The Diary of a Bookseller

THURSDAY, 9 OCTOBER

Online orders: 3

Books found: 3

All of today’s orders were from Amazon.

The shop was quiet today. The contrast with last week is extraordinary.

One of the few customers was a woman who spent ten minutes wandering around the shop before coming to the counter and asking, ‘So what is The Book Shop? Do you sell the books or what? Do people just come in and take them?’ Temporarily stupefied, I was unable to answer. Thankfully, she broke the silence and ploughed on, ‘I am not from here, I am a tourist. Do people just hand you the books in? What happens in here? Is that what happens in here?’ I began what with hindsight was a pointless attempt to explain the basic principles of retail, which frankly, she ought to have grasped by the age of roughly fifty, but she meandered out of the shop while I was explaining it to her.

Sandy the tattooed pagan appeared at about 3 p.m. and found two books. Have deducted them from his credit.

Till total £222.45

19 customers