A Chaotically Quirky Book Shop

I recently read a blog that described second hand book shops as possessing Chaotic Quirkiness. Aahh, I thought, that is a much better way to describe my shop. As in better that what a lot of passersby say, anyhow. It makes sense of why I piled books so high on the shelf in front of my desk that they toppled into the window in a book cavalcade. And stayed there. It looked awful. I always meant to tidy them up. I would drive past the shop going somewhere else and with a guilty glance vow to tidy them up the next morning. But as soon as I walked in the door of the shop all such ambition faded away, or more likely, just fell out of my head. Now I can blame the shop’s Chaotic Quirkiness controlling me.
Eventually my second darling daughter (who manages to avoid being affected by Chaotic Quirkiness) took pity on the cascaded books and climbed in the window and stacked them neatly.

Directly around where I have my computer and cash register the books in the window are stacked head high to give me a little privacy from the people who liked to press their faces against the glass and stare at me from two feet away. Instead the passers by now all say “Oh I want the book at the bottom.” Even my local Member of Parliament told his aide that funny joke. I visibly restrained myself from grabbing the book (Robert Jordan’s Crossroads of Twilight) and running out and yelling “Hey Tony, come back, come back, I have the book you wanted ” A 3mm pane of glass is not a Cone of Silence.

Every so often I pull a few books out of the window to limit the spine fading but the tide mark never seems to lower. Sometimes I even sell books out the window. I go home and proudly announce to the extremely uninterested offspring “Guess what? I sold a book out of the window today!” and one of them will fall off the couch in astonishment.

I finally saw the series Black Books a few weeks ago. “Oh Lord”I thought cringing, all those comments people make when they walk in the door about Black Books, now I can see why. And when I saw the episode where the locked in and desperate Manny is reduced to eat the bees from the front window I winced as I thought about my dead wasps in the front window (they are gone I promise).

Second hand bookshop owners do seem to have a reputation for being ill humored. As to why real second hand book shop owners are eccentric and crochety I blame the customers-and the books.

There are the customers who ask for a 50% discount on a single book. I’m sorry I say pointing to my sign. I can only give a 25% discount if you spend $100 or more on used books. The sign says so.
For everything else I blame the accountant
For not doing a straight swap of my book for your book
For not accepting trade-ins on new books;
For refusing to buy books I don’t want.
For charging more that the RRP of 60c for a book that was published in 1966.
“My accountant said ….” I say in a timid voice.

I just don’t mention that my accountant is me.

My books are also definitely contrary and cantankerous. How else can I explain how they sometimes throw themselves off shelves? I tell customers they are saying “Buy me, buy me I need to be read” Or how they mysteriously move around the shop. How else can I explain Jackie Collins’s The Bitch sitting in the classics section? “It’s a classic in its genre” I explained to one laughing customer.

In case you stumble into the Chaotically Quirky Book Shop in which you might find one slightly savage yet semi sane book shop owner completely cloistered within a cluster of contentious and choleric books, I promise I don’t bite.

Therese Holland
McLeods Books
10 Station St
Nunawading 3131
ph 0398777214
open 7 days

www.mcleodsbooks.com.au

…and now a little Black Books