What we are all reading

Very hot in the shop at the moment , so hot that Malcolm has refused to actually enter the premises and instead just lies in the back yard under my sweet peas. Sam had a bit of a shout at him, but Malcolm just looked at him , sighed and fell to sleep.

Currently I am reading Graham Joyce Do the Creepy Thing . I'm a big fan of Mr. Joyce but had avoided reading this novel for sometime as it is young adult, a classification I hate. Do we have a middle aged /old adult books ? No we don't . So why not let a book be judged by its own merits rather than as a class. Like all good young adult books Do the Creepy Thing is just a great book, full stop. Apparently To Kill a Mockingbird is now defined as YA . Sometimes this business does my head in .

Sam is reading Tasker Hepplewater's Mock Turtle. Which he says in rather too heavy on the mock not enough about the turtle.

low is reading signs of doom in the smoke which might be a book or just be one of low's statements of fact.

Two and Malcolm are n't reading. Malcolm is too exhausted by heat to remain awake long enough to focus.

Terrible Smell is now in Romantic Fiction. We are worried that it might have become hooked on Barbara Cartland.

Never Again

That's it - no more wine for me.

Sam's longest day party was a great laugh with customers coming from far and wide (Sam welcomed everyone to the evening, hinting that some of them had come from VERY far away . . . I've no idea where he means or why the crowd gave a knowing laugh) and really enjoying themselves.

I had a glass or two of wine and planned to simply sit back and enjoy the evening.  Despite Minion One's earlier post, I did actually notice her looking very nice in a dress but - and this is why I'm steering clear of the liquidised grape from now on - my attention was drawn to another lass who seemed intent on "easing my troubled soul" (her words)

I'm ashamed to say I didn't catch her name before she latched on to my face and, so it seemed, attempted to drag my troubled soul out of her mouth using her tongue.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur as she plied me with wine and wantonness.  I swear I kept seeing Sam grinning every time he glanced over at me.

By the time the party ended, I'd somehow drifted off to sleep and the somewhat fey lass had vanished along with most of her companions.  I woke to find Malcolm staring at me with a mixture of disdain and disappointment with more than a dash of contempt.  Before I could say anything, he turned and wandered off.

Minion One has been very gracious over the last few days, not really asking questions about my mysterious lady friend, but Sam has done next to nothing except grin and chuckle at me which is more than a little disconcerting.

"Perhaps now you can get back to work instead of mooning around like a love-sick teenager?"  he asked me this morning.  I had to agree that perhaps I could.

Whoever she was, she certainly took my mind off the customer from a couple of months ago . . . but I'm still not going to drink any more wine.

Party - the Aftermath.

I still have a headache from the party.
I'm not a girly girl but last Thursday I had something akin to a brain storm and ended up buying an actual dress, red, very feminine , scoop neck with roses on it . My usual work wear is jeans , a pony tail, DMs and a t-shirt covered in dust. So it was a bit of a change. Unaccustomed as I am to going anywhere as a girl, it all took slightly more time to get ready than I thought it would and I was later than I meant to be to the party.


The bonfire was roaring away. Alcohol was flowing and the music was pretty loud. I felt really quite odd facing up to all my friends in a different guise. SH was very complementary and told me if he was only 100 years younger he'd dance me off my feet. Malcolm pretended not to recognize me .
Low said I reminded him of la belle dame sans merci, who ever that is.
Strange Brian , now gallant if rather hairy Brian insisted on presenting me with a rose rather to the annoyance of his lady friend.


Two , well two had his tongue down some blond woman's throat and didn't seem to notice which goes to prove you can't win universal approval .


Still the party was fab Sam had put some pallets down and so we had dancing . Sam proposed his traditional toast to us all and as usual flung his wine on the roots of the old apple tree when he thought we weren't looking . He does it every year , if he doesn't like the wine why pour it ?


I did like the wine which brings me back to the headache.
Two is being very solicitous and has supplied me with bacon sandwiches and tea frequently - he is feeling no ill affects and instead wanders the shop beaming like an errant sunbeam.
It's been a while since I've done any actual book based blog so I'll have a lie down now and get thinking on my next blog.

Must Try Harder

I have been remiss in adding to this blog, Minion One keeps telling me. She's not averse to poking me when she's telling me, either, which simply reinforces the fact that she has very sharp fingernails that can pierce even the thickest T-shirt.  While Sam doesn't know a blog from a wiki, he fully supports One in her endeavours and has asked me twice this week whether I've "scripted anything for the electronic shop diary?" Low, the skeletal Goth who sometimes works in the nether regions of the shop, avoids me claiming my soul is "too dark a mirror" for him to look upon.

Even Malcolm's been staring at me with more disdain than usual.

It's been over a month since my lady friend broke up with me and I think I've just about worn out everyone's sympathy, even One's.  She's been a great friend but even the best of friends get bored of the same old story over and over.

So here's a promise - I shall attend Sam's Midsummer party this Sunday and buck up my ideas, get back on track and, at the very least, be more cheerful than Low.

And who knows?  Maybe I'll meet someone at the party?

Party over here!

Sam doesn’t do holidays, at least not the same ones as everyone else. We regularly open on Christmas day – strangely or sadly we have quite a few customers on the day and Sam serves up Mulled Paint stripper. But Sam does do Mid-summer big style.

Our shop stands on the corner of the square and then there is a gap where a house fell down years ago. Then there is a row of little shops including Bobbitt’s the haberdashery which was last decorated in the 1950s and is just coming back into fashion now. The third side is made up of the high street proper and as such is mainly soulless units of Pound land, Starbucks and shoe shops. Then it is round to us again via some big old Victorian town houses which have seen better years. (I know I live in one of them.)

But inside this square is a patch of land which Sam has annexed into the property of bookshop. It is here that Sam holds the summer party. Sam is as you may have gathered, not a man of great sentient or with a overflow of love towards his fellowman but for one night he is the most benign of hosts, flinging open the gates to the area, performing magic tricks for the children, making people laugh and even playing contagiously catchy tunes on his fiddle.

Lots of people from the local area come, and some really strange strangers show up too.
Although the party is pretty much come as you are there are large numbers of people in costumes. Years ago I spend most of the evening talking to a very charming man who was suited and booted as a well off city gent, except that he had a beard of the most brilliant sky blue. We were getting on really well and he had just invited me back to his pad when Sam wandered over muttered something in his ear and my blue bearded friend turned pale and left in a hurry. Sam then told me to work behind the bar for the rest of the night.

Still I’m looking forward to this year’s party on Sunday if you are in the area it usually kicks off at six and we’d be delighted to see you.

The lurker in the shadows

Low doesn’t do hot weather whilst Two, Malcolm and I collapse into shady corners of the shop and demand ice-cream, Low ignores the sun and just keeps going. He doesn’t sweat or slow down he just keeps moving quietly and slowly round in the shadows.

Low is as previously mentioned the long standing, stand-in for the shop. He worked here before I arrived. Legend has it he worked here in the time of the sainted Ozzy, Sam's much missed partner in crime. (Ozzy is another story, Sam claims he was the wittiest and most intelligent being, excluding himself of course, who ever set foot in the shop. Ozzy is currently apparently traveling.)

But back to Low, Low is a Goth and alarmingly skeletal. Small children seem to find him utterly fascinating whilst he tends to unnerve adult customers who haven’t previously met him.

Sam maintains Lowe is in fact a confused corporeal spirit whose is unaware that he’s actually dead. Sam will say that type of thing, shake his head and add

A great shame! Someone should tell him, and help him cross to the other side! I would myself you know but he works for peanuts and I can’t afford to lose him.

Low is a good bloke. He is quiet but I think he’s just shy. He likes to hum while he works and he’s pretty tuneful. He has also been helping me get the courtyard back into shape so we have a nice shady little garden out there. The man definitely has a touch of genius with roses though.I don’t know what he did with them but the air round here is heavy with the scent of these velvety black red roses and they’re showing no signs of fading.

I find him pretty restful company . Two who is not yet quite his normal cheerful self says he is a poseur who knows nothing of the real pain of life. Much as I love two if he doesn't buck up soon I'm going to have kick his arse.

Hay on Wye

Just a quick one tonight as Minion two and I are off to the Hay on Wye Festival in a few minutes. If you are a second hand book shop fan (and if you aren’t why are you reading this?) you must visit Hay. The town centre is small but contains 30 odd major book shops some of which are specialist and others general. Plus it is beautiful and has a fudge shop. Only don’t try to stay in the town during the festival unless you have had the foresight to book 3 years in advance.

Two and I are just going to watch Dylan Moran, whose character in the TV series Black Books is the very pinnacle of second hand book shop keepers and of course have a look at some books.

We are busy again at the moment and our favourite stand in book seller Low is working with us I’ll write later this week and introduce Low to you properly

Milton he just gets funnier and funnier!

Miss S cornered Sam at the junction between Popular and Unpopular science today. She wanted to talk poetry; she’d spotted Sam at the desk reading Milton which Sam likes to declaim to us if the shop is quiet. He reads it out aloud in a very serious manner, lines like,

Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heav'n

Then he laughs like a hyena until he cries.

We left him there for 20 minutes before we rescued him. He would have done the same for us.

I've Been Busy

Our esteemed employer, Sam, has a variety of methods for letting you know he's displeased with you. There's the obvious shouting and waving of arms - admittedly it's mostly Malcolm who suffers this sort of abuse; there's the low growl in his chest that permeates the shop, echoing off the shelves, which is often heard after a customer asks if we stock any Dan Brown novels; there's the quiet, inventive swearing that follows those rare occasions when a seller persuades Sam to part with more money than he wants to - I once had to look up in a medical dictionary a word that Sam had used to describe someone and actually blushed upon reading the definition.

And then there's the cold, hard glare accompanied by glacial silence.

That's what I've been getting for the last couple of days.

One has been very kind to me - she's been making me tea and listening to me babble on and on about my woes - but Sam, I've discovered, has little sympathy for the broken hearted. As One has previously mentioned, these last few weeks I've been - I admit - head over heels with a lady friend whom I met through the shop. She had come in and asked about a certain author, I had offered my opinion and simply chatted with her. A few days later, to my surprise, we were out on our first date.

She started spending time at the shop, got on with both One and Malcolm (who are both excellent judges of character) and everything was going fine until . . .

Until it wasn't. She broke up with me a few days ago and hasn't been in the shop since. While One has been a good and reassuring friend, Sam has been giving me the cold stare and silent treatment. One actually approached him earlier today and asked why he was annoyed with me.

"Love at his age is a fleeting thing. It arrives quickly and then leaves but will always be replaced by a new one given time," he said, stacking some books. "Customers, however, once lost will never return."

The moral of Sam's story: never date a customer.

this week we have mostly been...

It had been a quiet week here at Sam Haine’s business has been ticking over nicely. Two and I have been working on a spring clean of the children, astrology and occult sections. They meet at a rather unruly junction mid shop, and as Sam supports a Venn diagram effect to book placement one shelf sports a solitary book entitled “Dr Dee’s first book of planets and their placements”.

The high point of the week was spotting Strange Brian talking to a young and attractive woman. No so unusual you would think for a grown man to talk to a grown woman, but rather a breakthrough for Strange Brian whose previous attempts to communicate have often looked dangerously like stalking.

We were rather thrown by an unexpected arrival this morning. Sam had disappeared about business and we weren’t expecting him back until mid afternoon. So we were thrown when this guy, quite young, blond, far too sharply dressed wandered in asking to see him. I assumed he had something to sell and explained that although the owner was away I could look at his stock. To which he smirked and said

“I bet you could, darling “
Ick.
Seeing my unimpressed face, he stopped smirking and said
“Just tell Uncle Sam, Harry is here to see him.”
“Harry Haines?”
Said Two who had by now wandered over.
“No” he said like he was talking to simpletons “Scratch. Harry Scratch “.
When we final convinced him Sam was really out, he scowled, told us to be sure and tell his Uncle Sam that Harry had called and would call back and stomped off.

Sam has a nephew, wow. He always said he had no family and was heartily glad of it.
Mind you if my nephew was a charmless as Harry I’d disclaim him too.