The Diary of a Bookseller

SATURDAY, 16 AUGUST

Online orders: 5

Books found: 0

On my own in the shop all day, and Monsoon was still down this morning, which means that we can’t even find locator codes for the books that have been ordered overnight. Nicky was at the Edinburgh Book Festival, dispensing Random Book Club flyers and wisdom in equal measure. I received a text message from her at 4 p.m. to say that she had given up and gone to the pub.

By lunchtime I had already had a disagreement with a customer about whether or not ghosts exist, and another who had brought in a carefully bubble-wrapped odd volume of Burns (one from a set of four – the other three were absent) from 1840, believing it to be worth a fortune. She looked quite insulted when I told her that I wouldn’t even take it if she offered it to me for free. Odd volumes are difficult to sell – the chances of finding a buyer who is missing the volume you have, and in a matching binding, are extremely low, so unless it is something exceptional, or an illustrated book with fine woodcuts or copperplate engravings, we – and most book dealers – tend to avoid them.

Helen, the secretary of the Wigtown Agricultural Society, emailed me about the video, which I have yet to start editing.

There was a delivery of two boxes of books this morning. It turned out to be the erotica collection from the widow in Norwich. I had forgotten all about it. I checked their values online and decided to offer her £75 for the lot. It is difficult buying erotica, as very little of it can be sold on Amazon or eBay because they violate the puritanical sensibilities of the prudes in charge of both organisations.

Eliot arrived at 7 p.m. for a board meeting and seemed to be in pretty good form, although his shoes were on the floor in the kitchen within minutes of his arrival.

Till total £407.97

29 customers