A Common Reader . . .

Much Ado Books make it to Country Living

My local bookshop, Much Ado Books in Alfriston are featured over four pages in the February edition of Country Living.  The owners of Much Ado, Cate and Nash, have included an interesting set of photographs of the shoot on their website.

I've written about the shop here, and here.  What's particularly good about the shop (apart from the friendly and helpful staff who actually know a huge amount about books - take note Waterstones), is the mixture of carefully selected new books and an artfully arranged second-hand section.  The pre-owned books section actually looks like its someone's carefully selected library, the books dusted and clean, and arranged in useful themes.  A table displays books on particular topic with open pages drawing you to look more closely, and when you browse the shelves you realise that Cate and Nash have eliminated the dross and only included quality books which customers might be interested in.  

The new books are wonderfully idiosyncratic and I always find new titles I'd never heard of before.  Specialities are books about Sussex and also the Bloomsbury set, who took up residence in villages around Alfriston such as Charleston, Firle and Rodmell.  

But personal service is the highlight, and also the sense of being part of a community of readers which is fostered by the conversations which strike up in the shop and the various literary events which are held.  Why not visit the exquisite Sussex village of Alfriston to see what a bookshop really should be like? 

Recession-proof reading

I took the photo to the left last week while walking on Seaford Head.  This view features in the film of Ian McEwan's Atonement. 

In The Observer on Sunday, Robert McCrum argued that books are still excellent value for money, and made the point that "Books have always done well in crises. The First World War was literary as well as lovely; the Second turned out to be the making of Penguin". 

I can only agree with McCrum.  Back in the 1970s when I was first buying books with earned money, the retail prices were fixed by the publishers and it was impossible for a book shop to offer a discount.  It is hard to believe that nowadays, when things have gone so far that the cover-price of a book is rarely what it costs at the till or at checkout time.  Over the last year I've been reading a few East European books from the early part of the 20th century.  These have been unavailable at the local library so I've been buying them online, usually through Amazon Associates or the Book Depository.  Generally speaking, the discounted prices have been about half of the cover price - which for a rather specialist area is quite remarkable. 

I wanted to read White Tiger, the Booker winner and noticed that the hardback was only £8.99 in my local bookshop in the High Street.  So I don't always have to go online to get good discounts. 

Waterstones are not good discounters in my experience.  I wanted to buy the latest volume in Richard J Evans "Nazi" trilogy.  It has a £30 cover price, but Waterstones offered £5 off - some way from the online price of £15 with free delivery!  Why wait for the paperback at that price?  (In fact my son has now offered to buy it for me for Christmas so that's one problem solved).

This is probably my last post before the Christmas break so I wish anyone reading this a very happy Christmas and hope they get all the books they are hoping for.  

Book-shopping

Until recently I worked in the I.T. industry and for a period of time was responsible for the dreaded "customer services" including running Help Desks. During that period I learned a lot about customer service and that background has enabled me to watch how other companies deal with their customers.  Take Waterstones for example . . . (or not if you prefer).

Every couple of months, I cash in my Goldfish credit card points for Waterstones vouchers.  When the envelope containing them arrives, I feel pleased to be able to buy free books for a change, but also mildly depressed at where I have to buy them.  I live on the Sussex Coast, and while Waterstones in London (say Trafalgar Square branch), is quite a good shopping experience, down here its not quite the same.