A small girl came to the shop today and told me that her mum has a Paddington Bear with a red coat and did I have Charlotte’s Web? And did I know about the BFG? I did, but I didn’t know as much as she did.
Yvonne came to show me the mother’s day card she has bought for her daughter-in-law. She said that mother’s day and all that… well, her daughter-in-law had a 9 pound baby and so it’s her first mother’s day coming up and she’s run ragged already but that’s how it is, isn’t it for the mothers! She told me that she was no good at birthing herself but that she’s feeling right proud at the moment! And so will buy that book about Judi Dench, Dame Judi Dench, as she is also an inspiring woman.
As she left she said: “I myself can do this: I can play the Appalachian dulcimer and there’s not many that can! And I’m teaching my neighbour how to play it too, he’s 87 and doesn’t know one note from another but he’s getting the hang of it.”
Brian came to find a copy of the biography of Len Beadell and said that we need the rain…that it’s not as if there is any extra water coming down the river.
This afternoon, a customer told me that the forecast for the next few days is unreliable… that the weather will do as it pleases.
I have only sold 3 books today so far: Charlotte’s Web, Far From the Madding Crowd and Catcher in the Rye…impressive choices.
A man came in to browse. He told me how he sent away an enquiry to a military museum but never got a reply….he couldn’t understand why he never got any reply…his father in law had been quite a presence in the army after all. He said: well, then I found out it was a major that I’d addressed my questions to. If it had been a lance corporal I bet I would have got a reply. I sent a donation and a picture of my father in law too, but heard nothing back at all. But I’m still hoping.
Robert is looking for Myths and Legends of the Norsemen. He said that the further back you go, the bigger the stories get. And if we don’t read well, we don’t know what is real and what is sham. Then he left to go and pay the power bill before his supply was cut off.
…. what it is to store up a whole lot of details and then come upon something real….’
Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The Book Keeper Book Shop 