The Bedside Crow

Well, it's not everyday that somebody calls from Hungary to order a copy of Robert Walser's The Tanners (with the introduction by W. G. Sebald).

And we had it in stock.

A friend in publishing writes:

A friend in publishing writes: Borders RIP - that's our net profit for this yr wiped out then -& thus fck all chance of any xmas bonus...again.

(Almost) late opening the shop.

Because I was listening to Steve Reid on Midweek talking about this.

I love the idea that as a kid he lived next door to Thelonius Monk, who used to go out into the street and direct the traffic.

Oh my aching sides.

So should online retailers pay a modest levy on their substantial profits to reward independent bookshops for drumming up their trade?

Tom Sutcliffe ponders the future of his local independent bookshop - without doing any maths, save for simple subtraction, and don't get me started on the irony of his book example of choice. Survival of the fittest, what?

[Elsewhere in the same paper I read that independent bookshops are suffering from the ending of the Harry Potter gravy train. Yeah, right, lots and lots of gravy.]

Death in Sainsbury's (the second annual bullet to Clarkson's head).

The first annual here.

Freedom, Rhythm and Sound.

A week or so ago somebody from Soul Jazz Records 'phoned to tell me about the book Freedom,Rhythm and Sound - revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83 compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart baker. 

 I said, yes we've got that, it's great. Sold three copies already. 

I sensed that this wasn't the response that they had been getting from some other independent bookshops.

We chatted some more and then a couple of days ago a copy of the accompanying CD arrived in the post.

Which made my day (thanks Steve). And so to celebrate I give you the Art Ensemble of Chicago in their pomp.
  
 
 

New York City 1962 (with thumb).

Establishing shot from Richard Stark's Parker - The Hunter adapted and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke.

Well it certainly looked like him.

Can I ask you, what's the bookshop ettiquette?

A customer asks me, picking up a copy of Legend of a Suicide by David Vann: I've ordered a copy of this from the shop down the road and they've 'phoned to tell me that it's arrived, but I could just buy it from you now. What should I do?

I think you should buy it from me, I say. (And then later, I will round up my kids and we will go down to their shop and point at them through the window and shout, Losers, Losers!! And, How wide do you want the goal! How wide do you want the goal!)

Or perhaps I didn't.

We are sent a pumpkin in the post.

I love my customers, especially when they want to play. One of my favourites has just sent me this with the following message.

I carved a pumpkin with a picture of a crow on a telegraph pole for Halloween and thought you might find it vaguely amusing!

It is, I am sure you will agree, a work of bloody genius.

Happy Halloween.