13.05.16 www.thebookseller.com


BRICKS & MORTAR NEWS & COMMENT


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terms of convenience and savings, they had lost in terms of discoverability.” The bookshop has enabled Tobin to take a “step back” from her career as a writer and “immerse myself in other people’s writing.” She added: “On top of that it has given me a bird’s-eye view of the industry and the issues that drive decision-making for publishers, which is no bad thing for any author.” Literary agent Susie


Nicklin, who recently took over Dulwich Books in south London, has noticed “more synergies between the two jobs than [she] had imagined”. She said: “Primarily, as an agent, being in the shop on a regular basis has been transformational in terms of knowing about upcoming books; meeting editors, publicists and reps; and, on a more regular basis, seeing how customers respond to books and seeing which books sell. In terms of selling translation rights, it’s great meeting foreign publishers and booksellers and learning from them how the books we stock have performed in other languages.” She added: “I feel


better acquainted with the lists of the smaller UK publishers and the dense


‘‘ COMMENT: BURIED TREASURE


It has given me a bird’s-eye view of the industry and the issues that drive decision- making for publishers


BETSY TOBIN AUTHOR/ BOOKSELLER INK@84


UK book ecology and attenuated supply chain.” Publisher and wholesaler


Hyde Park Editions opened The Chiswick Bookshop last November, selling frontlist bestsellers, art books, children’s titles and gifts, and operates its business from an office at the back of the store. Emily Crane, sales and marketing manager, runs the bookshop. She said: “[Opening the bookshop] has helped with the publishing side as I can see what customers like, what sells and why. It’s really galvanising to see a book that we have published actually go home with someone who really loves it.” The shop has helped Crane learn more about readers and writers: “Every day I am introduced to something new or a new perspective. I am learning an awful lot [about readers]—it is very useful.”


T


his morning a customer called to get our copy, urgently, of Isaac Newton’s Principia. The reason


for the haste (the book was going in a coffin) suggests a whole new section at the end of “Desert Island Discs”. The book you are buried with is so much more personal than the book you want as an island companion. Rossetti entombed a notebook of unpublished poems in Lizzie Siddal’s grave. Tudor alchemist John Dee loved his magic books so much that he buried them to prevent their misuse. Every day I see versions of this healthy


book fetishism, this multisensory affair we humans have for this funny old technology. People give books a post-purchase hug, and not infrequently a kiss. They guiltily smell books; one customer did not even get two feet into the shop before she stopped, spread her arms and exhaled: “There it is! That book-smell!” Others surreptitiously caress books. Books can channel anger, too: my ex-wife defenestrated my tomes, a cathartic psychodrama which would have been much abbreviated if she only had a device to throw. This physical love of books is increasingly


visible, as the novelty of digital wears off and its limitations become evident. A recent customer lost all his books because one e-reader brand had gone bust and, as we all begin to realise that the “cloud”, far from being safely ethereal, is a warehouse behind Land of Leather in Didcot, the book in the hand seems worth more than several in the digital bush. Sales of hardback classics are booming, new hardbacks are sexier and less imitative and my shop has a growing byline in


second-hand books. I sell obscure


antiquarian Trollopes and


Dornford Yates’ to misty-eyed old men at prices which make a small-print Penguin classic on cheap paper, with a burbling academic introduction, look expensive. To Patrick Leigh Fermor, his worn travel


y eyed oldmenat


diary had “mana”, a Polynesian concept somewhere between atmosphere and mystique. For Alexander the Great it was the falling-apart Iliad he carried everywhere. For Thesiger it was the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, with covers made from the wooden propeller of a downed Turkish aircraft. We all possess certain books which exude memories and in part the medium is the message: the plant-based earthiness of books pleasantly absorbs history, giving it out again in all sorts of subtle ways. Publishers have yet to meet the demand


for tempting books. I suggest they catch up with the public’s vaulting ambition in this area. Only this week a customer suggested all the Patrick O’Brians in a wooden box. Customers want hardback Graham Greenes, more giftable poetry, tactile versions of classic nature writing, cookery, gardening and, generally speaking, a bit less effort expended on making a cut-and- paste job look like a classic when there are so many backlist classics awaiting re-packaging. Barcelona bookseller Don Vincente murdered a man to get a rare book. Let’s have more books to die for.


Martin Latham is the manager of Waterstones Canterbury


3


AME DYCKMAN, ZACHARIAH OHORA (ILLUS) WOLFIE THE BUNNY


Andersen, 2nd, £6.99, 9781783443871 A very entertaining picture book introducing Dot, a bunny who is seriously alarmed—as her family have just adopted a wolfie! The tension (and humour) increases as her misgivings are ignored by her family. This book perfectly captures a sibling’s agitation at a new arrival.


4


C J FLOOD NIGHT WANDERERS Simon & Schuster, 2nd June, £7.99, 9780857078056 Rosie’s friendship with Ti is complicated by Ti’s overpowering twin sister.


Trouble with a teacher at school tests their relationship in this well-constructed and emotionally charged tale of family crises and betrayal.


OUT NOW


HOT BOOK


KES GRAY, JIM FIELD (ILLUS) QUICK QUACK QUENTIN Hodder, £11.99, 9781444919561


Our current top-seller in picture books is this delightfully ridiculous tale of a Duck who has lost its “A”, and so is only able to say “Quck”. Jim Field’s perfectly matched illustrations show Quentin’s forlorn quest to persuade somebody to lend him the letter he needs so that he can Qu-A-ck!


Martin Latham


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