How to do a web thing for your book

After moaning about book trailers a few posts back I thought I'd link to an author website that promotes their book just about perfectly. HERE. (Thanks to Jon who flagged it up a few months ago on the Bedside Crow - I'm only reminded of it now as a customer just bought one)

more at twiigs.com...

Bugger

At one, very early, point in my life this was my favourite song. It's now 30 YEARS OLD. Thirty. As in three - oh. I really don't like this ageing nonsence.

Bleeeeeuuuurrrrgggghhhh

So much to rant about today I don't know where to start - Bad translations, Global warming, useless management, dodgy philosophies...

Maybe I should just keep my thoughts to myself.

When they asked if I'd like an Espresso what did they think I was going to say?

...a struggling father, short of sleep, phoned by the friendly man from the Telegraph.

"Would you like an Espresso..."

"Oh yeah, mate, that would be fantastic cheers."

Now it looks like we've started a revolution in publishing or something...

And to think I went into bookselling for a quiet life!

nostalgie

Been watching the 7 ages of rock and revelling in a 15-20 year old nostalgia of great tunes of the time. Personally I love the Smiths, Roses and Suede from that show.

But I was watching and there were a bunch of blokes in their 30's and 40's blabbing on about how great britpop was in the 90's and I was getting distinctly bored. It's in the past and it hasn't carried well... Flicking on to a music channel straight after led to this song which I heard a while ago and love. Nostalgia is fine but it's a bit like a concrete block tied round your neck.

On the other hand am I too close to 40...? This is a great song by a barely 20 something and I'm already appropriating it.
It's just wrong. We should know our place. Stuart Maconie is wrong. This shit annot be shared. Time and a place...

Out Stealing Horses

From time to time I find myself in the bizarre position of not knowing what to read. I wander about the shop with books all over the place and none of them appeal. I go to the shelves at home and there's nothing that leaps out - I'm in a book funk...

I was in a book funk yesterday and grabbed Out Stealing Horses from our table. I have had my eye on it for about a year but despite the fact it won the Independent foreign fiction prize and then the IMPAC I hadn't quite managed to read it.

Well, one rainy day later it's read and all I can say is

GO OUT AND GET HOLD OF A COPY NOW!!!

NOW!!!

I SAID NOW!!!

A beautiful, sad, lovely, warm, snowy, tree-filled classic. Extra Norwegian poignance can be added by listening to Susanna and the Magical Orchestra's album Melody Mountain. Their version of Love Will Tear Us Apart added to Per Petterson's storytelling had me close to tears.

Our pernicious influence is spreading like a particularly unpleasant fungal infection

Virus-like, we've crossed the channel. An ex-colleague (hello Karen) was in the venerable Shakespeare & Co in Paris and noticed our full-page Guardian spread sellotaped to the wall, pride of place. We even have photographic proof.

Mwhah-hah-hah-hahhhhhh! Soon, the world will be ours!!!!

A few things

Tony Curtis and Dannie Abse were in the shop reading last night from their most recent Poetry collections and in Abse's case his new memoir/journal of the time following his wife Joan's tragic death in 2005 in a car crash - The Presence.

Tony was a great reader but I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying just what an exceptional reader Dannie is. Listening to him really brought his poems and his journal entries vividly to life with a rich yet sometimes tremulous voice. It really was top drawer stuff and the best reading I've ever heard.

*

Self-Published Novel Turns Out To Be Really Rather Good Shock! After my posts a few weeks ago about self-publishing a brave young woman phoned and asked if she could send us her self-published novel, Imagine This by Sade Adeniran. It's very well produced and designed but more importantly it's actually excellent to boot. It's such a pleasure to open this sort of thing and read not only a compelling story but someone who can really, properly write. She tried going down the publisher route and didn't get anywhere - somehow it fell through the cracks. I don't think that will be the situation for too long. Keep an eye out.

*

Ouch! I'm sure I read an article a short while back where someone from Fopp was telling the journalist how swimmingly everything was going. Must have been a last ditch attempt to drum up custom. Anyway, staff from over a hundred shops have been locked out and will not be paid this month. Shame on those at the top, I bet they've feathered their own nest plenty.

But it seems to boil down to corporate greed and hubris too. In february they expanded by buying the 60-odd stores of Music Zone after they went into administration. Will these fools ever learn?

Where do you live?

A lad with a very strong London accent phones us:

'Would you like to take part in a survey on the congestion charge for Transport for London?

'Yeah sure, why not'

'Which borough do you live in?'

'Southwark'

'No, which borough do you live in?'

'Southwark is a borough'

'Is that in London?'

'Yes, South-walk is in London'

'Oh, SouthWalk, yeah. Ok are you between the ages of 16 and 29?'

'No'

'Is there anyone in the household who is?'

'This is a shop, it's a business, no there aren't'

'Okay. Sorry to bother you'

TfL, business as usual.

ps This is a blog of some considerable quality.

Mary Queen of Shops

Brilliant living in London.

I was at a concert in a small church in North London, listening to my mum and dad sing in their choir. The small family were sat at the back in case Finn decided to add an extra soprano line which he did - but not before Mary (my wife) had spotted Mary Portas (Mary Queen of Shops) a couple of rows in front of us...

I've been watching the program and enjoying it a great deal and now there she was - out of the telly and into real life. Well there's no point messing around in these situations. At the interval I went and said hello.

I'm sure she clocked my extreme lack of fashion sense and fast disappearing hair but even so, we had a pleasant chat. I said we'd been in Vogue under the heading Boutique Bookshops and that we were trying to present and sell books in a way that chimed with a lot of the advice she gives out to her fashion victims on the program. We agreed that Daunt Books sets the benchmark at present. All good.

The trouble is she said she would drop in next time she's in the area. Adam and I are quaking. (Well I am) Would we survive a visit from the Queen of Shops? If she does turn up I hope she goes easy on us...At the same time I'm sure she would have something useful to say...

I'll keep you posted.

When A Good Book Ends I Die A Little - Failure

I would be a fool and in the wrong business if reading books didn't excite me, but sometimes it goes a bit too far.

I have recently read two books that were so great I almost wish I hadn't read them. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano and David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero. Both left me feeling down for days because they were over. I've read them now. It's not the same reading a book the second time, in fact I hardly ever do it.

Finishing The Savage Detectives would have been far far worse had I not had Tokyo Year Zero to follow. There was something about that book that really resonated. Probably all to do with the inherent failure involved in writing. Try as you might, the words are never quite able to convey the feeling - believe me I've tried. (Ten years writing the same novel four times and it was still bad!) The obscure poet the poet heroes of the Savage Detectives are looking for remains mysterious. The only poem of hers they ever see contains no words, only abstract symbols. There is something achingly sad (I think) about writing and the literary world in general. If there is anything concrete to be gained from reading it is often hard to measure, let alone grasp hold of.

David Peace seems to be interested in failure as well. GB84 was all about the miners strike - the tipping point in the recent failure of the left. The Damned Utd examines the only period in Brian Clough's life when he failed - his time managing Leeds Utd. Tokyo is set in a recently defeated Japan and explores some of the psychosis such a massive defeat unleashed amongst the survivors. Even the Red Riding Quartet could be seen in terms of failure - the police took a very long time to catch the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe. Then there is that famous Beckett quote, a favourite with Zadie Smith - "Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better."

There is something undoubtedly heroic about failure. Supporting Fulham is one way to become acquainted with the positive aspects of failure. Trying to write a novel is another.

At any rate, failure is an interesting subject I think.

What really matters about failure is what you do after.

I used to stay awake at night worrying the shop would fail, after all that's what everyone seemed to expect when we opened. Now I sleep soundly (or at least the things that wake me tend to be small boy shaped rather than book shaped) for a couple of reasons. The first is that the shop is doing well and we are succeeding. The second is that having stuck our necks out and gone for it I now see that failure is impossible if you refuse to fail.

As Beckett says on another occasion:

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

I will finish that novel one day!

Boxes of Lovely Books

...some great stuff in today.

Some from the US, always a bit of a treat.

And some from Book Works.

I like it when that happens

'Do you have the Autobiography of Malcolm X?'

'Yes we do.'

'Oh Wow, that's great. I've been looking for it everywhere and nobody has it. Thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

New E-Mail Address

As of today we have a new e-mail address.

info@crockattpowell.com is dead

long live info@crockattandpowell.com

It's a long story involving David (us) and Goliath (BT)

As in the story, David Won!

Arise, Sir Adam. Arise, Sir Matthew!

I suppose we shouldn't say but we were contacted by the powers that be to see if we would be willing recipients of a queen's birthday bauble for our gallant services to the independent book trade.

Unfortunately due to our innate distrust of, and contempt for, authority, hierarchy and the monarchy we had to politely decline the offer.

Still, it's nice they thought of us.

A Dud Avocado

It was a hot, peaceful,optimistic sort of day. I was sitting in my box with all the other avocados thinking how fantastic it is to be here. One minute I was hanging on the tree, just starting to think I'd never do anything, go anywhere or be anything and then it happened - I was picked!

In some ways it would have been better to end up somewhere more romantic than Cruzon's fruit and veg grocery in Camberwell. (I always dreamed of Paris and the movies.)

But South London will just have to do. At least Mr Cruzon is a lovely man. He gave me a good rub earlier so my skin shines brightly. My mother always used to say "If you have a bright and shiny skin you just never know what might happen" - not that I ever paid too much attention to her.

Hello, now there's a sight. Mum and her little lad. What a handsome chappy! Oooh, he likes the look of me. Oh gosh, what a lot of teeth for one so small. It looks like - OUCH! Little bugger bit me! Now I have tooth-marks in my skin...

At least mum has a bit of decency and is going to buy me.

I wonder what sort of house they have? My fantasy was always ending up on a plate at the Ritz, being nibbled by the lacquered lips of a film starlet.

Hmmm...a basement flat. Not bad inside though. Bit of a mess. Obviously someone likes their books. And the fruit bowl is ok. The bananas are rather over-friendly but the apples are a solid bunch.

Well my time has come! But mum, what are you doing? The little bloke is chewing me again! Don't you know you have to cut the skin off? Ah, back in a civilised grasp. She's chopped a chunk off the top. I'm heading back to the little gob again...

...but he's just had a lick and chucked me straight on the floor. That really is no way to treat a lady. Now dad has picked me up. What! He's running me under the tap. Oh, that's really classy - back to little gob for another go. Aargh, he's chucked me on the floor again. I can't take any more of this, I'm off...

I don't know why he keeps chucking it on the floor Maz, usually Finn loves his avocado. Maybe it's a dud?

Weekend entertainments

Great to see a tubby 37 year old beat the rippled, muscle bound Tiger Woods on sunday at the US Open. Normally I'm a big fan of Tiger but he's becoming the wrong shape for golf. Granted he's an extraordinary physical specimen now but it still just seems out of sorts. And here's a quote from Angel Cabrera, the Argentinian winner:

'Some players have psychologists, some have sportologists - I smoke'

A C&P kind of sportsman.

And I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Totally and utterly mad bonkers crazy. A lot of the bad reviews have focused on the incoherent plot but to me, who cares. It's like someone gave 150 million dollars to Fellini and told him to make a pirate film. I honestly could have sat through another three hours of it.

Peace at Crockatt & Powell

David Peace will be signing copies of his awesome new book Tokyo Year Zero (first of a trilogy!!!) at Crockatt & Powell on Wednesday 5th September at lunchtime.

Yes I know it's months away and there's plenty of exciting stuff before then (Marie's book for example) but I just hadtatellyou...

Us or Them?

An interesting article here.

What can I say? Nobody pays us to put things in the window! In fact it's full of art books from a local college at the moment.

Know what? We put art books in the window and sales last week were up by over a third on last year. (My maths is too crap at this time on a Monday to work it out exactly) Maybe We'resostoned should try acting a little less like money-making commercial hard men? They might just make a little more money...

Waterstone's

Just had a visit from a very angry ex-colleague from my Waterstone's days. Head office has issued a new contract to everyone with some fairly stringent/insulting terms. No over-time and booksellers will be obliged to work bank holidays and christmas day at normal rates. Pay-cuts across the board which mean that a bookseller with 10 years at the company will now be earning the same as someone with 10 minutes experience if they don't sign up. The intention is to keep a very thin layer of experienced company people and populate the shops with a high turnover of cheap staff - to all intents and purposes they're turning it into Smiths.

Everyone has to re-apply for their jobs. Those that refuse to sign the new contract will be left in a state of limbo and reduced to the status of a part-timer with no benefits or holiday.

There is quite a revolt at Gower st, Hatchards and Piccadilly but smaller branches seem to be submitting with barely a whimper. The status of Bookseller, never that high in the first place, is being reduced to the level of a till monkey. What annoys my ex-colleague even more is that Waterstone's sell themselves on the basis that they are passionate Booksellers and that there is experience and knowledge in store, clearly not a view shared in Brentford.

Personally, I couldn't give a toss, what Matthew and I do here is a million miles away from that outfit. If they want to turn into Smiths that's their business but as a favour to a fellow bookseller who is leaving Waterstone's after 12 years to set up his own shop (hooray!) he wants to tell as many people as possible just how appallingly they are treating their staff. Hopefully this will help.

Peace in the Middle East

My parents live in Doha on the Persian Gulf. They were over for a visit a few weeks ago and mum left behind some toothpaste. It was colgate but all in arabic. I tried it this morning and there are enough chemicals in it to strip the enamel off your teeth.

Maybe if their toothpaste was as benign as ours then all the conflict and strife in this disturbed region could be brought to a welcome end.

I Don't Believe It

I've just wasted an hour writing two posts about what I love/hate about the net and they have vanished into the ether.

But I'm not bored at work, I have a shop to run, boxes to unpack, people to find books for...

Grrr.

Two Posts Vanish

Love/Hate

I don't believe it! I just spent an hour writing a post about what I loved and hated about the net and then accidentally deleted it!

In a nutshell...

What worries me about "social networking" and the world Mark and Emma describe in the comments below is that most of these things are about selling stuff. (Or watching how people network and collecting the info for market research)

Most of the subversive elements of the internet have been controlled. (We would never be allowed to blog if we worked for a chain bookshop for example)

I am a fan of paper, paper and metal money, flesh, blood, paper books etc because these things are very hard to control.

Janet Davey

We launched Janet Davey's new novel The Taxi Queue at C & P last night.

It was a night made brilliant by two things - a perfect author and a fantastic publisher. It also helped that Janet had so many good friends who not only loved the shop but were not afraid to show support for us and Janet by buying plenty of copies.

So thanks - to Janet and to the great folk at Chatto and Windus.

THIS is a trailer

There is a new trend for publishers both large and small to produce a video trailer for a new book. I have seen a lot of them now and they are all, without fail, rubbish. They range between third rate powerpoint presentations and clumsy interviews. The hope is that these go on youtube and a kind of viral marketing leads to increased visits on their websites. The only reason I click through is to see if the publisher is as incompetent as their hopeless video.

So beware, if you're not as visually literate as the audience you're peddling to and you're not prepared to spend hollywood money on a professional production be very careful. And remember, the people who are telling you your video is great were going to buy the book anyway.

Vanity/Self publishing

I put up a post about a week ago on the merits or otherwise of vanity publishers such as AuthorHOUSE. We received an e-mail from a concerned self-publisher worried about getting his work into bookshops (although he seems to be doing fine already).

Here's part of my reply:

Sorry for taking so long to get back. You must have assumed that was symbolic of our responses to small publishers! Luckily, we are just very busy at the moment.

The truth is we are very open to any suggestions and will look at everything that is presented to us. However, we can usually tell within 5 seconds or half a page whether or not whatever it is has any merit. About 99% of stuff we see from the vanity press is total garbage written by people who haven't gone to any effort to really work out how they want their work to work. These types also seem to think they're in possession of some undiscovered genius. It's not called vanity publishing for nothing and these writers tend to be deluded narcissists.

However, I should really have titled the blog 'vanity publishing' instead of 'self publishing' as real self-publishing is a different kettle of fish altogether. If you have the genuine belief in your own work and you set up your own 'publishing house' and you research and find printers and you go and visit bookshops without being jumped up and pushy then you would have every chance with us. The work produced through this route is usually at the very least, interesting. A lot of small presses we stock have some excellent content which is good but a lot are also clueless when it comes to typesetting, design and covers which is not so good and also very important for getting your stuff stocked by bookshops.

Which I suppose is where the self-critical bit comes in. You have to be strong in your convictions but you also have to be aware of your shortcomings and if there are areas where you fall short then don't be afraid to get help and if you're not getting help because of financial constraints in the long run it will be a very false economy.

Overcoming Cormac McCarthy

I've never been too fond of meeting authors or hearing them speak. There's too much of a risk that if they turn out to be dicks I can never read their books again as all I'd have in my head is an image of them and their dickishness. That apart, Roland Barthes wrote a very interesting essay that more or less sets my stall out for me regarding authors more articulately than I could ever manage.

However, strangely enough the absolute opposite may just have happened. Regular readers may be aware of my antipathy towards pulitzer prize winning author Cormac McCarthy and his punctuationless prose. Indeed it is a fairly long running bone of contention here at C&P. McCarthy's The Road was recently chosen as an Oprah's Book Club choice and as part of this privilege the reluctant and shy McCarthy was obliged to undertake an interview with Ms Winfrey. You can watch it here although you do need to sign up to Oprah's Book Club to do so.

The thing is, is that I watched expecting my prejudices to be fulfilled but unfortunately McCarthy turned out to be a thoroughly nice and interesting bloke. Watching him squirm trying to politely answer Oprah's inane questions I found a whole new level of respect. So much so that I'm going to try The Road Again!

I suppose the thing to do is not just to admit you were wrong but to admit it in public too...

Sore arse

A pleasant sunday morning jaunt on the old penny farthing.

Tusting Bargets

Oh I do like to sell more books than last year!

Up yours Barkin!

Teenage Kicks...

I can't go to work

Dah Dah (that's the sound of heavy guitar chords)

The boss is a jerk

Dah Dah

I ain't got time for this school

Dah Dah

The fuckers are fools

I'm going to... explode I've had it!

I lie around with the TV on

Dah Dah

I don't do nothin', I just hang around

Dah Dah

etc etc

Black Flag were an inspiration in my teens. We used to cover that song (I've had it) and also Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie The band I was in for a while went through various phases, the most successful of which (our crowning moment of glory was a gig at the Brixton Old White Horse watched by a few devoted fans and some rather confused looking locals) was a hardcore punk phase. We were truly horrendous and had the plug pulled on us mid gig on one occasion when we refused to stop playing. I left when I got a girlfriend out of it!

I love punk. I love the DIY ethic and I guess the punk ethos is still a driving force. (Hard to see behind my disguise as mild mannered, bespectacled bookseller but I shi* you not!)

Get out there.

Do it.

Don't fake it.

Crockatt & Powell

It's not all doom and gloom on the front line

We had a delivery today from our usual wholesalers - 10 boxes. Buried in no 6 was an invoice for Waterstone's Harrods, a mistake obviously. I picked it up expecting the usual miserable news of Waterstone's excellent terms only to be pleasantly surprised to see that we had a better discount than them - by more than 1%. Let me repeat that.

WE HAD BETTER TERMS FROM A SUPPLIER THAN WATERSTONE'S, HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rock on.

Brazil make sexy pop, yeah

This is my new favourite song. They're from Sao Paolo.

Godless heathen

Might have known...

You scored as Scientific Atheist, These guys rule. I'm not one of them myself, although I play one online. They know the rules of debate, the Laws of Thermodynamics, and can explain evolution in fifty words or less. More concerned with how things ARE than how they should be, these are the people who will bring us into the future. Scientific Atheist 100% Angry Atheist 58% Spiritual Atheist 50% Theist 25% Apathetic Atheist 25% Militant Atheist 8% Agnostic 8% What kind of atheist are you? created with QuizFarm.com

(thanks Marie for the link)

A Big Shout, Self-Criticism, Bolano, Laryngitis, Walking and Plenty of other waffle Adam thought he escaped by taking the day off...

The BIG SHOUT goes out to Deborah our Turnaround rep who turned up today with a massive Latte that has fuelled me through the first half of the day. Thanks!

Self-criticism is one of my fave subjects. If it wasn't for the bastard voices only I can hear yelling "You're Crap You're Crap" I would have self-published about four novels by now. As it is I wrote the same one four times then gave it all up to start a bookshop. I also need to be severely reprimanded for blaming my wife, Mary, for the loss of David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero. I found it. It was at the shop all along. I'm a git, sorry, must try harder etd ad infinitum...

I finished The Savage Detectives! Oh what a wonderful novel. Impossible to describe really. Imagine bumping into a long-haired pair of poets who convince you to go for a drink for a discussion of Horace's poetic works only to find yourself waking up in Mexico driving fast down a desert road with a prostitute who informs you that her pimp is about to catch up with you and kill you with the knife he uses to measure his penis and you have an indication of the ride to expect from this one...Bolano - I salute you.

Marie has the lurgie. I spoke to her on the phone and she sounded like somebody else.

Finn can walk! Well, almost. He has a trolley full of bricks he pushes around.

I think that's enough already...

Self-publishing/ self-criticism

There is a place for self-publishing. It's quite nice if somebody has written a history of their family and they want to have it as a book to pass on to children and relatives. If somebody has written a manual for the kind of machine only dozens perhaps hundreds will use. Maybe someone has written a local history of a village that will only be of interest to people from that village. Yes, there are a few select areas where self-publishing is a good idea.

Unfortunately, most self-publishing is pure delusion.

We had a submission this morning from a woman who has published a novel through an outfit called AuthorHOUSE and was wondering if we'd be good enough to stock it. She can't write. I mean she really cannot write. Just because you can put words down on a page in a legible order doesn't mean you're a writer. Somebody should have told her and this is the bit where I get annoyed. I don't know how much AuthorHOUSE have charged her but I imagine it's not cheap - she's had bookmarks printed and flyers - and it's fraud. They've led her to believe that paying to have her book 'published' will help her in a writing career. This is just plain deception.

Of course there are exceptions - GP Taylor started out self-published and more or less through sheer force of will got himself a deal and sold thousands - but they are few and far between. If you look on the AuthorHOUSE link above and click on the box that asks what is the most important reason to publish I reckon only one or two of the answers is remotely acceptable. The rest are offering the bait of career and it's ripping people off.

Of course one should be self-critical enough to realise that you can't write/paint/compose to save your life. There's nothing wrong with that. There comes a time in all our lives when the realisation hits that you will never be a Movie Director (I was 23). That's OK, move on.

But if you really, really, really still want to write because you have to well, you're reading the answer - it's what the internet was invented for, it's free and who knows, if your ramblings get read and people like it then you may well get published anyway by somebody who wants to try and make you a bit of money not fleece you from it.

Book business

We have been going on about the possibility of Print on Demand for backlist and out of print titles and what an opportunity that gives small independent bookshops for over a year now. We've had nay-sayers and grumblers but we've never been shaken from our conviction.

This just in from the trade press today. Amazon have gone into pod in a big way because it's bloody obvious - you don't have to stock any physical books. So much of what Amazon sells is the odd 1 or 2 of something they might as well keep everything as a digital file and then print a book as and when an order comes in. The big news is that they have an agreement with among others Collins and Wiley, huge publishers. Probably the type of agreement we've been banging on about for the last year.

So, come on publishers, if we buy a machine will you license your backlists to us? How hard can it be?

In Praise of Torment

Story here about the importance of suffering to a good relationship and a happy life.

Reminds me of something I read about Andrei Platanov recently:

"TORMENT is a key word for Platanov. Life, existence, being HERE is torment, anguish, albeit a creative, fruitful torment, a heroic anguish. Another key concept is "patience" or "endurance". One must live and be, one must endure. According to Platanov, one must not only endure grief, sorrow, need and other forms of unpleasantness. One must endure happiness, love and pleasure."

I could add a few things to Platanov's list.

One must endure people like the "artist" I just had a "conversation" with.

One must endure Chelsea Football Club.

One must endure Amazon.

One must endure independent bookshops (and booksellers) being such moaning arses!

Feel free to add to my list of things that make you suffer but make you stronger...

War & Peace

I was 2/3 through David Peace's new novel Tokyo Year Zero when we took a train down to Essex to see some family.

On the way back the train was packed. There were no seats at all and many folk were standing. Finn was in one of his wriggly moods and I was having trouble keeping him in my arms when a lady kindly offered us her seat. I pretended to do the gentlemanly thing by suggesting Mary sit down with Finn but really it was a cunning plan to get back to my book! I had to stand all the way to Liverpool St but it was worth it - Tokyo Year Zero is yet another astonishing achievement from Peace.

Back in London meant the return of Finn (ie total chaos) and for some reason I stuffed my book into Mary's bag. The next day it was still there, weighing her down, so she took it out and put it somewhere...

Probably "in a safe place" because it has completely vanished!

This morning I asked her if she had found out where it was yet. "No, I looked everywhere."

But it's a proof. They are not easy to get hold of. If I ask the publishers for another they will suspect I sold the first on e-bay. (They don't know that I have forgotten my Paypal password do they.)

I NEED TO FINISH IT DARLING.

I MUST FIND IT.

I MUST.

OTHERWISE IT'S WAR!

A common cure for the common cold

I used myself as a guinea pig last night in an attempt to find a new and improved remedy for my infected carcass, the idea was like an extreme sports solution, a sort of extreme hot toddy. You will need:

• 1 bottle single malt
• 1 pint glass
• squeeze of lemon
• squirt of honey
• hot water

Mix 1 part scotch with 1 part hot water until glass is full. Add lemon and honey. Drink. Repeat until unconscious.

The thinking was that if the alcohol didn't outright kill the virus then it would atleast be too pissed to annoy me until my body had defeated it over the normal course of events.

I was wrong. It would appear the cold virus has hollow legs and could drink anyone under the table so this morning not only am I coughing and sneezing like a drain, I have the great, great grandmother of all hangovers.

Bugger.

Linkity-linky-link

We've removed the links on the side to other sites. Not out of a fit of juvenile petulance and indifference but because there are just too many sites we would really like to link too but can never be arsed to add to Blogger.

What we will do however, at some point, eventually, in the near future-ish is create a links page on our website with simply thousands of interesting places to surf in no order whatsoever.

Coming soon. Watch this space. Or not.

I'd rather be somewhere else

Tucked up at home on the sofa watching Miami Vice because it's the COOLEST FILM EVER MADE despite having Colin Farrell with a dodgy accent, a Phil Collins song covered by some dodgy nu-metallers and general alround dodgy moodiness but still gets away with it all - magnificently. And because I bet it's not 13 degrees and raining on the day before june starts in Miami which would mean I probably wouldn't have this cold.

Death warmed up

I've felt worse. Not by much but I have felt worse.

Today's the kind of day it would be handy to work for somebody else.

The single life

I'm sure this works the other way around too, women seeking men with...

(C&P is a strictly equal opportunities employer/exploiter)

How would I know?

This from the inbox today - name and address withheld to avoid embarrassment...

I am a postgraduate student (results awaited) from London,
with a keen eye for detail, strong team-working and time management skills seeking a
career in Publishing and selling books.

I have worked as an intern at the prestigious publishing house- Aurum Press, London, and
at the Continuum Publishing Group before that. During my internship period, I was rotated
through different departments and gained basic over-all understanding and knowledge of
books production and publicity.

I have also worked as an administrator and receptionist for nine months, during which I
gained experience in data inputting and provided secretarial services ranging from attending
phone calls, taking messages, writing reference letters, etc.

Is there any job vacancy for a bookseller or administrator available currently or in near future
at Waterstones?

I can be available for interviews at any time with my CV.

Kindly let me know as soon as possible. Thank you for your time.

I was 12...

...it was 1983. Auf Wiedersen, Pet was on the telly and the country was mad for all things german. I wasn't quite sure why I liked Nena but I knew I did. I think the song is much better in german but unfortunately this video doesn't have the leather trousers in it. If you're very good I may post that too.

Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan in stock NOW!!!

There's a great blog here

We are hoping to bring some of the mountain women over for an event in the near future.

They are keen to share the ritual meal of boiled mutton in broth with ‘khinkal’ cylindrical sausage-shaped dumplings that is accompanied by crushed garlic sauce and crushed walnut sauce with the people of Waterloo...

Official Secrets

Tony Blair continues his "legacy tour" by flying out to xxxxxx xxxxx this afternoon.

School Rules

Wow, I had a great time in school. Maybe that's where we really belong? I mean, starting a bookshop is not a very "adult" thing to do is it? What with the internet, supermarkets, chain bookshops etc - you'd have to be nuts or have the mentality of a child to do a thing like that wouldn't you!

But I'm straying off track. The school was great. It's another local primary, St Jude's. I felt very guilty about our Potter offer all of a sudden. There are so many great little schools out there and they all seem to have these libraries that, well, let's just say they could do with some new books...

Eileen Browne was there too. I was asked by a small child if I was Eileen the famous author. "No, that's her over there" I said, suddenly painfully aware I was the only man in the room. (Eileen? Oh well.)

Eileen was brilliant. After talking to the children a class at a time she spoke with some of their parents about reading to children. It was great. I learned that schools that spend more money on books achieve better results than schools that put the emphasis on computers. (YAY!) I also learned that the simple act of reading to a child helps their development in all sorts of ways. I thought Handa's Surprise would go over the head of my ten month nipper Finn but according to Eileen he would be fine. I read it to him yesterday and this morning and he did seem to enjoy it.

(When we read We're Going on a Bear Hunt there's a point where they go tip toeing into the cave. Next page the bear appears and they all go running off. Finn turns round to look at me when we get to the cave in anticipation of the scary bear noises I. Great fun.)

So school was fun really and I learned some stuff too.

Get reading to those babies folks - never too young...http://www.walkerbooks.co.uk/Eileen-Browne

Back to School...

I've been up all night shivering and shaking. Why? Today I'm going to school for the first time in years.

I didn't really like school much. It was ok when it consisted of playing footie interspersed with the occasional game of Kiss Chase but when the going got tough, my love for school got going...

In fact I'd better go now or I'll be late!

report back later...

Doctor Doctor - Is there ANYTHING you can do?

I have a problem.

(In fact I have plenty but we're here to discuss just one of them)

I suffer from an irrational loathing of Eggers. Dave Eggers.

Why? I don't understand it. From the first moment I saw A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius come into the shop I hated it. I can't stand McSweeny's. The fact Dave (I shudder) does great and admirable things such as fund non-profit education centres etc is no help.

I just don't trust him...

My ravings have been prompted by the arrival of the UK edition (what took you man?) of What Is The What (Ugh those titles!) and the fact it is weighed down with adoring quotes.

Sorry Dave, I'm sure of two things.

1: You are probably a really good bloke.

2: You don't know (or care) who I am or what I think of you.

But I just had to get it out.

Eggers? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAargh...

NEW SMOKE IN STOCK NOW!!!!

The latest edition of Smoke - A London Peculiar is in the shop now.

There's a note in the back about how successful they have been in their quest to redefine the phrase "quarterly"...

Top Ten

I haven't done this for a while...

Compare and contrast with the "market share" chasers.

1: What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

2: On Chesil Beach by Ian McYawn

3: Damned Utd by David Peace

4: Banksy Locations and Tours by Martin Bull

5: Crafter Culture Handbook by Amy Spencer

6: Waterlog by Roger Deakin

7: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

8: On The Road To Kandahar by jason Burke

9: Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett

10: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

A list that illustrates the power of indy bookselling I feel. Not only What Was Lost outselling Ian McEwan but Roger Deakin's Waterlog and the Tove "Moomin" Jansson's Summer Book performing well.

...and relax...

The lovely US editions of Chekhov are back in.

Why does that matter? It just does ok. Feels weird without them...

Corporate Scum!

(Quite nice actually).

International accounting behemoth Ernst & Young live in an anonymous brown box on Upper Marsh just tucked behind the railway line. We got a phone call from them just now because they want to support our Harry Potter offer by encouraging staff to buy their copies from us to benefit Johanna Primary down the road.

Bit of a natural fit for them as it turns out as they already do community work with Johanna.

Bit of a natural fit alround really...

Crockatt & Powell/Ernst & Young - partners in crime!

Future, book, the, of

Snaffled from another blog, Bill Gates:

"Reading is going to go completely online. We believe that as we get the smaller form factor, the screen has gotten good enough. Why is reading online better? It's up to date, you can navigate, you can follow links. The ads in the online reading are completely targeted as opposed to just being run-of-print, where many of the readers will find them completely irrelevant. The ads can be in new and richer formats. In fact the only drawbacks of the digital form are the things associated with the device: how big is it, heavy is it, how many hours of power does it have, how much do I have to spend to buy it? But those are things that once you achieve that threshold, in terms of the convenience and the cost, then you see a dramatic change in behavior. Today, for people who read newspapers and magazines, even the most avid PC user probably still does quite a bit of reading on print. As the device moves down in size and simplicity, that will change, and so somewhere in the next five-year period we'll hit that transition point, and things will be even more dramatic than they are today."

And from one of the comments:

"This debate always annoys me. As publishers we need to be thinking beyond content and toward environments and lifestyles - how, why, and where are our customers using our products. How can we make their lives easier or more enjoyable?"

(Thinks) Hmm... Think beyond content... Environment v. lifestyle... The Customer/Product dynamic... Make reading easier and more enjoyable...

No, sorry. That is just one of the stupidest bloody things I've ever heard anyone say.

And I can see the pitch from Gates...

New! Improved! Windows Eugenic edition 2028.

Download your personality onto your hard drive!

Edit!

Play!

Connect!

We have created a unique 'human' style interface where you can make the most of your amazing self. Tired of organic material? Simple, your brain on our hard drive means never having to go to the toilet again!

Oh gawd, it's only 10 o'clock but I already need a lie down...

Did you order Pizza?

Er...no...

It was the students upstairs.

But now the smell is kind of lingering. Hmmm. Pizza.

Maybe I should have said yes? Do they pay in advance these days? By the time the kids found out the shop would be closed and I would be stuffed. But then the last time I had pizza from Pizza Hut I nearly died...

Do you sell paper serviettes?

Erm, no.

Bolano - why I love it - why it won't sell (or maybe it will)

Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives is still bloody brilliant, despite the fact I'm taking my time over it.

Having initially predicted massive sales I now have to step back slightly...I love it, but then it is about a bunch of madcap poets/writers. (I just read one of his short stories from Last Evenings on Earth - a collection just published by Harvill/Secker. It concerned two writers who corresponded. They would let each other know about provincial writing competitions they came across. They would enter in the hope of winning some prize money. Soon they were entering the same stories in several competitions, sometimes winning several prizes with the same story. There is obviously a theme emerging - Bolano writes about what he knows!) Just about everyone in the book is involved with books in some way. I obviously live in a little bubble where most of the folk I come into contact with are book fanatics - out there in the wider world there are other things that (quite rightly) concern people. I also think the Savage Detectives is a book that demands concentration and time - once again how many people really want to spend large slabs of time reading and concentrating hard. Having said all that it still could sell loads of copies and just sit around on coffee tables looking like it has been read, the fate of huge swathes of literary fiction I suspect...

David Peace's Tokyo Year Zero, the first in a trilogy, is another matter.

I love David Peace's writing and recently made the bold statement that he was among the finest writers working in the UK today. I have a proof of Tokyo at home. I was avoiding starting it 'cos I'm still immersed in Bolano but last night I thought I would take a peek.

OHMYGODIT'S BRILLIANT!

How many writers can grab you by the throat with such delicious savagery? This isn't prose we're talking about it's something new, somewhere between poetry and prose and pure, hearing voices, madness. Terrifying. Superb.

It will sell in massive quantities because folk just will not be able to resist it...

Escapism...

Friday afternoon we caught the train from Paddington down to Bodmin then rode in a taxi all the way to the edge of nowhere (I'm not going to say where because it was SO BEAUTIFUL and one of the best things about it was there was HARDLY ANYBODY THERE)

The journey there and back was long and draining but the complete day, the Saturday, was just perfect. It poured with rain either side but that Saturday was sunny and warm. We saw a gravestone in a churchyard with the legend:

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;

a quote that says it all really. (Think it's a John Masefield poem that comes from)

A lovely day - Finn climbed his first stairs. He didn't use to be able to climb stairs but now he can. He fell down them on his first attempt while I was immersed in The Savage Detectives but thankfully he was unharmed. Otherwise I would be dead by now, torn to shreds by an angry woman...

Eurovisionaries

It's that time again. I shall be dipping in and out this evening as I carry on reading the excellent God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.
One thing's for sure though. I bet whoever wins tonight will not go on to write one of the great breakup songs of all time.

For no particular reason

For reasons too convoluted to bore you with I've posted this short film by Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, The Ossuary. I saw it years ago and eventually got round to visiting the chapel it's set in a few years ago. My jaw never lifted from the floor...

Men are pathetic

So, the Actress was back in. The one Matthew didn't recognise. We've ended up ordering a second-hand book for her from Abe. Normally we charge a fiver 'handling fee' for such services. Are we going to charge her? What do you think? She really is just too damn pretty and we want her to come back. Every day. Oh god we're pathetic.

When I worked in Islington the actress Saffron Burrows used to come in to the Waterstone's quite a bit. My colleague Michael was truly smitten. He used to literally turn to jelly when she was around and never quite managed to get his words out. It was very funny to watch but I understood his pain. We really are useless in the presence of beautiful women and any man who pretends otherwise is a damn liar or, a sociopath.

Directions...

Hi Lia - here are details of how you can reach C & P from your home in Luebeck, Germany...(I could have put in your postcode and it would have given directions right to the door but I wasn't sure how you might feel about C & P pilgrims from Lambeth coming to visit!)

The map adam added to our website a few days ago is brilliant. It can tell you how to reach the shop from anywhere in the world...

Echos Drown the Conversation Out...

I had a lovely bank holiday weekend. I've been meaning to blog about it ever since but loads of things have prevented me...

What did I do? Very little. Having said that I was at the football on Saturday watching FFC beat the European Champions. Finn was given a free fanzine (There's Only One F In Fulham) for being the youngest fan the bloke had seen that day. The nipper has now seen us lose to Man City, draw with Blackburn and beat Liverpool. I am going to approach the fanzine and see if they want me to write a Knee High view of life at Craven Cottage, written by me but from the point of view of Finn.

Then on Sunday we did hardly anything. I sat in a chair in the kitchen and read every minute I was not needed for acts in aid of a happy family life.

On Monday we also did hardly anything. I sat in a chair in the kitchen and read for every minute I was not needed for acts in aid of a happy family life. But Finn went to sleep during the middle of the day for about three hours.

Bliss! Mary and I were looking at each other at one point during this unheard of period of infant sleep - this is what life used to be like! We did what we wanted to do! (I read books while Mary created Eden out the back door)

So there I am, there were three elements to my pleasure.

1: Alternate drinks of coffee and green tea. I have a new coffee system that involves grinding my own beans then producing the ultimate stove top espresso. Then I drink pots of green tea out of tiny glasses. The Tea is called Moon Palace (like the Paul Auster novel) Then more coffee, then more tea - eat a few dried apricots in between. Fucki*n great.

2: Music. Scott Pack bought an Internet radio ages ago and blogged about the joys of listening to Chinese radio etc. I now have one of these superb gadgets (thanks Mike Leigh!) and am loving listening to Moroccan radio.

3: Books. Three of them. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. When I got bored of Mexican poets I would switch to Streetwise by Mohamed Choukri for some Moroccan street life. When that stopped doing the trick it was back to Bolano - coffee for Bolano, tea for Choukri. At the end of the day, now with a glass of wine in hand, I had Platanov's The Fierce and Beautiful World to delight my mind.

Just a perfect weekend. Premiership survival (mid-table mediocrity again next season please!) family stuff and some fantastic reading...

The Potter buzz is building...

We've had a really good response to our Harry Potter 'Buy one get nothing free and no money off' offer. (But half the money is given away!) Lots of pre-orders already - to the extent that we've had to work out a system for collecting names and numbers. This may sound like a simple task but if you knew us...

We also had an e-mail from an author who visited the shop last week and wishes to remain anonymous. Here is an extract,

'...what I wanted to say was I LOVE your Harry Potter campaign, not least because I'm horrified about the lack of books in schools and try to do as much as possible for my own kids schools. I also believe my independent bookshop when I started buying books properly helped me become a writer because I trusted the choice of varied and particular books on offer, and so came across writers I would not normally have picked up.

However as I won't be buying a copy of Harry Potter, I wondered if your local primary school would accept a cheque for £60 which is my fee for a poem in the upcoming Virago Book of Shopping.'

Gives you the warm-fuzzies, doesn't it? I think I'm going to enjoy this...

And here's a link to the recipient of half the Potter money, Johanna. They're quite chuffed.

And here's our homepage with the offer...

You there. Yes you. I know what you're doing.

I just love it when a 'customer' blatently stands in the middle of the shop tapping the titles of books into his mobile so he can go home and get them on amazon.

more at twiigs.com...

Bond Girl? What Bond Girl?

Adam is still laughing at me...

I was wittering on to someone about Patrick Hamilton. We were agreeing about what a great writer he was an then moved on to discuss the coming production of Gaslight (Hamilton's most famous play) at the Old Vic.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a tall, slim woman browsing the fiction section.

I carried on waffling away and the person I was waffling at eventually paid and left the premesis. By this time the tall, slim woman was at the till and Adam was helping her with some research on Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey. I paid enough attention to notice she was rather good looking, but I'm a married man and a bit of a shy lad so I did my usual thing of NOT looking at her...

Of course it was only Rosamund Pike.

Not only is she STARRING in Patrick Halilton's Gaslight at the Old Vic she was a BOND GIRL. A bad one (as in Evil) but still HOT.

Who will I fail to recognise next? Watch this space...I am becomming a running joke!

Little amuses the innocent

Google have let us have a little map so you can find out where we are. If you head here, then click on Find on the left, click on the old map and a new fangly map should pop up.

The cool thing is you can zoom in and out of it and scroll around like a normal google maps thing.

Goddamn if that wasn't the best hour I ever spent fiddling with the site.

(And for more Bank Holiday boredom here is a map of the cycle ride I went on yesterday morning)

Update! If, say, my uncle in Ballymena wanted to find his way to us, from the map page he could type in 'Ballymena' into the search bar at the bottom, he could then click on the 'directions' link on the result and he would get something like this. Just how cool is that, I ask you. Go on, try your own home town and find out how to get to Crockatt & Powell!

This is if you happen to live in Vienna.

How about Malaga?

Or, New York City! (Scroll down to no.38 in the directions)

Pottermania comes to SE1 (Thanks to Marie)

So, here's the deal.

The last Harry Potter book is £17.99. WaterstonesTescoAmazonAsda are selling it for £8.99 or thereabouts - pretty much what they pay the publisher.

Here's our offer (as discussed on the 'Lunacy' post below)

Buy HP7 from us at £17.99, we'll pay the publisher and then give £9 to the primary school at the end of Lower Marsh to spend on books for their library.

What an offer!

C'mon folks, cancel you pre-orders at the giants and help us give a little back.

Crockatt & Powell Go Bananas

BREAKING NEWS

Tiny bookshop Crockatt & Powell today announced they would be selling bananas for 2p each, making a bunch of five a staggering 10p.

Shares in Tesco plunged 40% at the news.

"If we sell bananas that cheap we will never make any money" moaned the chief exec. I wish we'd never tried selling books...

STUPID FOLK / THOSE WITHOUT A SENSE OF HUMOUR ALERT!

THIS POST IS A JOKE - ANY TESCO EMPLOYEES WHO ARE UPSET AT THE PROSPECT OF LOSING THEIR JOBS DON'T WORRY

Event Horizon (and are those really what his nipples look like?)

My sister was up in Liverpool the other weekend. She obviously had a great time as she has been attempting to convince me that I and all my family are Scousers ever since. (The idea seems to be that since my dad lived near Liverpool for a few years when he was a teenager and my auntie hung out at the Cavern club that the whole bunch of us Crockatts are therefore Scousers - Sis I'm a London boy, no doubt about it!)

While she was up there she went to the beach and saw Another Place, Antony Gormley's haunting installation on Crosby Beach. (My mum and dad in their courting days once went for a walk on the beach near there. My mum said to my dad "What are those things that look like sandy turds?" My dad replied "Erm, sandy turds...") But Crosby Beach has clearly gone up in the world and instead of raw sewage they have lovely art.

Anyway she came back to London and arranged to meet Finn and I on the South Bank. Crossing Waterloo Bridge who should she meet but Antony Gormley - or rather a bronze cast of the man, naked of course. Having just encountered the Crosby Beach installation she was a little surprised. Was he following her? (Quite a looker my sis!)

Well we sat down on a bench by the river and Finn proceeded to WOW her with a display of standing up, clapping and falling over. Whaddayouknow but next thing we start seeing Antony all over the place. The river, London skyline and all these Antony Gormley statues staring out over the city...

...brilliant stuff Antony! But are your nipples really that shape?

Lunacy

Sheer bloody lunacy.

more at twiigs.com...

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like, it's a present from mike

It's carbon fibre and it's really, really fast.

Bills? What bills?

Web 2.0 an' stuff

Can anyone explain to me what essentially is the difference between Second Life and Dungeons and Dragons?

Maybe this will help.

I'm trying to write a newsletter...

...but too many people want to chat about books!

Water Bridges etc

The internet + big mouths = loads a nonsense...

We have said a few bad things about Picador/Macmillan/Richard Charkin in the past. Were we right or wrong? That's not the point.

What is the point?

I have a book here before me.

It's published by Picador.

It's out here in July.

It's bloody brilliant - the sort of book I get a "feeling" about. It's kind of like falling in love only a little less intense. It's all about the writing for me these days, the way the author kind of creeps out from amongst the words and gets inside your head. I laughed out loud on the bus after 30 pages. I laughed from sheer joy. It's a large book and the HB is a little unwieldy...but if this isn't sitting on every bookshop table, bedside table, coffee table etc when it eventually makes it to PB well, if I had a hat I'd eat it.

Massive.

Brilliant.

Pure great stuff fiction.

What's the book?

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.

I'll say more when I've finished it...

I believe in...

Ho Ho Ho - Jose's got the blues!

I'll be at the Emirates tomorrow hoping for another miracle.

Can FFC do the double over the gunners for the first time in history and stay in the Premiership?

BBC Radio Four - The Home of Intelligent Speech Radio...

Eh?

Home of what?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's good to be back with our noses to the grindstone. Being paid to go on holiday sounds great and is great for a day or so...then the meaning leaches away and leaves not very much really.

I love work. Where would we be without a bit of graft?

I'll tell you where. Thinking up bollocks slogans for the BBC website, that's where!

First day back to school blues

We're open again...

...do you ever get that sinking feeling?

Content is King

The website has been a DIY project from the start and we have always been 'live' with every little change and addition we make. This was probably a mistake, maybe we should have beavered away and delivered our baby fully-formed to a waiting world. Oh well.

Anyway, thanks to Mike Leigh taking over the shop it's given us a few days to try and put some bloody content on the website. If you fancy taking a look, head to the homepage and you'll see a drop-down box on the left. Every page now has something to look at and read. About time too. And it's all been set up nicely so that we should be able to keep adding titles with no bother at all. Phew.

Guns don't kill people, words do stoopid

So the former English teacher to the obviously, seriously mentally ill Cho Seung-hui, has come out saying she was greatly concerned over violent plays he had written in 2005.

Does this now mean that any work of fiction containing violent imagery or action automatically condemns the author to the status of suspect? Should thriller writers be entered onto a database and monitored if they write a book about a grisly serial killer who dismembers their victims while they're still alive?

And what about the demented work already out there? Should we ban it in case it puts ideas into troubled kids heads?

Luckily, most of us have that filter in our minds that forms the link between violent imaginings, empathy and consequences. Some, Seung-hui, obviously don't and there is not a damn thing we can do about that.

But I can't help thinking that if he didn't have access to semi-automatic pistols then the death toll would have been considerably lower.

Oops! Forgot! Guns don't kill people...

Perception Statistics etc

You can read all about it in the Guardian piece - thankfully minus the half page photo (shot from above to hide our many chins) - how a massive hangover became a small bookshop...

My favourite bit is when Adam says "We believe in what we are doing. We think we know what we are doing."

What I wanted to point out were a couple of facts.

1: Online retail sales of books (including Amazon obviously) account for 10.6% of market share - Sales through Independent bookshops are at 15.9% of the market.

Independent bookshops sell more books than Amazon and all the other e-tailers put together.

2: Independent bookshops have increased their share of the market from 15.6% to 15.9% in recent years.

Independent booksellers are increasing their share of the book market.

Do those facts surprise you? I think most people who have a casual interest in these matters (if they care at all) would assume that Amazon sold way more books than independent shops and that independents were slowly dying off. That's certainly what many people assumed when we opened - they came in and told us we would be out of business within a year!

Of course it's all about growth. The money men love to hear about market share doubling. But how far will online sales increase? It's easy to double sales when they start at almost nothing...Not so easy to increase year on year (as our friends at Waterborders etc are aware)

Free from the tyranny of shareholders C & P is doing fine thanks. There's food on the table, new shoes on the horizon and dreams in our heads...that just might, like the shop, become reality one day.

Prizes...

Hit and miss these prizes.

Orange shortlist is announced - no What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn...what are they like?

Pulitzer Fiction prize announced - Cormac McCarthy's The Road wins it! Good stuff.

Apologies

The shop will be closed from Thursday 19th April until Tuesday 24th April for filming.

We wouldn't close if it was Hollywood, it's not. An independent British film shot in an independent British bookshop - it was a good match.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this might cause and promise to return to being a good little bookshop ASAP.

Not them again...

Our ugly mugs are plastered all over the Guardian today. Sorry folks, they came to us!

I may be mouthing off in the Times as well...

And we'll be at the bookfair next week...

And then there's the film...

Please don't hate us TOO much. We're just doing what we love.

In Memorium

Very sad news. One of our favourite customers Maureen Robinson, mother of Anna the doyenne of the Crockatt & Powell Poetry Parlour, died today. A really lovely woman who herself ran a secondhand bookshop in Waterloo for many years she was a great support and one of the first people through the newly opened doors of C&P. She told us off for having initially mixed the Poetry books in with the fiction section, 'Poetry is truth!' she exclaimed. There was soon a dedicated Poetry section pride of place, front of house.

Our sympathies and best wishes go out to Anna and her family. Maureen will be sorely missed.

Oh No! Not again...

Bloody brillaint launch in the shop last night for The Seven Days of Peter Crumb by Jonny Glynn. Another small publisher (Portobello) another shop full of people at C & P.

Jonny was a great bloke, not as frightening as I had been led to believe by reading his book. Turns out he has a nine-monther too, though his has six teeth compared to our Finn's four.

One of these days we will get ourselves a fancy camera and show you a few pics of these nights. The Porobello crew and Jonny's mates drank ALL the wine. That has never happened before! Good show chaps...

This post is staggering towards the point - I also drank rather a lot of wine having not eaten anything most of the day and the pounding in my skull is making it hard to see straight let alone write. But there is a point coming. And it concerns famous people. But not just any famous people - FRAN FROM BLACK BOOKS WAS THERE!!!!!

You guessed it, soggy brain here didn't realise. Not even when she was leaving with a dude in a natty linen suit and started asking me where they should eat. I was so busy wondering why anyone in their right mind would ask a bookseller about resaurants (let's just say we rely on publishers to wine and dine us) that I only vaguely recognised her.

"Who was that?" I asked Philip (Portobello editor) "Isn't she some sort of comic lady or something?"

"That was Tamsin Greig" said Philip.

"Oh..." said I.

"From Black Books..."

"Fran! OH SHIT OH NO MARIE IS GOING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Marie used to believe she WAS Tamsin Greig. It was a constant running joke. She will never forgive me. I could have had her sign something or something...

Curiouser and curiouser

Well, isn't life full of surprises. We were visited this morning by a famous British film director and his travelling production company. It looks like they want to use the shop as a location in his new film. Blimey.

And then a visit from a location dude from the studio making the new Bourne movie, the Bourne Ultimatum. They're filming a scene in excellent Scooterworks down the road but need the rest of the street to look open until 10 and Matt Damon will be running energetically down the alley next to the shop. As we close at 7 they are offering a small stipend for our time. Cool.

Will report in due time on how it all goes and if Matt Damon is an Ok bloke. So far the signs are looking good, the famous British film director is a very nice bloke indeed.

The other thing is more exciting but also more secret...

So I'll just say that Marie has a whole page to herself on our website now.

You can pre-order copies of her book there. If you get them from us they will be signed by the author. If you buy them from other places you will still be able to read the book fine but it won't be the same. (It won't!)

We may well have a lunchtime signing session with Marie as well - if she's not being whirled around the world too much...

David Peace Signing Session

I am very excited about this. So excited I'm going to tell you all about something that's not going to happen until September...

DAVID PEACE SIGNS AT CROCKATT & POWELL

LUNCHTIME WEDNESDAY 5th SEPTEMBER

That's right, the author of the Red Riding Quartet, GB84 and The Damned Utd will be in Crockatt & Powell signing books and chatting to folk. Put it in your diary and make sure you take a day off work if you need to.

Now for a few words about football:

1: David Peace has written one of the best sports books ever (and there's quite a tradition) with his fictional portrait of ol' big head Brian Clough - The Damned Utd. It's our bookgroup book for this month. Read it and come along on Monday 30th April to add your tuppence.

2: Finn went to his first football match on Monday. (He went in the womb quite a few times. In fact we never lost a game when he was at a match in the womb.) We lost 3 - 1 to Man City. Finn had a word with Al and now Coleman has been sacked. Hopefully the next match he sees will involve a bit more football and a bit less rubbish.

3: Did you see Man Utd last night? Now that's how to play football...Chelsea by contrast, what a joke. Liverpool or Utd for the champions league.

4: I'm glad I support a team where you have no problem sitting with a nine month old boy on your lap (not in my usual seat - found a spare right on the end of a row in case of emergency but, like the fireworks when he was four months old, he loved it) rather than the kind of club that attracts idiots who want to kill each other and opposition fans.

We're BACK and there's too much news...

Lovely hols - a bank holiday when it didn't rain?

The website has changed again. Adam has been busy. One of these days we will stop fiddling around with it and add some proper content - maybe today in fact.

The rest of the news deserves new posts...

A Banksy Moment...

Let me explain. When we opened the shop there was a Banksy on the side DESIGNATED PICNIC AREA and an arrow pointing to the ground where our fruit and veg bloke puts his dud stuff at the end of the afternoon.

We like Banksy. The shop is in Banksy Locations and Tours by Shellshock publications.

But when we first saw the book Wall and Piece we were confused. Banksy in a book? On the wall, that's fine, but in a book? That's kind of lame...

We chose not to stock it.

People asked for it.

We began to stock the odd copy, somewhat reluctantly.

We were asked for it a lot more.

We stocked more.

We began to sell tons.

We are idiots we thought - why didn't we stock loads from the start? We would have sold twice as many.

Now we have had another Banksy moment.

Last week we began to add rather funky bands to the books we had read recently - in a staff recommends kind of way.

We didn't do this at first.

Why?

We thought it was obvious that, since we were small, we would only stock books we liked and therefore everything in the shop was recommended - otherwise it wouldn't be there...

But that was stupid.

As soon as we started banding books they began to sell at double speed.

So, another Banksy moment.

You live and learn eh?

Too much cheap lager destroys the memory. Fact

I've just been interviewed by a nice man from the Guardian about the book trade. It's going to be in the saturday business pages I think. Unfortunately I've completely forgotten everything I said to him. Oops. I don't think I said anything toooo bad.

Vincent understands us.

"Woolworths may be forced to sell off Bertram Group, the books wholesaler that it bought in January, after a referral of the acquisition to the competition watchdog."

A month or so ago we blogged about woolies buying up all the book wholesale operations in the country thus jeopardising the indies by compromising the relationship between bookseller and wholesaler.

We, of course, assumed the worst and expected the purchase to be steamrollered through the Office of Fair Trading without even so much as a whimper of argument.

Well, we were wrong. Here's Vincent Smith, the senior director for competition at the OFT:

“UK consumers spend some £360 million a year in independent bookstores and appear to do so largely because they value the fact that retailers stock a range of backlist and mid-list titles and offer specialist advice and service . . . Book wholesalers are the only cost-effective way for independent retailers to obtain the repeated, swift supply of small numbers of back-list and mid-list titles — rather than best-sellers — from multiple publishers. This is key to the quality and reliability of service that independent booksellers can provide.”

Couldn't have put it better myself. There's still hope. Full story here.

The Summer of Katya by Trevanian

I love it when I discover a writer I've never heard of and they turn out to be brilliant.

It happens with regularity as no matter how well-read you think you are there are many lifetimes worth of great books out there to be discovered.

Trevanian wrote under several different names. He wrote fiction and non-fiction. A small, new and exciting publisher called Old Street Publishing are on a mission to bring his writing back to our attention.

At first I found The Summer of Katya a little annoying. The action seemed to move slowly and although there were many dark hints as to what might be to come it all seemed to be taking a long time. But there comes a point in the book where everything comes together and the action explodes. The fact it has taken a while to get going ceases to matter. In fact it could be persuasively argued that this gradual ratcheting up of tension was all part of the plan...

Anyway, it's out in June with more to follow later in the year.

Great stuff, thanks Old Street!

Crockatt & Powell to buy Waterstones