d really love today to be jam-packed with customers saying strange things but also scooping up armfuls of books and then ideally actually buying them too. Is that too much to ask?
"Go on cheeky, get in there”
- a parent accompanying a child into the bookshop
First sale of the day is a paperback to ‘cheeky’ (seemed very polite) and the second sale is a copy of this month’s book club read which is The Grapevine by Kate Kemp.
A little boy comes in to look for Dungeon Runners which, annoyingly, is a series I haven’t heard of despite it being by the brilliant Kieran Larwood and illustrated by the magnificent Joe Todd Stanton - how have I missed it!? Anyway, I help the boy choose something else and then I order all the Dungeon Runners. For reference the boy is 8.
It’s publication day for a book I really love today - The Wreck by will undoubtedly be one of my top books of the year, and it’s the most gorgeous item for your bookshelves in sumptuous hardback. A proper grown-up novel, part graphic novel, part prose and 100% delicious. Hard(back) recommend.
11.22 time to put on the extra jacket. Coffee still so hot in my incredible insulated cup I burned my tongue.
“When you said bookshop, I didn’t know what you meant.”
A young lady buys a Korean novel and I hear her asking her friend if she had “ever tried that show … the one about… hockey.” Ha. Yes. Hm. Very hockey.
Really good display materials have arrived from HQ for The Ending Writes Itself - a cracking murder mystery from ‘Evelyn Clarke’ (actually two people). I really enjoyed this one - lots of publishing gossip and many murders. Of course we adore the promotional tote bags and die-cut bookmarks. Window cling’s are ok and standees are great…
But what we’re truly loving here are these cardboard cubes. Such a good design - an instant pop-up display unit! So eye-catching and recyclable and chic. This is prime POS (point of sale). I just know BM and I are going to be talking about these cubes for years (scintillating company, us). Whenever we receive some badly designed book merchandising stuff, we’ll look to the skies wistfully and say 'do you remember those excellent boiled potatoes cardboard cubes? This is what it’s like being a bookseller.
There’s a long lull with no browsers and then the shop is suddenly filled with men. Two of them are, independently - as in they’re not here together, and they’re actually independent - publishers of local books, one of them is here to check on sales, the other is here to shop (he’s a great customer. One of the very few people who ask us to stock their books who also actually is a regular customer). He’s back to swap a book he bought recently, only to discover he’d already bought it (from us. He really is a great customer). He exchanges it for a Renata Adler re-issue and then enquires about something else just as the window cleaner approaches the till to be paid. While we’re doing The Banter, the electrician also turns up to do some testing of all the sockets. And then another man also wants to buy a book!
Two more sales while the electrician is doing all the testing. No browsers while the lights are momentarily off though, phew. After he’s tested all the sockets and everything is back to normal there’s another big lull of no customers and after a chunk of nothing I realise it’s time for lunch. I decide to eat and this is what is known as ‘tempting fate’.
Success! I am interrupted for a customer collection.
“Nice bookshop, that.”
“Shall we go in?”
“No. We won’t buy anything.”
Cup of tea and a blast on the radiator while I tell you about some bookshops I visited last week. I love to visit other bookshops and I am able to go into full customer mode rather than comparison mode, which would only ever be deeply depressing. I like to just enjoy other bookshops for what they are: better that mine. Sometimes I send little texts to BM when I am in another bookshop saying things like “it’s time to reconsider PRS” or “we should totally get tote bags made” but it’s only because I feel so excited and inspired by how lovely other bookshops are.
Last week I managed to visit three totally gorgeous bookshops - the very handsome Forum Books in Corbridge, which has long been on my to-visit list and is a light-filled space of beauty. I bought Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh and the Bookwormlet had Jamie Smart’s latest Megalomaniacs - both were signed copies! Next I went to Barter Books in Alnwick - one of the largest second hand bookshops in the UK. It has a little model train that chuffs around on a raised track and it sounds like the rain is hammering on the roof but it is actually just the little train chugging away. In the other larger room some excellent bluesy music was playing and it put me in such a good mood I bought two more books. This is when I started thinking we should renew our PRS license so we can play music here in our shop again. I really do think it makes a huge difference, and I miss it now that we don’t have it. I bought Sabrina by Nick Drnaso and At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman. Finally I stopped at Collected Books in Durham, which stocks books solely by female authors. Selection was ridiculously delicious and I ended up with three where I was meant to only have one; I got Television by Lauren Rothery, Discipline by Larissa Pham, and Small Comfort by Ia Genberg and Bookwormlet got Six Queens by Lydia Monks.
If you’re thinking, that’s a lot of books to pay full price for in other bookshops when I could buy them with my staff discount at my own shop, well, you’d be right, but it also entirely misses the point of bookshopping in someone else’s beautiful independent bookshop for me. (Please don’t come for me in the comments - and someone always does - about other people’s budgets. I am not telling you how you should spend your money. I am only telling you about my experience as a bookseller in other bookshops.) I like to spend my own pocket money on books, and I love to support and reward independent bookshops that tempt me with their tremendous stock and lovely vibes and cool music and branded tote bags. I like to pretend I am not a bookseller anymore and just be a person in a bookshop. I hardly ever tell the people behind the till that I am also a bookseller. Though, I did end up mentioning it in Collected Books, because I am trying to be better at ‘promoting’ ‘myself’ as an ‘author’. So I mentioned that my book is out in June, and in that, revealed that I am a fellow bookseller. They were very nice about it and I was almost not embarrassed at all.
Anyway, a good time to mention that you can pre-order my book here, and you can buy almost any book from us here. You can buy audio books from us here. Buying a book from us will help us pay for a PRS license so I can play music in the shop that will lure people into buying more books, and we are saving up to fix our broken flooring.
A lady with white hair comes in to buy The Magic Faraway Tree. “It’s everywhere at the moment!” she says, because of the film, which Bookwormlet did not want to see until she realised Simon Farnaby (Death/George III/William the Conqueror IYKYK) was in it (I think he wrote it too? Green flag!). Anyway, I am wondering if the lady might perhaps want the book of the film, if there’s a direct correlation to the enquiry - perhaps a child has seen the film and wants to read that precise story - but she doesn’t want that. I show her the original books - and sigh - explain the infuriating nature of a series that is named after its SECOND part. And for once, I don’t mean Narnia! The first book in The Magic Faraway Tree series is called The Enchanted Wood, which could have just been called ‘The Magic Trees’ to save us all a bit of bother. Anyway, I explain that it is in fact the second book in the series that is called The Magic Faraway Tree, which some children insist on having first. “Oh, it’s for me,” she said, “I just want to read it for myself, so I’m happy to start with the first book.” Which absolutely delights me 1000%.
A sprawling family enter the bookshop and browse for a while while a grandparent sits and extols the virtues of reading. They leave without purchase.
Two young girls come into the shop drinking giant drinks, which I think is bad bookshop etiquette, but then they buy two books and pay cash including loads of much-needed change for the till, so I’m fine with it.
“It’s just like… only kids books in there.”
- Said while facing a display of new releases for adults.
I’ve got some super mega book post this week - it’s SUPER MEGA TORTOISE by Gareth Hopkins, illustrated by Beatrice Blue and it’s a beauty. Really fun to read aloud - “Super Mega Tortoise is living SUPER MEGA BEST LIFE EVER!” - and super mega cute illustrations. I’ve been really looking forward to this, and am slightly furious with envy at such a good title.
A group of four teenage girls walk down the hill singing at the top of their voices. I can’t work out what the song is, I know I know it. Someone’s getting on the floor (floor) and something about if you want more (more). Urgh, this will bug me for hours. It isn’t a song I like so I shouldn’t even care, but unfortunately I am me and I do.
Another customer collection - lovely Lonely Planet book about Japan with round edges - and another book club collection. I’m also collecting my own pre-order today, because I’ve been looking forward to Things We Found in the Ground by Eleanor Bruce and Lucilla Gray (), and now it’s here! I’m taking it home tonight. (Last week I went to Vindolanda, so I am momentarily interested in metal detecting.)
And that was Thursday! Sun is actually poking out now so my walk home won’t be wet. Didn’t sell that many books, did we? But what matters most are the friends we made along the way is that I found that Gwendoline Riley book I was looking for. See you next week back here in the bookshop (on Friday, normal service resumes). Have a great week!
It’s Friday and it’s 9.53 and the bookshop has already been ope…
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I don’t usually select books for book club that I’ve read before, because I like to discover and judge them at the same time as my readers, plus, I don’t like swaying my members opinions with my own, and if I am selecting a book after I’ve read it, chances are I think it’s pretty good. This month I’ve failed miserably in even attempting to hide my feelings, because this was one of my top books of last year. But there’s really nothing else like it, and when it came down to what I wanted from this month’s book to really oppose what we’ve read recently, it just had to be On the Calculation of Volume (I).
I re-read it ahead of my in-person discussions to refresh my memory about what happens, and happens, and happens, and also to check that I didn’t take anything from parts II and III into a discussion that is limited to part I…
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It’s dawned on me that it’s been a while since I mentioned that I write books for children. Yes, my next published book (my fourth!) will be Receipts from the Bookshop, for an adult readership, but hot on its heels will be my fifth…
It’s called Indie in Disguise; Stylist-ing and Other Jobs and it’s out on the 2nd of July with Walker Books. You can pre-order it here. There will be two Indie in Disguise books, with the second book following in 2027. (Please let it be a huge success and the publisher decide they want loads more Indie books and then please can CBeebies commission it for an animated series and invite me to join the writers room and then I can die happy that I’ve been part of a writers room, amen.) The books are illustrated by the incredible Emma Farrarons who has done the most gorgeous job with this character and her family. I am so excited about these books, I hope I am allowed to say that I think they’re really good. I absolutely adore writing these little stories about this brilliant little girl, so I thought I’d tell you a bit about some of my inspiration today.
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]]>Today’s discussion is about audiobooks, which you can now buy via Libro.fm which offers a bookshop-ethical alternative to Audible. You can support my bookshop by buying your audiobooks here.
I do not listen to a lot of audiobooks. And yet, often, the audiobook that I am listening to is my favourite that I am reading, and they generally go on to be an MVP in the annual grand scheme of things I most enjoyed about that year. Which is weird, isn’t it? What’s going on here. Am I somehow stumbling across only the best audiobooks in existence? Am I actually confusing my enjoyment of the book with my enjoyment at just being outside with my dog? Am I somehow getting a deeper understanding of the book because it’s being read to me? Is it because I spend so much longer listening to a book than I would reading it on a page? Do I just like sexy voices? This is something I can’t quite put my finger on, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, innocent and experienced, on the topic on audiobooks in the comments, plus your recommendations. Here are some of mine.
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A few years ago my book club read Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney, the Costa-winning novel set in our very own red rose county of Lancashire. Andrew MH came to speak to the book club, and one of the things he said was that it was his intention to put Lancashire on the literary map, and that he intended to continue writing about Lancashire. If you’ve read his books you’ll know that the parts of Lancashire that seem to particularly enchant AMH are the spookiest bits - the dark bits, the gothic bits and the downright creepy bits. He’s specifically interested in the place where folk stories become nightmarish, and he’s the first name I think of in the ‘folk-horror’ genre. But, perhaps, Liam Higginson will be the next, because The Hill on the Dark Grove is the clearest example of this genre I’ve come across since. In fact, maybe it’s even more rooted in folklore, maybe it’s even more horrible? I’m going to use the paywall barrier here to also warn you of spoilers, because I absolutely must talk about that ending.
]]>By the way, the Book Club selection for February is this - thread opens at the end of the month. If you enjoy reading my work please consider a paid subscription to access everything. Now let’s get to it…
Ok, an admission. I buy a - I’m going to say a lot, but it isn’t really a lot, it’s just a lot considering what I do with them - I buy a lot of craft books on writing that I do not read. Something about the act of buying them makes me feel like I am doing some of the work, even though I actually don’t believe the answer to any of my writing problems can be found inside a book. The answer to my writing problems, like almost all of my problems, is that I don’t just sit down and do the damn thing.
I’m speaking specifically about writing fiction here for adults, because that’s the area that I have the least confidence in, and the one I buy the most craft books about. I wonder what it is that I hope the book will tell me? Sometimes I do read some of them, and they seem to want to tell me about style, which isn’t something I want to be taught at all. But I am reading a craft book at the moment that I like a lot;
]]>You’ve been VERY patient but I can finally tell you that Receipts from the Bookshop (the book) will be published in the US and Canada! In September! This September!
In fact, I can give you an exact date - Tuesday 8th September 2026. You can put that in your diaries now - it doesn’t even sound that far away, does it?
I’m so e…
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