The Diary of a Bookseller

THURSDAY, 24 JULY

Online orders: 5

Books found: 3

Laurie opened the shop on what was the hottest day of the year so far: the garden thermometer read 29 degrees.

As we were putting books on the shelves, a couple came into the shop. The wife mauled her way through the antiquarian shelves, coughing and moaning, while he looked at books in the Scottish room. The moment he joined her, she complained loudly about having a headache, catarrh and sore knees. When she finally stopped talking, he offered her some sort of homeopathic crystal to cure her headache. Despite being remarkably annoying, they spent £250 on an eighteenth-century Scottish botanical book.

Laurie organised the collection of four boxes for sale through FBA. They will be delivered to the Amazon warehouse in Dunfermline, and sold and shipped directly through Amazon.

Possibly triggered by our brief encounter in the doorway of the barber’s yesterday, Mr Deacon dropped in and ordered a copy of Alison Weir’s Eleanor of Aquitaine. He looked suspicious when Laurie took his order, slightly as I suspect the character of Mr Pumpherston did in The Intimate Thoughts of John Baxter, Bookseller, in which Alec, the young apprentice, serves him instead of Baxter himself: ‘I think he would admit he has his doubts about that young shaver’, although, unlike Alec, Laurie is perfectly competent to deal with any customer.

Laurie and I spent the rest of the day packing and labelling books for the Random Book Club. Two subscribers failed to renew for another year. After we had finished with the Random Book Club I asked Laurie to sweep up the shop window. It was like a furnace in the summer sun.

Till total £449.99

16 customers