Writhing in shame

I was re-reading some of m’blogs and came across the one where a man tried to tell me that there were only 2 Mitford sisters and one of them was in love with Hitler…I made a very superior note about the “sister called” Ursula”. Well! I blush at my arrogance now, as I’ve just read “Letters between six sisters” (Edited by Charlotte Mosley). It’s a fabulous collection of the correspondence between (ahem) Nancy, Unity , Diana, Pamela,Deborah and Jessica. It’s fantastic read, not just for the letters themselves but,what’s left unwritten. If you get the chance,please read it, or better still, take it on holiday.  So, many apologies for the factual errors in this blog – they are all mine. (Note to self  :Check Your Facts when writing on the Interweb)

Is it me?

Yesterday I found that the co-incidence of men using demeaning language to me was positively epic. I had 3 “luvs”, 1 “sweetheart”,  1 “pet”,2  ”darlings”, and the culmination, during a phone call, when I told a self-published author that I had displayed his books in the window, he cried “Good girl”!. Biting back the impulse to tell him I was a bookseller, not a collie dog.. |I wondered,  do my male equivalents get this sort of  language? I don’t think so. If any of you can contradict me please feel free.

Blogs! Get stuff off your chest in a twinkling, You canny whack it!

Synchronicity in action

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while but it ‘s been a combination of  being really really busy (and then someone says “But, that’s a good thing” and you want to smack them. ) and not having much to talk about.

However I must share this strange phenomenon. You know how , once you hear about something , it keeps cropping up? You know, you get Housemaid’s Knee and all of a sudden everyone’s got it, including a member of the Royal family? Carl Jung defined it as “temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events”  or “Synchronicity” Well, in the last 3 days I’ve had 4 enquiries about, Native Americans, the Old West, indigenous American races etc. Normally I never have any! One day last year, 3 people came in one after another and asked for books in French!  Jung says there probably was a cause for all these seemingly random  people all enquiring after the same thing but I tend to blame it on the Moon. I’m sure other shopkeepers notice the same thing. If advertisers could control it , we’d all be rolling in dosh, but for now I’ll go with my Moon theory.

A biento , till I think of summat else.

New book about Moffat

It’s Gala Day here in Moffat, which means that the town is en fete e.g  the pubs stay open and everyone makes wassail. I don’t mind as long as they don’t up-chuck on the boxes of 50p books I have outside the shop door……

 Meantime, I am publicising “The Moffat bedside book” by Jim Storrar whose dad used to be the local chemist. Jim has been writing his books about Moffat for about 3 years now, and they offer a different slant to the usual history books. Volume 1 of “Moffat Miscellany” called “Early visitors and their impressions of Moffat” is Moffat through the eyes of tourists. Volume 2 ” Crime and punishment, accident and disaster” shows a darker side to Moffat history, although Jim has a delightfully dry sense of humour which leavens the gloom. Volume 3 “A Moffat bedside book” is just out (July 2010) and is a great book for “dipping into”, full of interesting snippets about Moffat characters and places over its years as a tourist town. Only £7.99 from your local bookshop!

The public eh?

The other day (I know not when) a man tried  to tell me that the Mitford sisters (Google them!) were a pair of twins , one of whom was in love with Hitler. That would be the evil one , no doubt. Actually it’s a good quiz question (Literary quizzes, of course) to name all the Mitford sisters.  But does anyone remember, the fifth one, Ursula? She’s the one who stayed home and looked after the Mosley kids when their parents were interned. Probably on the same day, an elderly couple wouldn’t pay £2.25 for a used paperback, which is the average price I charge, and went to great lengths to explain to me that they could get very good quality books from a charity shop for 60 pence. . That helped a lot.

Did I tell you that we now have an allotment? (That’s a patch of communal land for growing your own veg, foreign readers). Because we had too much free time apparently.At the moment it’s the honeymoon period when it’s all new and the plants and seeds are newly sown and planted and there are no weeds. We’ll see how we go as the summer goes on, the novelty wears off .

Book to the future?

Today I read that an e books manufacturer in the USA has seen purchases rise by 253%!  That’s not a straw in the wind, that’s the entire stackyard and the prairies of the mid-West thrown in…..The future purchase of books is going to become more and more digitised. Once newspapers get added, everything will be carried on your super-phone. BUT it will never hold the smell of a book, or the feel of old paper. I wonder if these changes could affect children’s books – not novels, but books for babies, which involve being chewed, scribbled on and taken into the bath? Shurely not possible?  And anyway who was it said “Books do furnish a room”?

Idle thoughts

People bring books to the shop all the time, in the hope that I will A) take them off their hands and B) give them some money for them. It occurred to me today that I can now tell by the shape of the bag holding their books, whether I’m going to buy them or not. Don’t believe me? Yesterday just as I was closing,  a young woman brought in a bulging plastic bag. I looked at it and thought “Hardback fiction” , (which by the way , does NOT sell second-hand). And so it proved. Dan Brown, Dan Brown Stephen King, Dan Brown etc etc.  Today, a woman brought in a hessian bag that looked suspiciously heavy. I thought “encyclopedias” (they don’t sell either) and yes, it was a set of children’s encyclopedias. I don’t like telling people that their beloved books aren’t going to be beloved by anyone else – well not very much, but I would drown under the heaps if  I didn’t….

My opinions were not printed in that newspaper, by the way – but I enjoyed pontificating, none the less. Still don’t know how I’m going to vote…….

Election fever

The constituency I’m in has  (currently), the only Conservative MP in Scotland, so this morning I had a reporter from a Scottish Sunday paper, in getting my views. I  had to tell him the truth which was that yes, I will probably vote, and no I have not a clue who I’ll vote for….. He asked what I thought about the TV Debates and the resulting surge in support for the Lib Dems. I said I felt that they were not helpful to voters making a decision as unlike the US, we are not electing a President, but a political party, and the bottom line is, the Libdems have no track record of government.  I enjoyed pontificating, I must say. At the end of the interview, he asked my age and I refused to give it. On a “bookie” note we went down to Carlisle yesterday to an Auction Viewing specialising in books. I go because I can sometimes fill stock gaps, like “Trains” and “Buses”   . I left a number of reserve bids for the following day, then we drove over to Northumbria, and I had a good rummage round Charity shops. They tend to sell books for buttons and my best find was one which sold 4 paperbacks for £1! (I think it’s safe to assume I don’t…) So we came back with a goodly haul, which I have now to price and shelve.

Nu 2 U

 I’ve just added a charming wee book to the catalogue. It’s a poem about Australia called “My country” by Dorothea Mckellar and illustrated by JJ Hilder. The poem was written in 1908 and although JJ Hilder died in 1916 , a book called “The art of JJ Hilder” came out in 1918. This reproduction was published in 1981, and consists of the poem and 7 watercolours. A sweet little piece of Australiana.

Post-Easter

Our little town is still full of tourists, who luckily for me,  are looking for books to pass away the rainy days (although it’s stopped raining now). I started stocking childrens’ books last year. I try to keep the usual suspects  like J K Rowling, Philip Pullman, Roald Dahl etc along with my personal favourites like Anne Fine (Mrs Doubtfire), Dick King-Smith (The sheep-pig) and a marvellous writer called Morris Gleitzman. If you ever come across a book called “2 weeks with the Queen” do read it. It’s one of the funniest , saddest books ever. 

And of course we’re all awash with Election-fever (NOT).  As I was just reading the other day, the problem in the UK is that we all know our politicians already, unlike the US, where someone can appear quite quickly (ish) and end up President. However, I promise I will vote……..