Never once during my three week tour across the country did The Schedule by Louise Court let me down. Until it ended.
Not unlike reading a favourite book, it was a severe disappointment to reach the last page and, eventually, close it.
So I emailed Louise and told her we had plenty of time for our last Monday in London, because I had changed my flight and would return on Tuesday, so as to have time to actually meet David Headley of Goldboro Books.
I don’t know if this counts as another bookshop, since I had been there before. It was where I bought my very own first edition of Helen Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road.I might not be able to decide on the best bookshop of my tour, but that was definitely my best buy.
By this time, Louise was probably a bit doubtful about whether or not I was ever going home. I had already tried to broach the subject of the company flat, letting her know that I didn’t mind sharing it with other visiting authors and that I could even volunteer for the sofa. “Just tell them there might be a stubborn Swedish author there already, and not to mind her at all.”
Louise, I’m sorry to say, did not seem totally convinced. I returned to London from Oxford. Having now read a good part of the Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, I knew that everything was about preparation and being willing to put in the extra hour, so I took an earlier train than I really saw neccessary and arrived at London Paddington a full hour before I was supposed to meet her at Random House office on Vauxhall Bridge Road.
“Let me know if you’re running late”, Louise texted me at around the same time.
“No problem”, I answered. “I only have to figure out the Underground-system and get on the right line and I should be right there.”
Which, now that I think of it, might not be a very comforting thing for a publicist to hear from her Swedish author. And I was only five minutes late anyway.
The great team at Chatto met me for cinnamon bun cake and coffee (they had tea) and asked me about my trip. How did everything go? Spendidly. Did you find a favourite bookshop? Oh, all of them. I’m sure I couldn’t choose. They were all so remarkable in their own way, and so very nice. How about the food? Must have been more limited when you left the big cities? Oh, I like English pub food, so that wasn’t a problem. And as soon as I stopped trying to resist the toasts in the morning, everything was great. The hotels? All very nice. Ah, but the trains! How did that go? (Apparantly, British people are no more fond of their railway company that Swedes). Actually, they were all on time. No problems at all.
And then they described my tour as “freakish”. Or possibly me, I can’t be sure.
(As soon as I realized that “any permitted” under route meant that all were permitted, rather than just stating the obvious fact that any that was permitted was permitted I liked the railway companies very well. There such a grand, colonial Britishness about naming a small, three carriages-train The Great Westerner or The Great Northener, as if the trains were about to set off in all the different directions and conquer the world. Rule British Rail and so on).
I spent my last evening in England in the best possible way: first I met up David Headley for coffee and one of the best chats about books I’ve had in a long time, and then I sat at the hotel bar and edited my second book. David also gave me a beautiful copy of The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, at which point I was certain we would become great friends.
Which is also how I feel about all the bookshops I visited. Because an acquaintance that begins with a book is sure to develop into a real friendship.
And then I went home, after having woken up early to have time to visit the post office before the airport. In the end, I went home with just three books in my suitcase, and it was perhaps one of the few consolations about going back to Sweden: that all the books I’d bought would be waiting for me when I got home.
Oh, and to meet my friends and family again as well. Of course.
Oxford was the last stop of my epic 40 bookshops tour of the United Kingdom, and this bookshop in Oxford reminded me of this depressing fact.
Although, if there’s one thing my three weeks here have taught me it’s that independent bookshops are alive and kicking all across the country, made possible by the commitment and passion of the booksellers. So this is unlikely to be the last bookshop in a long, long time.
Having actually found a hotel, I enjoyed a very lazy Sunday in Oxford – just one bookshop, but what a bookshop.
At first, my impression of Oxford was somewhat influenced by the sudden change from Hay-on-Wye to a student town. Mostly, I walked around thinking: “Goodness me! Another young person.”
Oxford Blackwell’s recommendation? We are all completely beside ourselves. And then of course I couldn’t resist just one more book…
The only disadvantage with a whistle stop bookshop tour on Saturdays is that the bookshops close earlier, so that it becomes quite a challange to visit three towns before closing time. I had almost resigned myself to having to visit Woodstock Bookshop tomorrow, when I found out that Rachel, the owner, only worked today.
So I did what any book lover would have done: I called a cab and asked them to get me to Woodstock as quick as humanly possible (after double-checking that it was all right for me to turn up five minutes before closing time, of course).
Woodstock is a small village just outside Oxford, and the bookshop is small and charming, located on 23 Oxford Street and run by Rachel. “I’ve worked in bookshops all my life, and then one day, I thought: If I don’t open my own shop now, I never will. I was fifty. There comes a time, I think, where you either go for your dreams, or you don’t.”
What is the best part of running a bookshop?
“Author events, definitely. I’ve had Richard Ford – have you read him?”
Yes, Canada.
“Such a great author. And Henning Mankell. My sales rep argued to them that we were right on his way, between two other bookshops, so one day I got a call asking me – Would I like a visit from Henning Mankell? Is this a hoax, I asked.”
What has been most challanging?
“Doing my returns. I used to do it too seldom. You have to return the books you haven’t sold if you run a small shop, to make room for other news, but it always felt like a failure. And well, I loved your book, but one thing I noticed was how sure Sara was when she recommended books to people. I’m always more doubtful, and many times people ask for recommendation, and you go through the process of recommending two or three titles to them, and then they look sort of sceptical and end up buying something completely different.”
That is actually how I used to buy books, before this epic bookshop tour taught me to just go for whatever they liked.
This conversation was not taking place in the bookshop. I’d been there, and I had been given tea, and we chatted while she closed up, and then she asked where I was going next and offered me a ride to Oxford.
The reason for the ride was partly because she’s a very nice person and was going there anyway, so there really was no problem and yes, she was quite sure, she had plenty of time, and so forth, and partly because I think she felt bad for the confused Swedish author carrying her suitcase and her books from time to time. “I had imagined you’d be going with a publicist?” she said, somewhat worryingly.
“Louise did want to come, but she couldn’t really justify taking three weeks off work. And everyone has been really nice, so really, it’s been no problem at all.”
She did not appear noticeably comforted by my inability to tell her where my hotel was. “Do you want to borrow my computer to check?”
Since the reason I didn’t know where it was was that I hadn’t, as yet, booked it, I naturally made some sort of excuse and assured her I would be quite fine if she could just drop me off somewhere in central Oxford, perhaps by a pub.
I’ve learned from my travels in general and the three weeks already spent in England in particular that everything usually works out great if you only have a credit card, cash and a cell phone with internet. And this being Oxford, I wouldn’t even need cash.
So in due course she dropped me off by a nice pub, having first given me a mini tour of Oxford by way of pointing out two different bookshops.
And I found a hotel close by, of course, and ended my whistle stop day by reading Chris Hadfields An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. Great day.
