WITHNAIL BOOKS IS TEN YEARS OLD!

Ten years ago I opened a second hand bookshop by mistake in Penrith, which obviously had to be called Withnail Books. During that decade I’ve sold (certainly) thousands of books to (probably) thousands of people. Some of them said some pretty memorable things: sometimes to me, sometimes to others, or indeed to themselves, as I sat quietly earwigging.

I just type it down folks… and it's become a book...

"These books and that? Are they just for decoration?" Actual Customer Quotes from a Secondhand Bookshop only exists as a couple of hard copies I made for my own entertainment, BUT, anyone who wants one can have a PDF/ebook version FOR FREE! Just email me at withnailbooks@btinternet.com and I'll send you one.

Here's a small sample...

“I went out with a girl who smelled of coconut once. Put me off coconut for life.”

“I can quite accurately date books by their smell. There’s a certain era of American books which are really smelly.”

(He’s quite right.)

“It’s very hard to find knitted vegetables.”

“Oh, he was borderline genius. He could read barcodes without the numbers.”

To her companion, who remained silent: “I love old books. I love to look at old books. I like the look of them. I’ll not be buying one mind. You’re not impressed by books, are you? I like the look of them though. Looking at them.”

“My mate is the world’s leading authority on parasitic wasps.”

Over his shoulder on leaving, after our long conversation about book collecting:

“You and me, we’re both patients in the same clinic...”

As the tenth incarnation of someone I admire once said, “I love a little shop.” In these days of internet-shopping-from-your-sofa-while-tweeting-and-watching-TV, it’s a refreshing change, I think, to occasionally go outside and have a poke about in an actual shop. Perhaps not even looking for anything in particular, but just giving yourself the chance to spot something you might fancy. Something you never knew you wanted.

Withnail Books aims to be this kind of “little shop,” and I’m always very pleased when customers give me unbidden comments along the lines of “what a great shop,” or, “you have an interesting selection of books.”

I’d like to thank all the people who have helped Withnail Books over the last ten years: customers of course, but also friends, family (including my Brunswick Yard family) and supporters on t’internet; too many to list individually, but you know who you are. Thank you all.

Special thanks though to my wonderful wife Sharon Gosling, who has been there from the very beginning, when “Withnail Books” was just words stamped on a leather key fob she’d bought to inspire me, and which is still in my pocket as I type this…

How To Open A Secondhand Bookshop By Mistake: ONE YEAR ON

So, the Little Shop 'officially' opened a year ago tomorrow. Last July I blogged about how it all came to be. One year on, Withnail Books is ticking away quite nicely, 'washing its face' as they say. It's true that selling secondhand books is a lifestyle choice rather than an empire-building exercise, but when that lifestyle means you live in the Lake District and surround yourself with old books all day, then it's a choice I'm very happy to have made. The shop already has its regulars, and now the summer season has started in earnest, I've started noticing holidaymakers coming back in again after finding us last year. A lot of this has to do with Other Adam's hard work developing The Brunswick Yard, where the Little Shop is, into the kind of place which causes visitors to tell him, quite unbidden, on a daily basis, how amazing it is.

I'm still a baby bookdealer of course, learning the trade. I must say that any and all of the other dealers I've met, either when they have dropped by the shop, or at the book fairs I've pitched out at, have been unfailingly friendly and happy to chat about the business. That makes sense though, as selling books is as much about who you know as what you know: you might not have a customer for a certain book, but with any luck you'll know a dealer who does...

Withnail Books has a few little specialist areas (a certain film of course, graphic novels, a bit of T. E. Lawrence and some Lakeland books) but it's mainly about being able to wander in and find something 'interesting', usually for under a tenner. That's the answer I always give to the question "What sort of books do you buy?" "Interesting ones." It's not a particularly useful answer, but it's the most honest one I can give.

One skill that I have honed quite a bit in the last year (and it's just as well) is being able to tell whether a book is one that will likely:

i) sell very quickly
ii) have to wait a while for the right person to come along, but will go eventually
iii) haunt the shelves forever and day.

There are some books that I just know when I put them out will not last the week, and they never do. Which books? Well, interesting ones...

Anyway, a hearty thank you to everyone who has visited the shop, or simply followed it via this blog, or on Facebook or Twitter. Chin chin!

Finally, I will leave you with the inaugural winner of the (drum roll...)

Withnail Books Bonkers But 100% True Customer Quote of the Year Award:

"I need a book with photographs of meat!"

(He went away happy.)

A first birthday present from friend of the shop Martyn Watson: T. E. Meerkat of Arabia.
So very, very wrong, it's right.
(As another friend pointed out, at least an Arabian meerkat is more believable than a Russian one!)

A Little Shop, or How to Open a Secondhand Bookshop By Mistake

As the tenth incarnation of someone I admire once said, "I love a little shop." In these days of internet-shopping-from-your-sofa-while-tweeting-and-watching-TV, it's a refreshing change, I think, to occasionally go outside and have a poke about in an actual shop. Perhaps not even looking for anything in particular, but just giving yourself the chance to spot something you might fancy. Something you never knew you wanted.

Over the years, I have been very good at doing this, particularly with books, both new and old. Did I leave the house planning to buy a book from 1931 called Psychic Adventures in New York? I did not. (But could you put a book with that title back on the shelf?) Did I really need that new edition of a book I already had in half a dozen other editions? Nope. But, look... it's got a pretty cover, with matt laminate and debossing and stuff.

I love bookshops, and I really, really love secondhand bookshops (and indeed second hand and second-hand bookshops). At some point a few years ago, I'm not exactly sure when, I started buying the odd book not so much because I personally wanted it, but because it was a 'good buy'. The kind of thing I could, ha-ha, salt away for when I had my own secondhand bookshop. This was just a vague intention, a pipe dream, at first, and was basically an excuse to buy more books: 'They'll be stock one day...'

Shelves in my house began to fill up, many of them two deep with books. Then I married a wonderful lady, who also had lots and lots of books (some of which she had written herself). Before I knew it, the books needed A Very Expensive Cupboard which wasn't even in our house.

My intentions started to get less and less vague. The 'they'll be stock' joke became less of an excuse, and more like an active plan, especially when a friend offered the possibility of a space with the two holy grails of a little shop: reasonable overheads and a location with the chance of decent year-round footfall.

To cut a long story short, I find myself in Penrith, preparing for the official opening of an actual little shop. Given that we're in the glorious Lake District, where Withnail and I went on holiday by mistake, and I have opened a bookshop sort of by mistake, it had to be called Withnail Books. It's located in The Brunswick Yard, an antiques and architectural salvage centre where you can find everything from a set of copper pans to a pair of 18 foot high chapel doors (though actually the latter sold yesterday), as well as an amazing selection of Persian and Afghan carpets. It's the kind of place you can lose yourself in for a while. As one customer said to me today, "I only meant to pop in for 5 minutes as I was passing, and that was an hour ago."

Though I have been open, in stealth mode, for a week or so, the preparations are continuing for the 'official' opening on the 21st July. The first order of business was preparing the room. A couple of years ago, when I first saw the place, it was full of lovely old furniture for sale, and looked like this:

Once it was cleared out, we auditioned carpets. This one won:

Then insulation and stud walls went in, and shelves, utilising an old orchard ladder, went up (thanks to joiner extraordinaire Paul, who is *the* man to contact if you ever want a Geodesic Dome by the way: his website is here).

Then lots more shelves and bookcases (a certain author of my acquaintance may recognise some of them), a kick-arse ex MOD desk... and then a lorryload of books arrived.

Eventually we ended up with a bookshop... It sells books ranging from a couple of quid to over a hundred, and might just have that title you never knew you were looking for (Psychic Adventures in New York is still available). It also has a lovely smell of books, and you don't get that with a Kindle.

So, next time you're spending a delightful weekend in the country near Penrith ("Penrith!"), do pop in and say hello. Both me and the chap who runs Brunswick Yard are called Adam, so there's only one name to remember...

If you're not in the area, feel free to check back here now and again if you're interested to read about life in a secondhand bookshop, and to find out about the books I'll be selling online. (As of today, I've just put up the first batch, plus a nice old Star Wars jigsaw for good measure.) I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, @WithnailBooks.