Thursday 31 October 2013

A bookman's overalls


1.       Thomas started selling books (then they were antiquarian; now they are new) in a plain grey dustwrapper (like the one he’s wearing here) about twenty years ago. He has also sold books in a brown plaid dressing gown (when he had his own business and sold them by catalogue), but not so often.

2.       The unitary filing system. This useful bag contains the paperwork for this year’s Christmas catalogue. The label is both an injunction to read the contents, and an indication that the contents have already been read.

3.       These are bibliographer’s boots but they are good for bookselling, too. Thomas has tried standing at various points along the path a book takes from writer to reader, and finds the best thing about bookselling is that it occurs at (and can even create) the most exciting moment of all: when a book and a reader find each other.

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