The Diary of a Bookseller

TUESDAY, 8 APRIL

Online orders: 4

Books found: 4

At 10.15 a.m. a woman walked in and roared, ‘I am in my element! Books!’, then continued to shout questions at me for an hour while she waddled about the shop like a ‘stately goose’, as Gogol describes Sobakevich’s wife in Dead Souls. Predictably, she didn’t buy anything.

Andrew arrived at 11 a.m. and worked until noon. He managed to finish the Cs in the crime section.

Just as I came downstairs from making a cup of tea, a man came to the counter with a copper bracelet from the table of antiques in the shop and asked, ‘C’est combien?’ Quite why he chose to speak in French I have no idea. He wasn’t even French; he was Scottish.

Eliot arrived at 4 p.m., and promptly removed his shoes. Within five minutes I had tripped on them twice.

Four customers commented on how fat Captain has become.

The shop was bustling all day, but I managed to finish Dead Souls despite this.

Till total £451.41

33 customers