Читать книгу Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell - Страница 52

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Nicky worked in the shop this morning. At 10 a.m. Kate the postie delivered a parcel for her. Kate has a barcode scanner for anything sent recorded delivery, and it is a constant source of unhappiness for her. Either it doesn’t work or it scans the wrong thing or something else goes wrong with it. Today was no exception. Nicky’s parcel contained about ten plastic dolls, which she confessed to having bought from eBay after a few beers. Apparently they’re called Bratz, and she disapproves of how over-sexualised they look, so she’s intending to redo their make-up and turn them into ‘nature girls.’

The Irish railway enthusiast emailed back to say that he wasn’t interested in the book at that price as it was ‘far too expensive.’

I left Nicky in charge of the shop at noon and drove to Edinburgh to look at the large book collection in a house in the west of the city. The collection had belonged to an academic, and the estate was left to his widow and son, John, both of whom were there when I arrived. It was nearly all classical Greek and Latin material, very hard to sell, and on my estimate, nearer 6,000 than the 30,000 titles John thought they numbered. Among it was some good antiquarian and railway material. I picked out enough for a van load of non-classical shop stock and offered them £600 for that. The widow said that she’d like to get a second opinion before deciding, so I returned empty-handed. Seven hours’ driving for nothing.

Thankfully I arrived home in time for supper with the Readers’ Retreat group in Beltie Books. Another late night, this time 2 a.m.

Till Total £147

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