The Diary of a Bookseller

FRIDAY, 31 OCTOBER

Online orders: 2

Books found: 1

Nicky in.

This morning Kate the postie delivered a Halloween anonymous postcard bearing the message that ‘Ray Bradbury was a descendant of one of the Salem witches.’ I asked Nicky to judge the postcards that had come in this week and pick a winner. She took it much more seriously than I had anticipated, going so far as to devise a system based on five criteria:

1. She had to understand the quotation on the back.

2. The picture on the card had to relate to the quotation on the back.

3. The card had to be recycled.

4. It had to make her laugh.

5. The quotation had to have some sort of reference to literature.

Just before closing, Mr Deacon appeared with two women who I would guess were about half his age. This time he was not looking quite so smartly dressed, and his shirt appeared to have acquired an impressive new tapestry of stains. I assume he wears the same shirt for funerals as he does for gardening. He bought a copy of Antonia Fraser’s King Charles II, then introduced his companions, who, it transpired, were his daughters. They had both seen the video of the shooting of the Kindle, as had Mr Deacon, much to my surprise. I didn’t imagine that he owned a single piece of technology, and that was why he bought books through me rather than Amazon or AbeBooks, but it appears that he is pretty au fait with computers – he just prefers to support local shops. Prior to meeting his daughters, I had assumed that Mr Deacon was a bachelor, and this tiny insight into his life somehow seemed like a sweeping canvas of information, compared with what little I knew about him before.

After work Tracy and I went for a drink to mark the end of her contract with the RSPB. Her summer of sitting in the Osprey Room of the County Buildings telling people that there are no ospreys in the nest has finally drawn to an end.

Till total £245.99

8 customers