Full swing
Summer holidays are upon us and Hay is a popular destination
A customer who, on asking me for a really specific book by an author I hadn’t heard of, misheard me when I said ‘our stock is both new and in most cases newly-published’ thought it was me that was ‘new’. On leaving, without the book in question (which was about 20 years old) he cheerfully said, ‘you look like you know what you’re doing so keep it up!’ I will try and hang onto this advice as the summer trading wears me down. As well as enunciating my words better!
Talking of which, it has struck me lately that people lower their voices so low when requesting a title that I can hardly make out the name, even via lip-reading. It’s a curious thing and feels like the hurdle before the actual challenge of discovering whether we have the book or can get hold of it.
It’s great that Hay is perennially-popular for day-trips and long weekends as well as pit-stops en-route ‘to Wales’. Of course, even in the twenty years I’ve been around Hay, it has got much busier for more of the year and this is a good thing (especially if you run a micro-business).
A lovely couple came into the shop as part of a research mission in advance of opening their own bookshop - a goodly amount of miles away, so I don’t need to worry about cross-pollination of ideas. They liked lots of things about North Books and took away some solid reading material (including #Receipts from the Bookshop by Katie Clapham, which if you haven’t read you’ll enjoy). Their enthusiasm was palpable and it reminded me how I felt in the summer before opening (in the deadest month of November). I really hope they make it to D-day without losing that verve. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked 20 questions by a bookshop-owner in the making but rarely so genuinely nicely. I think they’ll do well.
A recent treat was taking one of the shop’s valuable volunteers for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Rosemary has given up three years’ of a morning or afternoon a week, give or take her annual holidays. She is retired but nevertheless is super busy with various commitments (much like Jo Bobbin who hopped off to flatter climes last month) and yet she has turned up rain, shine and snow to open the bookshop (or close it) with no financial return. She was a librarian so her transferable skills are manifold and she is also a lively participant in two of the bookshop book-groups. Her preparation and note-taking is magnificent to enjoy. Yes, it felt like a luxurious treat to take a long lunch mid-week and have more than a single course but sometimes it is important to show people how much you value them.
In bookshop excitement there has been several announcements of book prizes and celebrations. Not everyone gets as enthused by the Booker prize long-list as one of my customers, who on the day after the news was released ordered three of the titles (in HB), as he is in a Booker bookgroup where, you guessed it, they commit to reading the entire list between them. My customer base tends to lean into things a bit more rural and the Wainwright prize longlist is generally popular, before it’s even been announced. If you haven’t found out about it yet then do look out for this year’s shortlist announcement this week on Wednesday. It celebrates books about the environment and the natural world (for adults and children).
August is also Women in Translation month and we have a window dedicated to this genre as well as our ongoing display in the bookshop for works in translation generally. Of course, the current book in translation that cannot be kept in stock is Emily Wilson’s translation of The Illiad and The Odyssey on which the current block-buster film has been based. Check out this natty list by one of our part-time staff, Freya, on bookshop.org.
I would also like to share that as well as selling books direct from our website, in case you missed that, we are also hosting an Italian-themed supper in the bookshop in early September and places are extremely limited so check out the event information here: https://north-books.squarespace.com/events/thekingsmother-fg7nd-xwtbe-35rsn
