The Diary of a Bookseller

THURSDAY, 26 JUNE

Online orders: 3

Books found: 2

Online order for a book called Experiences of a Railway Guard: Thrilling Stories of the Rail.

Sandy the tattooed pagan came to the shop just after lunch and dropped off a dozen sticks. We have sold quite a few since his last visit. They sell particularly well at this time of year. He spent £33 of his credit on books about Celtic mythology.

In the early afternoon a young woman brought in three boxes of books to sell. Most of them were antiquarian calf-bound sets of the usual suspects: Gibbon, Scott, Macaulay, that sort of thing. Not particularly valuable or sought after, but they look nice on a shelf, and occasionally someone will buy them for this reason. They make good wedding presents. She had inherited them from her grandparents and wasn’t interested in keeping them, so I gave her £200 for them. As I was pricing them up, I noticed that volume I of the set of Scott’s Poetical Works (from around 1830) had eight different names written (in different hands) on one of the publisher’s blank pages, each one a life about which I know no more than the name. I wonder whose name will be added to the list next.

Till total £184

15 customers